Wesley Donehue
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Wesley Donehue is an American political strategist and Internet consultant. He is the CEO of Donehue Direct based out of Columbia, South Carolina.
Education
Wesley majored in Political Science at the University of South Carolina. He received his B.S. degree in 2002.[citation needed]
While attending USC, Wesley was voted in as the South Carolina College Republicans State Chairman. He led the organization’s political and fundraising efforts. As chairman, he rewrote the USC College Republican constitution, which was maintained for many years afterwards.[citation needed]
Political Activity
Donehue was Campaign Manager for Mike Cambell’s Lt. Governor race in South Carolina (2005), and Deputy Campaign Manager for Mike Bouchard’s U.S. Senate race in Michigan (2006).[citation needed]
Beginning in 2008, the South Carolina Senate Republican Caucus employed Wesley as their Communications and Political Director. Today, he continues to help the caucus utilize new technology and shape political strategy. [citation needed]
The South Carolina Republican Party (SCGOP) noticed Wesley’s contribution to the party’s senate caucus and offered him the position of Marketing and Technology Director (2009–present).[1]
In the News
In late 2007, Wesley built a fake website for Fred Thompson, who was a political opponent to Mick Romney, which drew national attention. While employed at First Tuesdays, Wesley managed much of Romney’s South Carolina Internet outreach and tried to cast Fred Thompson in a negative light by creating www.PhoneyFred.org.[2][3]
Pub Politics
Beginning in early April 2010, Wesley teamed up with his South Carolina State Senate counterpart, consultant Phil Bailey, to broadcast a political talk show live over the Internet each week.
At first, the show was labeled “PNN Happy Hour” and was shot from a local Columbia bar. The name was soon changed to “Pub Politics” and went live on April 22 with State House Representative Bakari Sellers as the political guest. Since then, the Pub Politics has featured numerous guest appearances from the state’s political representatives, local journalists and lobbyists.[4]
A local television news station (WACH Fox) created a special segment that airs every Monday at 10:00PM. In each weekly interview, Wesley and Phil are asked to reveal their unique inside knowledge about the state’s political happenings.[5]
On June 3, 2010, South Carolina State Sen. Jake Knotts used the word "raghead" to describe President Barack Obama and Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley while appearing on a live broadcast of Pub Politics. Several people present at the political talk show's broadcast confirmed Knotts said "We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor's mansion."[6] Haley was raised as a Sikh and later converted to Christianity. Haley has stated she attends services of both faiths.[6]
The video of Knotts' remarks never made it online - unlike most of Pub Politics' episodes. In a statement, Donehue and Bailey said that what Knotts said does not fit with their program and its goals. A Washington Post report added that, "Conveniently for Knotts - who has been condemned by state Republicans anyway - the lack of the video prevents the story from taking on more steam." The Post added, "What's interesting about this is that Knotts is a close political ally of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) - and Donehue, according to FEC reports, has done work for Wilson."[7]
Client Work
The SCGOP hired Wesley to build their scgop.com website before the 2010 election season. [citation needed]
Applications
Midway through the 2010 elections, Wesley helped build an online absentee voting registration system for the SCGOP, called SCabsentee.com, which produced over 11,000 submissions.[8]
After the 2010 elections, Donehue developed a new application designed to provide services to all types of campaigns and organizations. One of the first of these is an event application called Fundraiser 7, which allows users to sell event tickets and accept donations online by embedding a “widget” on websites and social media pages. In November 2010 Donahue won first place in a San Francisco startup contest.[9]
In January 2011, Wesley, partnering with Northbound Design, lauched "Win With Wordpress", a website platform service. Each website includes professional design, built in campain tools, data collection & form building, and search engine optimization.[10] Claiming to be "user friendly, cost effective, and easy to edit and update", 'Win With WordPress' has signed on dozens of clients within the first few months. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
- In 2010, Wesley started "Process Story". Dubbed "the story behind the story", it is a political blog featuring stories and op-eds from around South Carolina.It is slanted Republican and is updated daily.[11]
- Wesley was part of Senator Jim DeMint's senior staff, and helped him establish his massive internet following, including over 77,000 followers on Twitter alone.[12][13]
References
- ^ SCGOP website http://www.scgop.com/site/c.qiKTLYPLLvF/b.5729455/k.899F/Meet_Our_Team.htm
- ^ Washington Post article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091002227.html
- ^ CBS News report http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20006035-503544.html
- ^ The State newspaper article http://www.thestate.com/2010/06/03/1315978/knotts-uses-slur-to-describe-haley.html
- ^ WACH Fox http://www.midlandsconnect.com/pubpolitics
- ^ a b O'Connor, John., Smith, Gina. Knotts' slur stirs the Haley storm. The State. June 3, 2010.
- ^ Interviewer concealing S.C. 'raghead' tape did work for Rep. Joe Wilson, Washington Post, June 4, 2010
- ^ SCabsentee.com http://www.scabsentee.com/
- ^ Fundraiser 7 http://www.fundraiser7.com/2010/11/we-won-startup-weekend-san-francisco/
- ^ www.winwithwp.com
- ^ http://www.processstory.com
- ^ http://twitter.com/jimdemint
- ^ http://www.donehuedirect.com/about-2/wesley/