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Prosecutors Allege NH Dem Faked Car Crash for Funds
Of all the campaign strategies available, perhaps this wasn't the best one.
Last spring, Gary Dodds was trailing in the Democratic primary for New Hampshire's 1st District Congressional seat when his crashed car was found empty. He went missing for more than a day, creating a national story about the missing candidate. He later explained that following the collision, he'd stumbled into the woods, crossed the river, and then lay down under a pile of leaves, where he was eventually found. Police were immediately suspicious of Dodds' story, a suspicion that later led to charges for false public alarms and falsifying physical evidence. Now prosecutors are saying he made all that up to gin up publicity:
In a motion filed at Strafford County Superior Court last week, prosecutors seek to introduce evidence that Dodds had taken out two mortgages on property without the approval of his wife, Cynthia, to fund his campaign and that his campaign had received letters from the Federal Election Commission indicating they were contemplating instigating an audit into discrepancies in campaign finance reports."It would be argued that Mr. Dodds fabricated the story he told police and falsified his physical appearance in an attempt to gain publicity to help propel his campaign for the United States Congress," the motion reads. "The state would argue that Mr. Dodds believed the publicity garnered from this accident would increase the visibility of his campaign, allowing him to pay back the mortgages, avoid further FEC investigation, and right a campaign that was lagging."
Police have earlier said that Dodds seems to have faked a head injury and lied about swimming across the river. When he was found, his feet were so wet that police had to pour water out of his shoes, but the rest of his body was dry. And when they questioned him about how the water had tasted, he'd gotten the answer wrong (it's brackish). The list goes on.
It's still unclear to me whether police think Dodds staged the whole thing from top to bottom, or whether the idea struck him after he'd had his private fender bender. In any case, other campaigns should be wary of adopting a similar strategy: Dodds got little more than a 1,000 votes in the primary (Dem Carol Shea-Porter went on to win the general election).
Comments (19)
j swift wrote on November 27, 2007 11:45 AM:No problem, he can get his probation done and run again as a Republican. He is just their type of guy.
Michael wrote on November 27, 2007 12:01 PM:What an idiot. Just goes to show you that not only are republican politicians idiots. Dems have their share as well. At least he wasn't soliciting sex in a men's room.
magster wrote on November 27, 2007 12:02 PM:I'd like to see a reenactment of this on Countdown similar to the Larry Craig incident.
This reminds me of that scene in "Sideways".
Keith wrote on November 27, 2007 12:25 PM:Fascinating story. Don't forget this is "alleged", though. I sat next to the guy shortly after the accident at a fundraiser. He seemed relatively genuine, but it is a wild story, which had not come out much at the time.
The big story in the district, for all readers that might be unaware, is how an excellent candidate won that district against a popular incumbent Rep (a personal friend, by the way - NH is small). And Carol Shea Porter won without much money (a small fraction of the incumbents war chest), and virtually NO support from the DNC. She is a communicator without peer, and a true representative of the people. Watch her!
Rob_in_Hawaii wrote on November 27, 2007 12:27 PM:So, the guy rams his car into a tree, leaves the scene of the accident going the WRONG way, and then lies down in a pile of leaves waiting for someone to rescue him -- how does this kind of "leadership" make me want to vote for him?
Okay, maybe if he had told police he walked on water to get across the river, getting only his shoes wet, he might have attracted the evangelical crowd.
jason kennedy wrote on November 27, 2007 12:29 PM:So would the police tell us what they think really happened?
That his story actually involved:
- going down to the shore of the river, shoes in hand, and filling 'em up (but stupidly, oh so stupidly, forgetting to take a taste...)
- inflicting a head injury on himself, how? perhaps he banged his head on a tree repeatedly.
It would be good to get these alternative images of the good man out into the mainstream.
I particularly like his insistence on remaining in hospital despite doctors wanting to discharge him. I suppose he was laying in bed with dramatic bandages all round his head and some hot water bottles draped over his frostbitten toes, reading the latest polls and news coverage of his terrible 'accident' - priceless.
Gary D wrote on November 27, 2007 12:47 PM:And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!
zonk wrote on November 27, 2007 1:04 PM:Since I love piling on Rahm Emanuel almost every chance I get, am I recalling correctly that Dodd was the D-trip choice to run for this seat?
I know Shea-Porter had few friends from the party congressional apparatus and that she and her supporters shocked NH-1 largely because they did it themselves (with a bit of help from usual DFA/DK/Atrios/etc crowd... I know I kicked her $20 via ActBlue).
terje wrote on November 27, 2007 1:18 PM:hey Zonk
Sorry to disappoint, but Dodd wasn't the DCCC choice in the primary -- that distinction went to NH legislator Jim Craig, who Shea-Porter stunned in the primary. After her upset pirmary victory, the DCCC seemed to write off the seat and was stunned when she took the seat on election night.
So much fun as it would be to bash Rahm, this one isn't his to blame.
Mark wrote on November 27, 2007 1:20 PM:I don't get how his winning the election solves the problem of the two mortgages. Is the idea that as an office holder he'd be able to get some lobbyist cash to even up? I thought that only happened in Alaska.
apishapa wrote on November 27, 2007 1:20 PM:Well, I guess there has to be some nutty Democrats, too. But as long as he wasn't wearing two wet suits, a tutu and a dildo, we are still way behind in the crazies competition. Gotta do better than that to catch the Republicans.
Seitz wrote on November 27, 2007 1:42 PM:I don't get how his winning the election solves the problem of the two mortgages.
Presumably you can get a bank loan by taking another mortgage out on your home. Then you can loan that money to your campaign. I was under the impression that you could subsequently repay loans to your campaign through lobbyist donations.
What you can't do is buy a house, take out a mortgage, run for congress, and then pay off the mortgage with campaign donations. You can only "pay back" money that was actually "loaned" to the campaign.
anonymous wrote on November 27, 2007 1:45 PM:"Gotta do better than that to catch the Republicans."
Yeah, the Democrats would have to actually get some such crazies elected, not just let them participate in the primaries.
tpmfan wrote on November 27, 2007 2:12 PM:He probably had to lay low until his blood alcohol dropped to an acceptable level.
Keith wrote on November 27, 2007 4:02 PM:I'll just chime in again on this. This guy was barely a blip at the time of the incident. It's quite a stretch, I believe, by the authorities to say it was a campaign stunt. Note that this is a victimless crime, unless you care to think the electorate could have been bamboozled. We Dems in NH are a little better than that. Take for example the fact that Shea Porter won that primary with like $25K against $500K of the so-called party favorite. She didn't do it with stunts - just straight talk.
sweaty guy wrote on November 27, 2007 9:45 PM:How on earth did he fake his head injury?
Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know. I really prefer the image of some doofus smacking himself repeatedly with a hammer saying "Fools! They'll never suspect a thing!"
Nancy Irving wrote on November 28, 2007 12:29 AM:If it'd been a Republican there would have been a dildo involved.
I Blow Goats wrote on November 28, 2007 9:15 AM:"He went missing for more than a day, creating a national story"
Funny, I don't recall hearing about this. I guess he'll need to try harder next time. As others have suggested, having a dildo involved would have improved the effectiveness.
GBHeron wrote on November 28, 2007 3:02 PM:tmpfan - I think you are exactly right and this was a DUI that he tried to transform (on the fly) into a Jack London tale.
The funniest thing about watching the whole thing play out in the papers at the time was that it was like trying to get your four-year-old to confess to what is an obvious lie. In his defense, that sort of devotion to absurd stories would make him an excellent Bush Press Secretary.