Spies Like Us

[March 26th, 2008]

Fake boobs. Fake tans. Fake memoirs.

Those three pop culture products are as American as artificially flavored apple pie and ‘roid-happy baseball players.

Fake political volunteers? They, too, have their place in the ersatz American establishment.

Back in January, Eugene’s Register-Guard reported on a staffer with the National Republican Senatorial Committee who used a fake name in order to snoop on House Speaker Jeff Merkley’s campaign in the May 20 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

“[T]here’s an honest way to do it, and there’s a dishonest way to do it,” Merkley spokesman Russ Kelley told the Eugene paper. “You find out where they are through public notices and things like that. You don’t call and misrepresent yourself.… And you especially can’t do that and get caught.”

If only the Merkley campaign had listened to its own advice.

On Friday, March 14, a young man named “Cole Stewart” showed up at Democratic opponent Steve Novick’s headquarters saying he was a Reed College student who wanted to help Novick raise money.

Trouble is, Reed College officials say they have no student by the name of “Cole Stewart”—or “Cole Stuart,” for that matter.

But “Cole” looked familiar, according to three Novick staffers who realized they’d seen him before—as a Reed graduate who is a paid Merkley staffer, Hayes Ingraham.

“This might be the place where I beat my chest and demand apologies,” says Novick spokesman Jake Weigler. “But it just seems silly.”

Merkley campaign spokesman Matt Canter confirms Ingraham misrepresented his identity when he went to Novick’s headquarters to get bumper stickers and contribution forms. He says Ingraham acted on his own and has apologized to both Merkley and the Novick campaign. Ingraham has been reprimanded but will not be suspended.

“It was a mistake,” says Canter, 27. “He’s 22 years old.”