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While it is true that Kelsey's political consultants (DW&A) did work for Putin, they also work/worked for a lot of other people including U.S. Senator Norm Coleman, Minnesota; Presidential Candidate and former Governor Mike Huckabee, Arkansas; Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, Hungary; US Senator Phil Gramm, Texas; and many, many others. I see no reason to mention Putin and not the others unless some kind of political point is being made which would then violate WP:NPOV. Bfootdav (talk) 17:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing noteworthy about the fact that DWA worked for Coleman. That Kelsey hired the consulting team that brought Vladimir Putin to power IS notewothy, just as it would be noteworthy if he had hired Karl Rove or David Axelrod.
I'm trying to understand your point here, do you consider it a bad thing that Kelsey is using a company that also worked for Putin? If so then why would including that be appropriate for Wikipedia? Wikipedia is not a forum for expressing political opinions.
If you don't think it's bad then I still don't see why mentioning anyone is needed. Further, I'm not even sure that mentioning DWA is notable enough for this article without some other source (like a newspaper) bringing it up as a point of controversy. Bfootdav (talk) 15:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you're reading a lot more into it than I intend. It's interesting and perhaps controversial in and of itself that he hired Putin's consultants. Is it a good thing? To be hired as Putin's top guys means that you are a world-class consultancy; for Kelsey to hire them indicates that he is running a serious campaign for congress. On the other hand, Putin is viewed by many as an adversary of the USA, and for Kelsey to hire Putin's consultancy is therefore intreging.
I contend that it would be noteworthy for a congressional candidate to hire Karl Rove or James Carville, as they are high-profile world-class consultants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.4.56 (talk) 07:19, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're right that hiring Rove or Carville would be notable, I think the problem I'm having is that the implication is that DWA has some kind of strong tie to Putin who then gets connected to Kelsey (Kelsey and Putin become cohorts at some level by implication). The fact of the matter is that DWA has represented a lot of people all over the world so there's nothing good nor bad about the Putin connection. If I say that Bill Gates and I have the same hair stylist that sounds like there's a connection between me and Bill Gates, if it turns out that by "hair stylist" I meant Supercuts (with their 2,000+ stores in the US) then you would realize that there is no deep connection between us.
So now my proposal is that if we mention Putin we should mention at least one or two other big names and add something like "as well as many other politicians throughout the world". This way you get Putin in there, it demonstrates the seriousness of the campaign, yet makes it clearer that the article is in no way equating or connecting (in any significant way) Putin to Kelsey. Bfootdav (talk) 08:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hairstylist??? Hmmmm...we're not talking about Supercuts - a retail establishment that anyone can access.
A better comparison would be if you and Bill Gates have the same business partner. Better yet, you and a very controversial person sharing a business partner.
OK, I made the change by adding a few more names to the list. I hate to keep beating this dead horse but my analogy was apt. Anyone can hire DWA to manage their campaign (with the caveat that I think the only work for "conservative" causes/politicians). It is interesting that Putin also used them but it is no more significant than if Bill Gates and I go to Supercuts. Your comparison of Bill and I having the same business partner could also be misleading. If that partner is IBM who partners with thousands of other companies then that fact is as insignificant as the Supercuts analogy and the fact that DWA also worked for Putin. If that partner is Steve Jobs then that means there is a relationship between Bill, Steve, and me that's beyond the coincidence. The way you had phrased the Putin bit could be interpreted as indicating a close relationship between Kelsey, Putin, and their campaign managers.
So with all this said I think we've reached a consensus. I would still prefer to not mention DWA at all, or slightly worse to mention them without naming any other clients. But what I just put on there is acceptable to me at least. The last concern is that what I have is a bit wordy and not very smooth and that's the cut down version from what I was going to use -- we should be careful to not allow that section to become larger than the rest of the article. Bfootdav (talk) 19:27, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
