Blunt's Eckersley Scandal, Day Ten

With the Eckersley scandal continuing to swirl around the Blunt administration (the AP's Alan Scher Zagier says of the Eckersley drama there's "no end in sight") insiders say that a small cadre of Blunt buddies have banded together to stage a palace coup they hope will stop the administration's bleeding.  They contend that Blunt Deputy chief of staff for administration "Little" John Russell and megalobbyist first-brother Andy Blunt have huddled to come up with a strategy for pushing Ed Martin out of the picture.

The political calculus used by Russell and Andy is clear but faulty.  They believe that by forcing Ed Martin out they will not only cleanse the administration of a man who has been a personal nemesis, but also allow Matt Blunt's regime to turn the page on the Eckersley scandal story in the media.  This is the epitome of wishful thinking.

­The problem, of course, is that Russell and the younger Blunt have allowed their personal animus against Martin --Blunt's chief of staff has reportedly threatened both men that he would squeal about personal indiscretions if they turned on him-- to cloud their view of what the likely reaction of the press will be to that strategy.  ­

The media has been clear enough about the point that the search for truth in the Eckersley matter is not an Ed Martin headhunt.  Reporters who've come this far on the Eckersley story are unlikely to be satisfied with anything but an agreement by the Blunt administration to release the relevant public documents, release any claims to attorney-client privilege over documents possessed by Eckersley, and cease destroying public records.

Still others have suggested that for some anti-Martin plotters, getting rid of Crazy Eddie is reason enough to be involved in the overthrow.  Observers point to Jared Craighead's  positioning in a portion of the Eckersley saga as evidence that he might be the first choice of the Russell-Andy axis for a Martin replacement, and therefore a semi-silent partner in the plot.  Specifically, they point to Tony Messenger's post about an AP story from last week and note what Craighead didn't do: 

What happened is this: When Eckersley first went to KC attorney Mike
Ketchmark to talk to him about his wrongful termination case, Ketchmark
advised Eckersley that this would be a very messy affair and that the
best thing to do would be to make it go away. Eckersley agreed and
Ketchmark tried to make that happen. He called former U.S. attorney
Todd Graves, who then called Craighead to ask him to help get involved
so this embarrasment would not hit the press. Craighead confirmed on
the record this morning that it was Graves who first called him.

During the negotiations, Craighead said he never spoke with Blunt or chief of staff Ed Martin.

Those who implicate Craighead as a co-conspirator in the "Toss Ed Martin" plan have suggested that Craighead --who had the opportunity to follow the advice of other fellow Republicans and keep the Eckersley story out of the papers-- passed on doing so, instead sitting on his hands.  His purported intention being to allow the story to blow up in Ed Martin's face, costing him his post as right-hand to the Governor and allowing Craighead himself to slide up into the big seat.

Notwithstanding Craighead's questionable involvement in the plot, there are at least two people close to Blunt who believe that Ed Martin's ouster is a critical step for the administration.  It remains to be seen how the internal jockeying is affecting or might affect Team Blunt's ability to deal with the Ecksersley scandal --or how much it has already hampered their efforts to defuse the timebomb that threatens the Governor's political viability.