"A series of shocking text messages purportedly show Philip Frank, the partner of Democratic State Representative and Madison-area Congressional candidate Mark Pocan..."

"... threatened a volunteer for Pocan’s Republican opponent days before the volunteer was found beaten. Last Wednesday, Kyle Wood, a full-time volunteer with Republican Chad Lee’s Congressional campaign, was beaten inside his home in Madison by a yet-unidentified attacker who claimed that as a gay man Wood should be supporting the gay candidate for Congress."

This is an extremely disturbing story that appears at Media Trackers, which describes itself as "a conservative non-profit, non-partisan investigative watchdog." This elaborates on the report which we discussed here, 3 days ago. At the time, I said: "Real or hoax? I don't know, but I remember Ashley Todd from the '08 election season."

ADDED: If these really are texts from Pocan's partner, we ought to know more about the whole context. Maybe these 2 men have been exchanging playful texts that would make this material feel more like joking. Releasing this texting conversation makes it fair for the other side to release other conversations, and yet it's not in Pocan's interest to draw attention to any of this.

UPDATE: Media Trackers has taken down the long text conversation it previously posted.

UPDATE 2: "Kyle Wood, a campaign worker for the Republican congressional candidate Chad Lee, today recanted his statements about being assaulted and choked at his home on Oct. 24, according to Madison police." Recanted?! That's not enough. Either it was a false report or it wasn't. If it was false, Wood has committed a crime.