Triple Standard
By Mitch Berg
The Strib is up in arms over out-of-state contributions to this past election.
Unions piling on in favor of DFLers? Teachers’ union money flooding districts and squashing all dissent? George Soros? Liberal pressure groups paying the freight for friendly bloggers?
Pfft. Get serious. Of course it’s a Republican private citizen!
A Houston homebuilder who helped finance the Swift Boat veterans campaign against former presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 was the primary bankroller of a Minnesota group that ran a harsh advertising blitz against Mike Hatch, the unsuccessful DFL candidate for governor this fall.
A spokesman for the group, the Minnesota chapter of A Stronger America, said Tuesday that Bob Perry contributed two-thirds of the $750,000 that was spent on TV ads and direct mail.
“I received a call from A Stronger America in Washington, which is where the bank account was held, informing me that a half a million dollars was wired into the account,” said Joe Weber, a spokesman for the Minnesota chapter. “At which point we sprung into action.”…It also allowed the group to mount an extensive television campaign that it otherwise might not have been able to muster.
Now, check out this next bit:
Some of the ads accused Hatch of two decades of “intimidation, arrogance and abuse of power,” and asserted that he was under investigation for “influence peddling” in a dispute with a judge.
Perry had helped finance the Swift Boat campaign against Kerry, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
What was that investigation? What are those allegations of intimidation and abuse (which have been rebounding around among Minnesota politics insiders for as long as I’ve been following the subject – along with allegations that the Strib has always played softball with the Attorney General)?
There were other connections between that SwMinnesota Monitoift Boat campaign and the efforts against Hatch. A Stronger America-Minnesota is registered in Minnesota with an Alexandria, Va., address. Hatch said before the election that he discovered that an insurance-industry backed group, Americans for Job Security, shared the same address.
(Side note: Before the election, I noted, correctly, that Minnesota Monitor, a local lefty site, was funded by a group that “shares an address” with Media Matters, George Soros’ PR agency. “Not fair!” cried the local leftybloggers who were being paid by the group that “shares” that address; “don’t believe what your eyes tell you – Minnesota Monitor isn’t a George Soros joint!”. But for Mike Hatch, “sharing an address” is apparently dispositive.
Hatch said Tuesday the election was over, and it was time to move on.”But the lesson learned is that the disclosure laws need to be updated so that people know who is participating in a campaign,” he said. “The way our laws are currently structured, you don’t find out until after the election.”
Well, there he has a point. Dislosure needs to be immediate…
…combined with repeal of our other, ludicrous campaign finance laws.
December 20th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
Perry’s fingers seem to be everywhere, especially here in the state of Texas. He tried to buy several state races this time around with mixed success, pouring money into the campaigns of voucher advocates. Fortunately he also backed candidates who had idiotic ideas about reworking public ed financing which was the major issue this time around. Most of his candidates lost in the primaries. Still, he has shown a willingness to throw his money around and it worries me that with practice he will become more effective. Any information the public can get on this guy is a good thing.