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RedState: Heffley tied to anti-Rubio web site

Posted Oct 28, 2009 by William March

Updated Oct 28, 2009 at 04:44 PM

RedState.org, a conservative political web site that backs Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate GOP primary against Gov. Charlie Crist, is reporting that it turned up evidence that a prominent backer of Crist was responsible for a web site attacking Rubio.

RedState reports that it found source coding in the web site including a file labelled “img src=”///Users/rheffley/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/moz-screenshot.png” alt=”” /.”

The “rheffley” could be a reference to Rich Heffley, a prominent GOP lobbyist and political strategist who’s backing Crist. Heffley, his wife and his company have given Crist a total of $12,600, according to an analysis by the Florida Democratic Party. Heffley, named by Crist to the Florida Sports Foundation board, has also been a partner in a political consulting firm with Jim Rimes, Crist’s former deputy chief of staff, and Kelly Horton, a Crist appointee to the Florida Film Commission.

The site, TruthAboutRubio.com, included suggestions that Rubio was responsible for a parody of a film about the fall of Adolph Hitler, with Crist compared to Hitler. Rubio had previously condemned the parody.

Since RedState posted its finding, it says, the “rheffley” code has been removed. Also removed from the site is a link asking readers to vote on whether they think Rubio was responsible for the Hitler parody.

The Rubio campaign said Wednesday the web site indicates Crist is running scared because of Rubio’s challenge. “Crist and his allies are lashing out,” said a campaign statement.

Pablo Diaz, political director of the Crist campaign, said the campaign doesn’t know anything about the web site, and Heffley couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.