Rainville's Plagiarism Problem

BREAKING NEWS.....

Last Update: 4:45 p.m.

Plagiarism: n. The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.

Say it ain't so, Martha. Please!

The first week of October 2006 begins with dark skies in Vermont (in more ways than one for some in the Vermont political sphere). This blogger has confirmed disturbing allegations from the blogosphere - that new electronic world your gracefully aging “Inside Track” Seven Days columnist is now inhabiting - that Republican Congressional Candidate Martha Rainville has brazenly posted plagiarized policy statements on her campaign website.  She even lifted quotes from Democrats, including Hillary Clinton!!!

In a nutshell - the congressional campaign of former Vermont National Guard Adjutant General Martha Rainville, personally recruited for the GOP ticket by Gov. Jim Douglas, posted several statements and quotations on her website that were brazenly stolen from - are you ready for this? -

1. Former First Lady and current Democratic Sen. from New York Hillary Clinton re: energy policy

2. Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of  Tennessee re: the federal budget

3. Colorado Republican U.S. House candidate Rick O’Donnell re: health care

Thank you, Carolyn in Moretown, for alerting me to this Daily Kos posting from Sunday: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/1/20532/1397

You will find the evidence - the lifted quotations - all laid out right here:
http://reasonandbrimstone.blogspot.com/2006/10/rainvilles-stolen-ideas.html

Also on the Marvelous Martha front this dark Monday from GOP sources:

"Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey and former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will be visiting Stowe in support of US House candidate Martha Rainville on Monday October 16. Christine Whitman is a moderate Republican who is supporting like-minded candidates for office.

"The occasion will be a fundraising luncheon to benefit Martha Rainville’s campaign at the Trapp Family Lodge in the Mozart room starting at 12 noon. The cost is $250 per person for the luncheon, or $500 per person for the luncheon in addition to a private gathering with Martha and Christine.

"Martha and Christine will both make thoughtful remarks at the luncheon.

“Thoughtful,” perhaps, but stolen from whom?

Check back for updates. We have a call into the Rainville camp and her chief opponent Peter Welch has called a telephone conference call with the press for I p.m. to discuss Republican Congressman Mark Foley from Florida who just resigned in the midst of a growing Capitol Hill sex scandal.

Good timing for the Republicans, eh?

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Update 1 -  1:50 p.m.

Asked Candidate Welch at the end of his conference call on Rep. Foley's departure about today's breaking news regarding the Rainville website plagiarism. He said he had heard about it from his campaign manager this morning but hadn't had time to personally dive into Blog Land to read it all just yet.

"I haven’t seen it," said Welch. "Obviously they are serious allegations that rightfully would be addressed by Martha Rainville."

Just before the conference call, we did reach Rainville for Congress spokesman Brendan McKenna. He said he was online checking it out as we spoke.

"Martha Rainville," he told us, "has always taken good ideas because they're good ideas, without regard to the source."

Press Secretary McKenna (nice guy, formerly with the Rutland Herald),  corrected himself and asked if he could replace the word "taken" with "considered."

Sure, whatever you like. I'm a blogger. We're flexible.

Unfortunately, "taken" or "considered," it's still plagiarism when you print it on your campaign website as coming from the lips of Martha Rainville.

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Update 2 - 4:45 p.m.

Rainville Website Shut Down & Staffer Fired

GOP Congressional hopeful Martha Rainville told yours truly Monday afternoon she has fired campaign staffer/researcher Christopher Stewart following an internal investigation of the plagiarism scandal involving Rainville’s website.

“I am incredibly disappointed in him and we have shut down the website,” Rainville told us. “We are reworking the wording of our issues and we are continuing  an internal investigation to see if there were any other cases of this or if anybody else was aware of it.”

Candidate Rainville said she was not aware of the plagiarism until the matter was brought to her attention on Monday morning.  She called it “very disappointing news.” Said Rainville, “It’s not acceptable and we are not going to condone it in any way.”

Comments

[Rfa]

Brings even greater meaning to her pseudonym: Me-Too-Martha

[Josh Coleman]

This demonstrates a clear lack of integrity.

[tom]

She never really seemed like a policy writer anyway. I think she's another do-nothing...which in today's world is republican headcount.

[wow]

Holy crap!

[tom]

Heh.

Not to worry. There is no plagiarism clause in the Clean Campaign Pledge.

[Marc Jensen]

She's certainly not someone who can think for herself -- which would explain the plagarism.

[Rfa]

At 3:23 PM, when I clicked on http://www.martharainville.com/, I got this instead:

Currently Under Construction

We will be back up as soon as possible!

Doing a little clean-up are we?

[Vermonter]

Wow...

That was really McKenna's response?

He's really trying to equate the lifting of entire passages of other people's words with being open-minded?

No wonder the Washington power brokers are pulling for Rainville. With that kind of absurd dodging and weaving, she'll fit right in.

Look, at the very least, someone on her staff stole those passages. They are way beyond what could be considered a simple mistake.

If Rainville wants to have any hope of getting past this, the person responsible should be fired immediately.

[ABC]

This is kind of stupid. Political buzz words catch on and get re-cycled all of the time.

BTW, that quote attributed to Clinton comes from the Democratic Women for Change's Checklist for Change.

[Vermonter]

ABC,

This is not like simply using a buzz phrase like "cut and run."

These are whole passages that clearly have been copied.

[Josh Coleman]

ABC,

This is a quote from the blogger that uncovered this story:

"Here's the best part about this: notice the grammatical error in Cooper's original comment: "There should be no secrets unless it involves certain parts of national security." (the noun is singular but the verb is plural). Rainville's statement makes that exact same grammatical error-- it's not just a rendering of the same idea. It's cut and pasted from the statment by Cooper."

She isn't copying a "buzz word". She's copying entire sections of other people's work -- INCLUDING THEIR ERRORS !!!!!!

She lacks integrity.

[Mike]

This is a huge knock on her integrity. I mean cmon, you cant even put together your ideas for your own website??????

Now look for that campaign to head in a serious negative direction ala Tarrant. There will be pressure from the RNC to sling mud as the polls widen.

This race will be over soon....my prediction. I always felt Welch would ride the Bernie coattails anyway. Welch should invite Rich Tarrant to his inaugaration ceremony. Nothing like rallying the base for your opponents.

[Julie Waters]

ABC that "that quote attributed to Clinton comes from the Democratic Women for Change's Checklist for Change." The thing is, Clinton is PART of that group. She's entitled to use their talking points. What she's not entitled to do is to take words (grammatical errors and all) from a transcript of an interview with a Representative from Tennessee, put quotes around those words and present them as her own comments. When I found that Rainville had stolen the Clinton line I was disturbed. When I dod more research and found that she (or someone working on her behalf) had stolen a part of the NOW transcript, it brought it up to a whole new level.

I keep trying to teach my students that you have to come up with your own ideas. How am I supposed to teach them this if someone can get away with it as a congressional candidate?

--julie

[Murf]

I'd suggest this question for the next debate:

"Ms. Rainville, in light of the recent issues surrounding the plagiarism discovered on your website, do you not read your policy positions or are you comfortable with having someone else's quotes attributed to you?"

[Julie Waters]

Rainville did NOT shut down her website. She merely replaced the main page with an "under construction" link. All the other pages are still there (such as http://www.martharainville.com/issues/issuesTxt.htm and http://www.martharainville.com/news.htm).

[one_vermonter]

I love it when politicians investigate themselves -- like it's actually a credible investigation.

Martha, you've just been caught plagarizing -- you can't be trusted to do a fair and honest investigation of yourself.

[g-lo]

following up on Julie's good sleuthing, I bookmarked the page in ma.gnolia.com so that when the thing is ultimately changed we have a record of it (gotta love the interwebs).

Here it is:

Martha Rainville's Issues page October 2, 2006 ca 5:31pm
http://ma.gnolia.com/goceholav

I don't think we need rubber stamps in any party.

[cresmer]

Hey G. I think we tried to do the Magnolia thing when we caught that Boston Globe plagiarist, and found that the archive disappears after a week or so. Still true?

[Linda in the Northeast Kingdom]

Speaking of stealing words.....

Have you noticed that Tarrant's ad steals "We Can" from Scudder Parker who has been using that phrase since he stated running for governor.

[Caoimhin Laochdha]

Cannot wait to hear who else Martha blames for this one. Martha uses the word "we" a lot in her statement but I do not hear much of the "I" word.

So Martha, tell me, why do you need to ask your staff whether any of your other statements are plagiarized? This shows the problem with not having ideas of your own. When other people tell you what you are supposed to be thinking, or what "your" ideas are, you never really know why it is you think that way.

Just handle the theft of other people's thinking the way your Speaker Hastert and Tom Foley and the rest of your Republican colleagues in D.C. handle these problems. (How much money has Tom Foley spent on your campaign commercials?) Today, they are blaming the young pages for a Republican congressman being a sexual predator and Republican leaders putting other children at risk. Just take a page out of their book, so to speak, and keep blaming others. Why should you have your own ideas? Why should you need to worry whether your staff stole other people's work? Just fire a staffer because you did not know an idea was not yours. I guess did not remember the fact that you never actually thought up those statements and it is your staff's responsibility to remind you.

Just keep blaming others. Just keep saying, "We are reworking the wording of our issues and we are continuing an internal investigation to see if there were any other cases of this." After all, why should you know whether there are other "positions of yours" that are not really "positions of yours" -- you obviously need an investigation for that!

And while you are at it, keep "reworking the wording.” Since your positions can come from any source, just spit out the first thing that comes to mind. It takes real conviction to rework your positions when they are revealed not to be yours as opposed to developing a conviction based on how you view an issue. Here is a suggestion, how about using your OWN WORDS and taking your OWN POSITIONS. Instead of "we are reworking the wording" how about "I am going to tell you what I think." Can you do that or are you just sparing us?

cl

[JayV]

Thanks for the update, Peter. However, the story leaves the impression that Rainville isn't the 'real thing.'

After reading this post, I recall the embarrassment of Joe Biden, repeating word-for-word actual speeches from British Labour Party leader Neal Kinnock. And we're not talking about 'rhetorical borrowing.'

[Frank]

"Here is a suggestion, how about using your OWN WORDS"

How many politicians do you think write all of their own speeches and website copy?

[jdlaughead]

What gets me is GENERAL Rainvillie, ad says A independent leader paves the way,yeh! to another Rubberstamp Republican, I associate her with the 3 R's
RAINVILLIE
RUBBERSTAMP
REPUBLICAN!

How can she be "independent", when she has sold her soul to The National Congressional Republican Committee, just look at the bottom of her ad's maybe they should sue that Committee for Plagiarism. over 90% of her ad's are paid by the GOP! We can't afford any more"RUBBERSTAMP" Public-cans in Congress, and that includes Richy Rich.

[DairyMaid]

Frank-

You missed the point. I don't think any of us expect politicians to write the text of their website. However, the plagiarized ideas include the statement, "I strongly believe..." and everything is in quotes followed by "Rainville said."

Are you telling me the woman didn't know...couldn't remember whether she actually said those things?!? Did she at least read her own effing website?

This is just lame.

[jdlaughead]

P.S.
We can't afford anymore Public-cans in congress, because when you have to many Public-cans, they start to STINK!