The following post was emailed to me by a concerned citizen who is a regular on a neighboring blog. Elena and I felt it was a worthy post, considering the nature of the discussion regarding campaign financing.
Guest post by Mortimore Snerd.
Disclaimer: All guest posts are the opinion of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration
M-H
BVBL is attacking Democratic candidate Gary Friedman for lending his own campaign $101,000, comparing Mr. Friedman to Bernard Madoff and describing his action as duplicitous. These accusations are made despite that fact that the BVBL post itself links to the campaign finance filing showing that absolutely nothing wrong has taken place. The allegation is that candidate Friedman is attempting to deceive the voters of Prince William County into thinking that his support is broader than it actually is.
Let’s look at another case of a candidate moving money around to create an illusion of broad popular support. Corey Stewart seems to think that his Virginia Rule of Law campaign is a rousing success and, rather than doing the job he was elected to do as Chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, has been touring Virginia over the past few months promoting his scheme.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, after months of campaigning and publicity, total contributions to Stewart’s Virginia Rule of Law PAC are only $19,054. Of that amount, $5,000 is a transfer from the Stewart for PWC Board of County Supervisors Committee, and $8,849 is a loan from the Stewart for PWC Board of County Supervisors Committee. $13,849 out of $19,054 is nothing but money “laundered” from Stewart campaign coffers to deceive Virginians into believing that his relentless traversing of our commonwealth has built broad support for this campaign. The opposite is, in fact, true.
Let’s look at Stewart’s campaigns for the PWC Board of Supervisors. Between 2002 and 2004, mostly when campaigning for the Occoquan District seat, which was much cheaper to win than the Chair of the Board of County Supervisors election costs today, Stewart loaned his campaign $22,500. In relative terms, that’s a larger percentage of the cost of an election than will be Friedman’s $101,000 donation to his own campaign. Stewart repaid himself from campaign funds in 2008; the same year in which developer money started to represent the bulk of his campaign contributions.
Friedman trying to pull the wool over voters’ eyes? Why no outrage at Stewart’s PAC and campaign financing techniques? Gary Friedman has committed no legal or ethical violation. Comparing Friedman to Madoff and calling him duplicitous in light of Stewart’s many years of campaign finance shenanigans ignores reality in its entirety. If Friedman is Madoff, then Stewart is the entire banking lobby and mortgage-backed securities industry whose lies and corruption brought down our economy in 2008.
Thank you “Mortimore” for taking the time to write this great post. Calling Greg out on his BS is critical to getting the facts out so people can make informed decision.
I have to wonder, why did Greg compare Gary to Madoff? What similarity do they share? Hmmmmmmmmmm
I thought of that also Elena. hhmmmmmmm
Ladies,
The only commonality I see is that both are jewish. I doubt Greg would intentionally malign Gary Friedman simply due to religion, but it is curious.
Bernie Madoff cheated people out of their life savings via a ponzi scheme, nothing at all similar to what Greg accuses Gary Friedman of. Regardless, Greg is on very thin ice comparing the two as though they are equal criminals. Poor taste, maybe even worse.
“The allegation is that candidate Friedman is attempting to deceive the voters of Prince William County into thinking that his support is broader than it actually is.”
I have read the press release, and viewed the campaign finance report, and I would draw the same inference. He did absolutely nothing illegal. He is trying to make the campaign look well funded, and the casual reader would assume that this came from fundraising and donors, which would indicate broad popular support. Political marketing and spin, pure and simple.
Is it wrong? Nope. Disengenous? I think that a matter of opinion.
As a veteran of many campaigns, things such as this are pretty commonplace. Campaigns will delay recording large expenses until after the filing period, or list “in-kind” donations at premium value, but none of this is illegal. It’s a bit embarrasing to be caught doing so. Were I managing his campaign, I would have advised against the press release, especially this early. What I suspect the motivation behind this is to scare away potential challengers from within the party for the nomination. I mean, if he’s got $100K in the bank to spend on a nominations contest, plus the general and I don’t, I am going to be less inclined to challenge him. Pretty good strategy, poorly executed. There are ways to get that information out there, without poorly worded press release, giving my potential opponents a chance to embarass the campaign.
Apparently the N & M has other information:
http://www2.insidenova.com/news/2011/jan/21/corey-stewart-leads-challengers-campaign-fundraisi-ar-790061/?referer=None&shorturl=http://insidenova.com/ar/790061/
I don’t see what Friedman has to do with Madoff. Not even close. I would think Mag Whitman might have been a safer, less questionable choice to compare Friedman to if I were having a burning desire to take a swipe at someone.
Yes, using one owns money is quite different than stealing from unsuspecting clients and going to jail for life. I wonder why Greg is incapable of having a rational debate.
Steve brought up interesting points, none that resembled anything like Greg’s diatribe.
Jon Stewart should do a stint on Greg sometime! He and Rep Cohen have some things in common.
@Elena
Ah you mean the old “Nazi’s wear brown shirts, UPS drivers wear brown shirts. Then UPS drivers are NAZI argument?”
Yup. Maybe a What makes a Nazi a Nazi lesson is in order.
Someone (Veteran) has questioned Greg about the funding of Corey’s Rule of Law Campaign. Wanna bet how long those posts stay up? The funding is just as Mortimer described.
Never confuse a minion with facts. Many are ready to lead the charge and come carry Mortimer off to the gallows. Veteran needs to be careful. He will meet the same fate.
Interesting that the dark screen has published documents containing personal banking information as well as Mr. Friedman’s home address. That is just trashy and low. At least white out the home address and banking numbers.
It is never acceptable to post someone’s address online. It happened on antibvbl once, when she first got started. Alanna saw it and took it down immediately. Even so we were criticized for it, even though a person not associated with antibvbl did it.
That problem needs to be fixed immediately. I feel certain no one on that blog would like it if it were done to them. Sure, it is all public information but don’t dangle out home addresses for all to see. It is just bad form.
The pattern of Stewart’s campaign financing is very interesting. The residential development lobby is pulling out all of the stops to ensure that the Gang of Five – Stewart, Covington, Nohe, Caddigan and John Jenkins – gets reelected. This is the group that routinely rubber stamps whatever the developers want. The developers must do this to keep their building pipeline going. The Washington, DC market is one of the most lucrative in the nation. Prince William County has the most open space and greenfield land of any jurisdiction in the DC metropolitan market. This is the cheapest and most lucrative land to development. Moreover, the economy is recovering now.
The process of getting the rezoning and comp plan amendment to actually selling a residential unit is years. The developers want the next BOCS to get to work immediately on this process. It’s very simple – if the Gang of Five gets reelected Prince William County will become a crowded, high tax jurisdiction with less structure than jurisdictions closer in to DC that have had better development planning. The Conservative Alliance and Advocates for the Rural Crescent might as well shut down because in a few years there will be nothing left to conserve or protect.
Corey’s Virginia Rule of Law PAC on the other hand is receiving nothing from developers. He is keeping it on life support by rolling money over from his other accounts. His masters in the development lobby will not allow him to pursue this in any serious way because they need the cheap, illegal labor for their planned building boom.
If the Gang of Five is reelected, everyone loses. Corey has obviously already stabbed in the back those who support sensible development and conservation. However, Corey is also using Greg and his supporters, and has some knives with their names on them at the ready. Greg doesn’t realize it yet, but he is being used just like Corey used Elena and others who support conservation. If Corey and the Gang of Five get reelected, Greg will have just as many knives sticking out of his back as do the many of Corey’s previous victims.
As I recall, Corey also took a substantial personal loan when he first ran for chair, I wonder how Greg reacted to that inside donation?
@Elena,
Its ok with him, I expect. Since when are people ever held to the same standard in the world of dark screen.