Iowa Republican Party chairman Chuck Larson says the campaign “espionage” in the U-S Senate race has made all candidates especially wary. He says every Republican campaign is giving serious consideration as to whether their meetings have been bugged or their computers loaded with software to capture information.A meeting Republican U-S Senate candidate Greg Ganske held with financial backers was secretly recorded and a press operative for Ganske’s opponent, Democrat Tom Harkin, provided a transcript of the meeting to a newspaper reporter. Ganske campaign manager Bill Armistead says the incident makes the state’s political community fear they’re under surveillance.Eric Woolson, a spokesman for Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross, says campaigns always worry about spies.Woolson says in addition to high-tech eavesdropping, there’s the low-tech approach of having someone pose as a volunteer in order to learn something about the campaign. The Ganske campaign has repeatedly called for a criminal investigation of the secret taping. Harkin campaign manager Jeff Link issued a prepared statement late yesterday.Link said, again, that no one on the Harkin campaign or the Iowa Democratic Party staff attended or taped the meeting in question. The Harkin campaign got the transcript though, and Link has admitted someone in the Harkin press operation gave a copy to a newspaper reporter. Link stuck to his script and would not answer questions.
