Christopher Lyon

Christopher Lyon is an opposition researcher who has worked for Republican party candidates in New York, Virginia, New Jersey, and on the national level.

In 2000, Lyon worked for New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate Jeffrey Howard, and distributed flyers accusing opponent Gordon Humphrey's wife of being a member of an orgasm cult.^[1] The New Hampshire state Attorney General issued a cease-and-desist letter against Lyon for failing to disclose his campaign activities.^[2]

During the 2006 New Jersey Senate campaign, Lyon's work as a subcontractor on the campaign of Republican Tom Kean Jr. earned that campaign additional public scrutiny. Lyon's opposition research for the Kean campaign included work on a swiftboat-style movie said to show the complicity of Democratic incumbent Senator Bob Menendez in a 1980s case of corruption.^[3] That movie was never made, however.^[4]

In February 2007, another high-profile piece of Lyon's work surfaced at the website The Smoking Gun. A memo prepared for the 1993 campaign of Rudy Giuliani for Mayor of New York City details Giuliani's potential political vulnerabilities on issues such as race, social stances, and his personal "weirdness factor".^[5]

References

1. Cynthia Burton (July 2006). "Kean researcher's own past ends up in spotlight". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
2. Laura Mansnerus and Mike McIntire (October 5, 2006). "A Behind-the-Scenes Player Draws Notice in New Jersey". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-05.
3. "Kean Faults Menendez in 80's Corruption Case, but History Begs to Differ", The New York Times, June 25, 2006. Accessed April 5, 2008.
4. "Kean Campaign Cancels Film on Menendez, Producer Says", The New York Times, November 3, 2006. Accessed April 5, 2008.
5. "Rudy Giuliani's Vulnerabilities", The Smoking Gun, February 12, 2007. Accessed April 5, 2008.