I wrote in December about a mysterious pro-Clinton, anti-Obama website called HillaryIs44, a site that floated sharply negative information about Obama long before the word "Rezko" passed the lips of Clinton and her campaign, and that has been the subject of many months of speculation among reporters, bloggers, and campaign staffers.
Now, two sources have identified the site's creator: A New York political activist named Alex Rodriguez, pictured above.
I called Rodriguez yesterday.
"How do you know?" he asked.
I made the case to him that he might as well tell me his story.
He said he'd think about it, and hasn't called back.
Rodriguez has no evident connection to the Clinton campaign.
"He's a freelance political guy," said Cliff Arnebeck, an Ohio lawyer who worked with Rodriguez in 2004 and 2005.
Rodriguez has long been politically active outside the mainstream of two-party politics. Arnebeck said they met as Perot supporters in 1992.
In 1994, Rodriguez was reportedly involved in a fight between grassroots Perot supporters and Perot's close aides over control of United We Stand America, an umbrella group of Perot supporters.
More recently, in 2004, he was political director of the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign, one of whose leaders, Arnebeck, went on to file suit to overturn President Bush's 2004 victory in Ohio.
Ironically, Rodriguez, who lives on Manhattan's far West Side, was quoted by me and others earlier this year in stories about the cycle's most famous piece of anonymous politics -- Phil de Vellis's "Vote Different" video.
"He has a long history of dirty tricks and a shorter history of getting caught," said Rodriguez, who had run across de Vellis in Ohio. (De Vellis vigorously disputes the charge.)
There's no public record linking Rodriguez to Clinton's campaign, and he's not part of her New York political universe. The one of my two sources who had more detailed knowledge of his connection to the site, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity, had no evidence linking him to the campaign.
However, there's some suggestion that some close to the campaign were at least aware of his existence.
When I learned of his identity, I emailed Tracy Sefl, a Clinton consultant who is perhaps best known as the campaign's liaison to Drudge, and whom reporters and insiders have long speculated -- without evidence -- was behind the site. She was amused to learn that I'd finally linked someone to the site.
"I know very little about this. But I have been tremendously flattered by your opinion of my Web skills and assumptions about my free time," she emailed.
But she did seem, at least, to know Rodriguez's name.
I'd asked her if she knew "Alex." She then made a joke about the Yankee third baseman, also named Alex Rodriguez. But I hadn't supplied the full name of subject of my story, so I asked how she knew his last name.
"I don't know him. I just heard his name somewhere," she said, denying again any role in the site. "I haven't sent this person anything, ever."
