There is a short piece in the Times tomorrow noting that GOP astroturfer Charlie Jarvis plans to keep up his goonish campaign of disinformation against AARP and any and all who try to stand in the way of the president’s Social Security phase-out plan. But let me take the opportunity to follow up on the O’Neill Marketing Company (OMC), the direct mail services provider that used to work out of the same offices as USANext and was at one point partly owned by them.
We’ve been able to find out a bit more about their relationship with Jarvis’s operation. And though they apparently leased space from USANext until as recently as late last year, the financial ties between the OMC and USANext ended in 2002. In fact, from what I understand, it was Jarvis’s arrival at USANext, and the new direction in which he took the organization, that prompted the folks at OMC to sever those ties.
Now, the ins-and-outs of the business history of this direct-mail company in Northern Virginia certainly aren’t at the top of most people’s concerns. But Charlie Jarvis is out there playing some pretty nasty hardball against anyone opposing phase-out. And plenty of folks on the other side are happy to oblige him by giving him the same in return. But, from the best I can tell, these folks at O’Neill are pretty much just caught in the crossfire.
Whatever slime Jarvis is peddling — and he’s peddling plenty — isn’t coming from them.
