Noe, The Blade and the '04 election
Democrats have engaged in an orgy of finger-pointing and what-iffing over the 2004 presidential race. Now Salon.com has added a new wrinkle to the game, suggesting the Tom Noe coin-investment scandal could have brought down George W. Bush—if a Toledo columnist hadn't sat on the story.
In a recent article, reporter Bill Frogameni asserts that Toledo Blade political columnist Fritz Wenzel, who later left the paper to take a job as a GOP campaign operative, knew about problems with Noe's practices 10 months before Bush was re-elected president.
Citing a "Toledo Republican Party insider" and "sources familiar with The Blade," Frogameni writes that Wenzel was told in January 2004 by Joe Kidd, a well-connected Toledo Republican, about a brewing Noe campaign-finance scandal.
Wenzel denies this version of events. He told Frogameni he received the Noe tip in the spring of 2004 and immediately passed it on to his editors. Blade Publisher John Robinson Block, as well as other editors at the paper, back up their former columnist, according to the story.
But the denials don't stop Frogameni from rolling out circumstantial evidence against Wenzel.
The story details personal connections between Wenzel and Noe. Wenzel's son, P.J., was elected to the Lucas County Republican Central Committee when it was chaired by Noe's wife, Bernadette. And the Noes attended P.J.'s wedding, according to the story.
In the end, a delay of several months in The Blade's investigation meant the first Coingate story didn't run until January 2005. That delay, Frogameni argues, ended up making all the difference in the November election.