I don't know exactly what to make of this, but a fascinating new 4000-word piece in the Villiage Voice claims that a GOP strategist is masterminding the Al Sharpton campaign:

Roger Stone, the longtime Republican dirty-tricks operative who led the mob that shut down the Miami-Dade County recount and helped make George W. Bush president in 2000, is financing, staffing, and orchestrating the presidential campaign of Reverend Al Sharpton.

Though Stone and Sharpton have tried to reduce their alliance to a curiosity, suggesting that all they do is talk occasionally, a Voice investigation has documented an extraordinary array of connections.

....Stone is apparently confident that he can use the Democrat-bashing preacher to damage the party's eventual nominee, just as Sharpton himself bragged he did in the New York mayoral campaign of 2001.

If there is any truth to the notion that the Sharpton campaign is a Republican dirty trick against the Dems, my respect for the GOP has just ratcheted up several notches.