Jeb

Mike Connell's New Media Communications flickered to life in 1996, providing site and software makeovers for the Illinois and Ohio state GOPs. Bootstrapped by the Republican Revolution of 1994, New Media started wiring the architects of the Contract with America for a world without Bill Clinton.

Over the next two years, Connell helped jack in the new conservative money machine by implementing web and database services for Dick Armey's (R-TX) Majority Leader's Fund, John Boehner's (R-OH) Freedom Project PAC, Lamar Alexander's (R-TN) New American Century PAC, and John Kasich's (R-OH) Pioneer PAC. Connell added Iowa and Pennsylvania to his list of state GOP clients and was chosen to design the future Internet home of the Republican National Committee.

New Media would also help accredit pseudo-intellectual newspeak with sites for David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture and his yellow journalism tabloid FrontPageMag.com.

But 1998 saw Connell's true coming out party, when the insular Bush family tapped New Media to design Jeb.org, JebWear.com and GopWear.com for the campaign to elect George Bush's second son first, as the 43rd governor of Florida.

New Media was way ahead of the technology curve in 1998. A Mike Connell developed "web site" was more than an online photo album of the candidate: it was interactive appeal to the constituents that embodied Connell's all but prescient intuition for computers and ironclad dedication to conservative politics. That year, while Bill Gates' was grabbing headlines with the beleaguered Windows 98, Connell was focused on grabbing Democratic districts:

"Beyond voter list development, New Media also develops advanced targeting models that accurately project voter turn-out and assign vote goals down to the precinct level."

Jeb won his governor's seat. And during Jeb's first year and a half in office, Connell expanded into Florida with IT contracts for the executive office of the Governor, the Depts. Of Education and Community Affairs, and the state Republican Party.

Tom
Connell was still in touch with the "old school politics" advocates from his past. Along with its Richfield, OH production facility, New Media maintained offices in two strategic locations. One was a Tallahassee, FL address and phone number the company shared with Tidewater Consulting. The other was the Washington, DC headquarters of the DCI Group, the scandal-plagued lobby shop run by GOP operative Thomas J. Synhorst. Just months after Bush's Florida win, the two would team up formally in Ohio to create DCI/New Media, L.L.C.

Connell's ongoing alliances with Synhorst, whose firm [specializes] in push-polling are worrisome. These alliances strongly suggest that despite a decade to reflect, Connell had not renounced the crooked tactics for which he'd been fired. And that perhaps all he'd learned from the experience was to avoid getting caught.

In any case, just two years after being formed, DCI/New Media, L.L.C. was dissolved.

But prior to its dissolution, Connell and Synhorst launched GovTech Solutions, L.L.C, what may be their defining partnership, a New Media spin-off to handle its "government web site accounts."

GovTech -- founded in April of 2000 by Connell's wife Heather and Synhorst (with Connell as registered agent) -- quickly distanced itself from New Media's reputation as the "Bell Labs of the Republican Party." Instead, GovTech claimed instead to be a "non-partisan" and "woman-owned IT solutions firm." But GovTech fortunes depended entirely on New Media, and how the remainder of the year played out.

"Junior"
Near the end of 2000 amid controversy over chads and voter manipulation, Connell's sweat equity in New Media was hanging by a skinny thread. But when the final robes were tallied, George W. Bush was awarded Florida's 25 electoral votes. And Mike Connell had helped usher a third Bush family member into national office, and his second into the White House.

His GeorgeWBush.com had been widely publicized and acclaimed, and after barely enough time to celebrate, New Media's BushCheneyTransition.com ensured that to the victor belonged the spoils.

Following the inauguration, Connell was openly straddling the DMZ between "electioneering" and "elected" government. Campaign clients like Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Heather Wilson (R-NM) wanted New Media to build their Congressional sites on senate and house dot gov domains. And his uncanny winning streak and insider's cachet especially appealed to the new GOP House leadership promoted in the wake of Newt Gingrich's ouster.

In 2001, Connell put MajorityWhip.house.gov on the web for Tom Delay and began to forge a relationship with House Information Resources (HIR), the office that administers the House's IT network.

As his dot gov work increased, Connell began diverting it to the company owned by his wife and Tom Synhorst. GovTech's claims notwithstanding, no meaningful boundaries existed between Connell's GOP-only marketing firm and his non-partisan e-government "boutique." Connell himself stated as much on April 18, 2001 in an interview with Crain's Cleveland Business:

"When (GovTech Solutions) emerges as a separate entity remains to be seen. We'll figure it out in the next 12 to 18 months."

Even as he spoke, New Media's systems administrator Aaron Burke was installing and testing Connell's proprietary "web hosting servers, e-mail servers and database servers" behind the firewall at the House of Representatives.

Just three months after George W. Bush had taken the oath of office, Connell -- the computer whiz kid drafted by Bush's father in 1988 -- was learning the ropes at HIR. Michael L. Connell had been given the nod yet again, but this time as the first private vendor allowed access to the House computer networks.

Bob

Alarmingly, Connell had been ushered in by fellow Ohioan Bob Ney, the former chairman of the House Committee on Administration (CHA) convicted last year for conspiring with Jack Abramoff to defraud the United States.

By the time Ney took over in 2001, the GOP had transformed the CHA into essentially a corporation that controlled a wide range of vital infrastructures and yet had virtually no Congressional oversight.

The committee had just nine members (six Republicans, three Democrats, and not one subcommittee) with jurisdiction over federal elections, House finances, procurement, auditing and compliance, human resources, public documents, and building maintenance and security for half of the Capitol Complex.

And the CHA also ran the entire House telecommunications network.

The Contract with America had created the position of Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) ostensibly to consolidate the Offices of the Postmaster and Doorkeeper. In practice, however, the CAO had been given the task of managing the IT networks, in addition to House finances, procurement, auditing and compliance, human resources, etc., under the guidance of the CHA. Indeed, most of the day-to-day functions of the House were run by managers who answered to in essence a board of six Republicans and three Democrats.

And the Chairman of the Board was Bob Ney.

Mike Connell's direct connections to Ney, if any, are not straightforward. But in the state of Ohio where, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer "even lobbyists are gagging on [the] sleaze," nothing should overlooked. New Media Communications now has close to three dozen state party sites, and even after the GOP's 2006 drubbing, its client list "reads like a `Who's Who' of Republican politics."

And then there's the matter of GovTech Solutions, which by 2004 had built custom databases and content management systems for the House Intelligence, Judiciary, Ways and Means, and Financial Services committees, the Majority Whip and Leader's offices, 37 members of Congress, the 30th G8 Summit, Energy.gov, Results.gov, and GOP.gov.

In the end, the question isn't really "Who is Michael L. Connell" but who does he serve: the president or the office? Connell is an open Bush family loyalist and loyalty is admirable trait. But as the limits of executive privilege are now being tested over emails, George W. Bush's final days can't help but invoke Nixon's.

Loyalty without integrity is fanaticism. And Connell's choices - both past and present - are quite frankly, not encouraging.

Thanks to all the ePluribus Media people who assisted in finding the connections: GreyHawk, RayneToday, Ron Brynaert, mkt, Biblio, Highacidity, BronxDem, Kfred, Internets, Harmonyguy, standingup, wanderindiana, roxy, silence, susie dow, D.E. Ford, zan, avahome, sawcielackey, sluggojd, HeyThereItsEric, Jill Lehnert and Cho. We tried to remember everyone, but if we forgot to include someone, just let me know.