Billy Long consultant James Harris pushes false email rumor about Scott Eckersley

from Fired Up Missouri:

Some special person distributed a fake press release this morning declaring the Democratic candidate Scott Eckersley is withdrawing from the 7th Congressional District the Friday before Election Day. A couple of clues that it was a fake? It came from a Yahoo.com email address no one has heard of and contains multiple grammatical errors.

But Billy Long consultant James Harris was happy to push the rumor anyway, because he's a totally awesome dude.


(And yes, this retweet is from the same Shawn Bell who worked/works for Harris and was on the wrong end of a Rep. Brian Nieves freak out because he thought Harris was behind a letter accusing Nieves of having extramarital affairs with lobbyists.)

Harris has since deleted his original tweet -- and has not published a correction or apology -- but the Internets remember.

UPDATE: Bell has also deleted his tweet (screen cap below) without issuing an apology or correction.

UPDATE: I received an email message to contact Shawn Bell who is working on a U.S. Senate campaign in Washington state. He wanted me to delete all references to him in this post because although he worked for James Harris, he is no longer employed by James Harris. I recorded the converstion but Bell would not give me permission to play the tape on this blog. It was an interesting conversation.

Also, The Fuse Joplin reports that

When asked if he was involved in the false media release, sent from ‘scott.eckersley@yahoo.com,’ not Eckersley’s personal or campaign email, (James) Harris said in an email, “Hot Diggidy Dawg,” mimicking Billy Long’s response when he thinks Eckersley is lying.