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| left to right: unknown man, Karl Rove, Chris Margaronis, Anthony Bellotti |
Campaign Solutions is a high-powered DC outfit that puts together big money political campaigns for anti-gay rights candidates and anti-gay rights ballot measures.
As I reported last month, although they're not keen on civil rights for gay people, Campaign Solutions staffer Anthony Bellotti claimed to represent these three nonprofits that promote the rights of animals: Animal Protection of New Mexico; the American Anti-Vivisection Society; and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).
Per my follow-up, the New Mexico group informed me they were never clients of Campaign Solutions.
Now the Anti-Vivisection organization has denied that they were ever a client.
A couple days ago, the Philadelphia Gay News picked up the story, moved the ball forward, and - thank you very much - gave yours truly some ink.
From Antigay consulting firm cites, withdraws animal-rights clients
“On their website, Campaign Solutions proudly claimed to represent organizations dedicated to improving the lives of our four-footed friends, meanwhile cooking up high-profile political campaigns to restrict the civil rights of human beings because they’re gay,” he said.In other words, one of the country's top political consulting shops appears to have falsely claimed that at least two organizations were clients.
...“After I reported the story on my blog, client names and other information started vanishing from their website,” Heimlich said. “When I asked company president Becki Donatelli if she or Anthony Bellotti wanted to explain, she politely declined.”
Sue Leary, president of AAVS, told PGN her organization accepted free advice from a contributor, who works for Campaign Solutions, but said her agency is not currently and never was a client of Bellotti’s or Campaign Solutions.
Donatelli did not respond to a request for comment last week from PGN.
Last weekend, however, all mention of the animal-advocacy groups, as well as the antigay agencies, were removed from Bellotti’s profile.
Here's a screen shot taken on October 18, the day my first item ran:
Here's a shot of the same page today sans the animal rights clients and his "highly regarded" anti-gay rights campaigns:
Courtesy of ChangeDetection.com, a free online tool that monitors web pages, this shot shows last weekend's alterations:
