At what point does it make sense to spend time – and in some cases money – investigating the identity of an anonymous blogger who’s doing considerable damage to one’s reputation? That line varies for any candidate or company, but before action can be taken (if deemed necessary), innocent bystanders can be drug into the mud.

On December 1, 2008, www.KeepMikeDuncan.com became the digital hitching post of an anonymous blogger shilling for the potential candidacy of my former boss, Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan. Per recent conversations with a few online political strategists, there was an unfounded suspicion that I was the anonymous and incendiary “keepmikeduncan.” Had these conspiracy theorists done any real investigative research into the matter, it would have been abundantly clear that this theory is as based in as much reality as Dennis Kucinich’s UFO sighting.

A relatively easy WHOIS search yielded the following results for the domain www.keepmikeduncan.com:

Now then, from the above graphic we can tell the contact email for keepmikeduncan.wordpress.com and keepmikeduncan.com are one in the same. But more importantly, we now have an address and a means by which to ascertain the true identity of “keepmikeduncan.”

Via reverse address look-up, the registrant who purchased www.keepmikeduncan.com was a one Timothy M. Paskett of St. Paul, Minnesota, host town of the 2008 Republican National Convention.

So just who is this still-unknown Timothy Paskett that’s been getting under all the candidates’ skin? That’s a good question, and one for which I don’t have a definitive answer. I’m inclined to believe Paskett is a communications consultant vying for a contract with Duncan, who’s rumored to announce his intentions to seek a second term this week.

UPDATE: Per commenter “Fact finder,” Paskett has denied any involvement in www.KeepMikeDuncan.com. Given the fact that I’ve never heard of Paskett, I’m inclined to believe him. So now the bigger question is, who is using Paskett’s personal information? WHOIS doesn’t just generate random information. Someone intentionally entered that information when registering this domain.

Additionally, I intentionally redacted Paskett’s phone number from the above graphic, though some over-zealous supporters of rival candidates took it upon themselves to find the additional information.