all-encompassingly

…and apparently thinks that his knee may be tasty.

The back story:

Romney was targeted by weird anti-Mormon calls that I mentioned before.

So Señor Hemingway finds that the company doing the calls is headquartered in Utah (they have call centers across the country), used to have a Mormon boss (not one current board member is Mormon), ergo Romney was push-polling himself! Brilliant!

Well, that bit of investigative “journalism” got a pretty strong response from both targets of Hemingway’s ill-researched smear. National Review has since put links to two different responses at the top of Hemingway’s original piece.

Here is how Hemingway closes his article:

The Romney campaign, ultimately, has the power to clarify any misconceptions. If there is a relationship between the two firms, then Alex Gage and Target Point should immediately clarify the extent and nature of the work that it has contracted out to Western Wats to end speculation and exonerate Romney.

To which Alex Gage responded, in part:

Neither I nor TargetPoint was contacted before publication of this piece. Not by email. Not by voice mail. If the person representing National Review had bothered to take this most basic journalistic step, we would have told him on the record that TargetPoint Consulting had nothing to do with this and that his theory was entirely erroneous and absent any merit. The truth would have dulled the sensationalism considerably — probably to the point that responsibility would have dictated not publishing it at all.

I am not sure what, if any, motives the author may have, but now that it has been published, this piece has unfairly smeared me, my firm and the Romney campaign.

Romney’s campaign also responded:

Let me be perfectly clear: our campaign was not and is not involved with any efforts to engage in alleged push polling calls against our own candidate.

The insinuation made by the National Review post is highly misleading, and I emphatically reject the entire premise of the headline and the theories promoted by anonymous political consultants cited in the posting.

Heh.

But Mark Hemingway is not convinced! Apparently this “clarification” that he so earnestly yearned for is not enough. Obviously, there is a story here!

I’ve read TargetPoint’s response numerous times and it doesn’t invalidate my story or address the specific nature of their relationship with the firm that allegedly made anti-Mormon calls against Romney. I’ll report more as I ask more questions.

Enjoy swallowing your entire leg, Mark.