Just three years later, Connell began a rise to favored insider status that was nothing short of supersonic. Scooped up right after college, Connell seemingly has never held a job outside of politics, or the good graces of the Bush family.

In 1986, Connell worked as Finance Director for U.S. Rep. Jim Leach's (R-IA) reelection campaign. But the posting was just a quick layover on his eastward trajectory to Washington, DC and the national stage.

A few months later, Connell was drafted by George H.W. Bush's presidential campaign in Iowa, where he programmed voter contact and tracking databases.

In 1988, after Bush finished 3rd in the Iowa caucuses, Connell was promoted to campaign HQ in Washington, DC where he applied his computer skills to customizing a Bush delegate tracking database for the '88 Republican National Convention. A year later, George Herbert Walker Bush became the 41st President of the United States.

Just 25 years old and less than three years out college, Mike Connell received a presidential appointment to the Department of Energy as a Legislative Affairs Specialist, where he continued to develop his tech skills by designing a congressional committee vote tracking system. [2]

But Connell was soon back on the campaign trail and back in the Midwest in 1990, as director of voter programs for Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) and given a part-time job for the Indiana State Republican Committee. Connell was put to work in direct mail and telemarketing, a means of "voter outreach" that to this day is often misused to confuse voters and interfere in the election process. He did not disappoint.

On November 9, 1990, Coats fired Connell for his role in a "push-polling" scheme the senator publicly denounced as "clearly unethical." From Coats' campaign office, Connell had written and provided negative and misleading scripts to telemarketers, who read them to supporters of incumbent Democratic U.S. Representative Phil Sharp in his race against Republican Mike Pence. Connell was also fired by the Indiana state GOP. [3]

But the firings were theatric. In late 1990, Lee Atwater ran the RNC, a close friend of President Bush whose smashmouth blend of politics and personal destruction was already legendary and feared. And in 1990 Karl Rove, one of Atwater's proteges, was operating a direct mail consulting firm in Texas and trying unsuccessully to convince George W. Bush to run for governor.

Connell resurfaced back in Iowa just a few months later in 1991, as the computer guru of a "prototype project of the Republican National Committee" during the state's decennial redistricting. His precise role is unclear, specified in an early New Media Communications bio only as the "executive director of a redistricting analysis corporation." [2] ePluribus Media has been unable to determine the name of the corporation.

However, in the fall of 1990 long-time DCI Group attorney and business partner Ralph R. Brown had formed "Iowans Against Gerrymandering" (IAG) along with former Iowa Republican Party chair Richard P. Schwarm. In 1992, IAG would challenge the final redistricting by suing Election Data Systems, the geographic information systems company awarded the contract. Brown's complaint seeking to force the company to release its source code was rejected. [4]

IAG's secretary, Iowa Presidential Watch PAC Richard Schwarm is currently on the advisory board of Iowa Presidential Watch PAC. Schwarm's online bio boasts:

"Past-president of Iowa College Republicans when he became good friends with Karl Rove...Rich Schwarm is one of the few people that Karl Rove has on speed dial."

Connell's relationship with Rove is unclear, but his access to the current president Bush's top advisers seems clear. In 2004, Connell was described as a "trusted partisan" by Crain's Cleveland Business, adding:

"Mr. Connell said he communicates constantly with the Bush campaign...[Connell] was reluctant to discuss whether he communicates often with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top strategist, but said, 'Good ideas will go as high as they have to to get approval.'"

In any case, after the 1991 Iowa re-districting Connell went to New Hampshire to work on Bill Hatch's 1992 congressional bid. Hatch came from behind to upset Steve Duprey the Republican primary, but lost the general election to Democrat Dick Swett.

Years later in 2004, Connell reminisced about the win over Duprey calling it his "best moment in a campaign" and "a story book primary victory," for the June issue of Campaigns & Elections Magazine's "Movers & Shakers" feature.

The New Hampshire Union Leader, on the other hand, saw it differently, referring to Connell as "one of the masterminds of...Bill Hatch's attack mailings on rival Steve Duprey." [5]

Following Hatch's loss, Connell went back to Washington, DC briefly and took the unenviable position of Communications Director for newly-elected Ohio U.S. Rep. Martin R. Hoke (R). For example, In 1993 Hoke told N.Y. Times columnist Maureen Dowd that he "could date" fellow representatives Maria Cantwell and Blanche Lambert because they were "hot." In 1994, Hoke again made headlines by commenting on a station producer's breasts into an open microphone while waiting to rebut President Bill Clinton's State of the Union Address. Several days later, when an escaped convict when on a killing spree, Hoke told a newspaper reporte about his relief at finally being off the front page. [6]

Connell left Washington, DC at the end of 1993 and moved to Hoke's district office in Cleveland. He remained with Hoke until sometime in 1994, when he left to form New Media Communication. New Media's incorporation papers were filed in late December, 1994, and approved by the Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's office in January, 1995.

"Who is Michael L. Connell? Part II: Behind the firewall"

Thanks to: GreyHawk, BronxDem, Kfred, Internets, Harmonyguy, standingup, wanderindiana, roxy, silence, susie dow, D.E. Ford, zan, avahome, Cho.

Sources:
[1] "Political bug leads to the web", Cleveland Area Knowledge Industry, 2001.
[2] "Welcome to New Media Communications, Inc.," Internet Archive, April 18, 1997.
[3] "Coats workers jobless after campaign attack," The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, IN), November 10, 1990
[4] "Brown v. Iowa Legislative Council,", 490 N.W.2d 551, Oct. 21, 1992.
[5] "NH Is in Front Row Thanks to Clinton," New Hampshire Union Leader, July 2, 1992.
[6] "Martin Hoke," Wikipedia.org.