Fischer Camp Responds to MoveOn Speculation

A representative from the campaign of Democratic candidate Greg Fischer told PolitickerKY.com today they were not actively seeking the MoveOn.Org endorsement in the Democratic race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Mitch McConnell.

Speculation Fischer’s team may be pursuing the support of that policy advocacy group began when PageOne reported on a message dispatched by the “official” Fischer group on the social networking site Facebook. That message requested supporters select Fischer from among the Kentucky candidates in a MoveOn.org survey on the race in order “to show MoveOn and others how much grassroots support Greg Fischer has.”

Fischer’s campaign manager AJ Carrillo confirms the message was dispatched by the campaign, but says the intent of the message was not to actively secure an endorsement.

“I never sought their endorsement out. They were doing a vote online to gauge the interest of their members in Kentucky in the different candidates,” said Carrillo. “[MoveOn] contacted one of our supporters about the survey who contacted one of our staffers. We thought it would be good to send it out on Facebook because it was something our younger supporters might be interested in.”

Carrillo characterized the survey as a “testing of the waters” in the Commonwealth.

A representative from MoveOn confirmed the organization’s surveys are routinely used to measure support for a variety of candidates and issues.

Asked if the MoveOn.Org endorsement was something the campaign would pursue in earnest, Carrillo said campaign efforts would be focused elsewhere.

“I’m not going to actively pursue it,” he said.