The viral website CarlyFiorina.org, a page critical of the newly announced White House contender, was created by an employee at the Service Employees International Union, which regularly supports the Democratic Party.
Michael Link, assistant director of digital strategy at the SEIU, told The Hill that he created the site, which has been shared by a number of prominent Democrats on Twitter. But he stressed that it was a personal project outside of the scope of his job with the SEIU.
{mosads}“It was something that I did completely unrelated to my job that I did with my own money on my own time,” he told The Hill.
“So it really has nothing to do with my job or my employer.”
The page says, “Carly Fiorina failed to register this domain. So I’m using it to tell you how many people she laid off at Hewlett-Packard,” followed by 30,000 sad-face emoticons that the site says represent people who lost their jobs while she was CEO of HP.
A domain lookup shows the site was registered in December, weeks after Fiorina said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” she was considering a bid for the presidency.
Mo Elleithee, the communications director for the Democratic National Committee, tweeted a link to the site as a barb at Fiorina, who announced her candidacy Monday morning on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Leslie Shedd, a press secretary with Carly for America, said the site shows Democrats are already looking for ways to attack Fiorina ahead of the tough GOP primary.
“No wonder the website is ‘delighting Democrats,’ she said, in reference to a line in The Hill’s initial story on the website.
“It was created by an arm of the Democratic Party last December. Looks like Democrats have been worried about Hillary Clinton’s most effective critic since last year.”
The SEIU regularly donates to Democratic groups and reported almost $70 million in outside expenditures during the 2012 elections, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.