What do you mean “we”, kimosabe? [updated]

Did Rick Davis have his hooks in Dean’s operations in early ’04?

3EDC’s website as archived on 10 Jun ’04:

Who’s we?

So what was Rick Davis up to in early summer ’04?

3EDC’s website as archived almost three months earlier, on 18 Mar ’04, said: “Welcome nicco.trueserver.com to Your New Server!”

Who’s nicco?

How about Nicco A. Mele, former deanforamerica.com webmaster, who was hired by McCain’s chief political strategist John Weaver as of 23 Aug ’06 under the leadership of…Rick Davis (who ”helped to corral the current roster of talent”). His resignation from the McCain effort was reported on 30 Jan ’07.

Mele’s blog is here, his company is here, a 29 Jun ’07 Mother Jones interview here (“A small minority can always manipulate. Technology is relatively irrelevant”); Garance Franke-Ruta’s 28 Aug ’06 comment on the hire here.

If nicco.trueserver.com points at Mele, was he working with Davis’s 3EDC in March ’04—in the middle of Dean’s ’04 presidential run and two years before his 24 Aug ’06 statement in support of McCain?

So, again: what was Rick Davis up to in early summer ’04?

A bit more

3EDC’s website as archived on 2 Mar ’07 lists five “strategic partners.” Three are boring:

• Campaign Solutions (client list here, staff list here);
• Integrated Web Strategy (client list here); and
• New Media Communications (“staff” = Chief Political Strategist and CEO Mike Connell, co-founder of Connell Donatelli Inc., with Campaign Solutions [QED] Chairman R. Rebecca “Becki” Donatelli).

[Update: New Media Communications just got more interesting with Mike Connell’s subpoena for vote-tampering in 2004.]

But two might be more interesting in this context:

• Airnet (client list here; “recent news” [10 Jan ’03 – 1 Jun ’07] here includes a 22 Aug ’04 announcement that, through its subsidiary “SMARTech”, it hosted www.georgewbush.com, www.gop.com, and www.2004nycgop.com [registration now lapsed]); and
• Dynology Corp: Their heavily military client list in three parts is here; “a majority of our staff hold security clearances that allow access to Secret and Top Secret classified government information.” Their “Corp HQ and Dev Lab” at 8000 Towers Crescent Drive, Ste 1350, Vienna, VA, seems to be a maildrop, judging by the dozens of other tenants in the “suite”.

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