The Other Roger Stone

The Washington Post Sunday Magazine has a little section where they ask readers to send in their experiences. They asked for true tales of being mistaken for someone else. Here is what I wrote in (we'll see if they take it):

The Other Roger Stone

I happen to share my name with one of the more notorious (at least among my circle) Republican operatives. This has been particularly dicey because I am a Democratic consultant and have a listed number and he has tended not to, so I get his calls.

I first became aware of this when my phone rang at about 4:30 a.m. one morning in 1987.

“Roger?”
“Yes”
“This is mmmmm, we met at the Kemp Fundraiser.”
“Huh?”
“You heard that Congressman McKinney died.”
“Yeah”
Then the caller’s words came tumbling out. “Roger, I need your help. The Democrat is a nightmare, and no one else is conservative enough. We need State Senator XXXX to make the run. I want to go up to him at the funeral and say we have $200,000 lined up. I can’t raise that kind of money. I need your contacts. I need 100 people you can call and will do a $1,000 from them and a $1,000 from the wife. Can you help me?”
“You know there is more than one Roger Stone in DC.”
“Huh?
“I work for Senator Conrad, Democrat from North Dakota.”
“Oh Sh-t. They are going to be laughing at me in cloakroom tomorrow. You’re not going to go to the press with this?”


We got a good story in the Hartford Courant with the unfortunate headline: “Leaving the Wrong Stone Unturned.”


Roger Alan Stone is CEO of Advocacy, Inc. a pioneering political internet services and consulting firm.