Free Me From the Political Drama
A recent article in the Charlotte Observer’s Campaign Tracker indicated that the Tea Party was on a “suicide mission in NC” via it’s headline. As the President of the Charlotte Tea Party, I naturally have an interest in reviewing such statements.
Apparently “the tea party has named its top 2014 target in North Carolina: U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger.”
Interesting. I hadn’t gotten the memo.
In all seriousness, I love the seemingly perpetual notion that there is “a” tea party. You know the meme. We’re all racists and funded by the Koch Brothers. Our weekly teleconference is on Tuesdays…
Back on point, the specific group named in the article as gunning for Rep. Pittenger is the “Tea Party Leadership Fund PAC”. Never heard of them? Me neither.
The organization’s message to Pittenger: “You have failed to honor your commitment to your constituents and the values they entrusted you to uphold,” wrote Dan Backer, the group’s treasurer and general counsel. “All leaders must face and accept accountability for their choices. You chose to disregard your pledge to these American voters and now must be held accountable.”
Well, I can’t say I disagree. Rep. Pittenger was a virtual ping pong ball on the issue of defunding Obamacare. He was against it before he was for it before he was against it again. In the end, he was one of 87 Republicans in the House to join with the Democrats to end the government shutdown.
So far so good with the Leadership Fund. Since I had never heard of the group, I thought it would be interesting to check their finances and history of candidate support. They must be something big. After all, even Team Pittenger decided to use their threat of a challenge in a recent fundraising letter.
According to OpenSecrets.org, so far for the 2014 election cycle, they have contributed a total of just $18,500 to six different House candidates. One of those candidates is Robert Pittenger, to whom they donated $1,000.
Seriously? Wasn’t expecting that!
Yep, on June 12, 2013, TPLF PAC felt so compelled to support Pittenger that they gave him a grand.
(Edit: As I’m writing this, I just learned that the fund has asked Pittenger for the money back. Fair enough. For a man who spent 2.3 million of his own money, that’s gotta sting!)
Diving farther into their financials, the groups legitimacy comes into question.
In 2012, the TPLF PAC spent $951,097 but only donated $57,500 to candidates and only spent $154,172 on independent expenditures. Where did the rest of the money go? $731,383.64 went to “other federal operating expenditures”. That’s a lot of overhead.
So far in 2013, for the 2014 cycle, they have raised $1,377,023 and spent $1,386,195. $74,500 went to federal candidates and $25,783 to independent expenditures. You guessed it, $1,246,730.92 has gone to “other federal operating expenditures”.
Now, perhaps I’m totally misunderstanding “other expenditures”, but in searching through actual checks paid out, it seems the bulk of their spending is going to outside fundraising organizations and list generation companies. There is a significant gap between money raised and money spent on candidates and PACs.
This year, I see payments of $9,000 per month going to DB Capitol Strategies, PLLC. DB is owned by Dan Backer, as mentioned earlier, the group’s treasurer and general counsel. Pretty sweet.
So, ok. Let’s check out Dan Backer. He must be a rabid conservative in order to be running such an organization.
Well, according to the left’s ThinkProgress (which can always be counted on for checking out conservative groups):
“And while Backer laments that the “only sound these establishment sell-outs seem to hear is the sound of money from crony capitalist pals,” a review of his own donations finds his own giving has been anything but focused on electing only true conservatives. In addition to a $425 donation to Mitt Romney, Backer gave $250 to the leadership PAC for former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) — nine months after Brown made it clear that he was not a Tea Partier and dismissed the Tea Party movement’s role in his 2010 special election win.”
“Most of Backer’s recent donations, however, went to two PACs focused not on conservative causes but on college fraternities and sororities. He gave $2,305 to ZETEPAC, a PAC aimed only at electing Zeta Psi fraternity alumni to political office. The PAC’s recipients have included Democratic California State Senator Alex Padilla and Democratic New York City Councilman Dan Garodnick. He also gave $2,000 to Fraternity & Sorority PAC, a committee which supports candidates “who support the objectives of fraternity life” — including Democrats like Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) — all who whom voted for the Affordable Care Act.”
So man alive. What do we make of all this?
Here’s where my gut is.
A fake Tea Party organization dedicated to enriching those who run it gave a token donation to Robert Pittenger in June. It’s one of only six donations thusfar in their reporting cycle. How they came on board in the first place is anyone’s guess.
Fast forward less than six months, and this group realizes that Pittenger wasn’t necessarily as with them as they thought. They ask for the money back and place him in the crosshairs of a “tea party vendetta”.
A press release on the matter goes viral with the main stream media and Pittenger is able to utilize the non-existent threat as a motivational tool in a fundraising letter.
Looks like a win-win here. This group gains some exposure as “taking on the establishment” even though it’s pretty clear they don’t really do much. Perhaps it will translate into even more money for their “other expenditures”.
Pittenger on the other hand gets to use the worthless hit piece as a catalyst to fundraise even more dollars against the perceived threat.
All in all, the political class seems to win here. The people who fall for this contrived drama? Not so much.
Sounds link a typical lack of Journalism standards and wishful thinking
Christian missed his true calling as an investigative journalist. Certainly a better job than the one that wrote the original piece. Just goes to show you never trust the story of a entity with a hand out without verifying what they do with their money. The AG should be interested in their activities.
Thanks for digging this up, Christian. I think I’ll start a PAC and collect $9K a month. I’ll even donate $1000 to Pundit House.
Something needs to be done about all of these groups co-opting the Tea Party name…not to mention the media portraying the Tea party with every right wing racist nut job they can find.
I agree that “something” needs to be done about ALL of the scammers, crooks & con-men using any PAC as a vehicle to steal money. Yet, let’s NOT get all worked up about the fact that the Tea Party has done plenty to fully earn that title of Neo-Nazi, Right Wing, Racist, Nut Jobs. Simply because you exposed one crook among MANY in your own ilk, doesn’t make you guys all righteous.
Donn Ried just had his email read on O’Rielly Factor – he said the Tea Party will not rally around CHris Christie. (Other than glad-handing Obama isn’t CHristie pretty conservative? He is anti-tax, anti-union, etc)
He hugged Obama and compromised with his legislature, that makes him impure and unworthy to the extreme right. Donn can support Cruz or Paul all he wants, he’s not going to get much more money from the establishment of the Republican Party. So it doesn’t really matter who they support. Tea Time is over.
BCG (if I may) check out the federal bailout after the storm – even through the majority wouldn’t be spent for 2 years and a large percentage was going to be spent out of region (pork?) AND there was an alternate bill that addressed the devastation better, Christie supported the bill that gave HIM more money. I will fight HARD to stop this progressive, if he runs for national office.
You may – I don’t have a dog (or elephant 😉 ) in that fight…
Brevity of words. Try it.
You first.
Is the Tea Party even a “thing” anymore?
A “THING” is exactly what it is…Just like “THE THING THAT CAME FROM THE SWAMP”… lol. An abomination of freaks that have happily been bought out by the very thing they first claimed to be against. Once, a rather scattered amalgamation of Grass Roots Groups that wanted to incite change for the better, they’ve now become the Poster Children for the Koch Bros/Big Corp & the Neo-Nazi, Right Wing, Takeover Movement, to overthrow the US Government. ANYONE that believes that shutting down the government, taking this country hostage, inciting Extortion, refusing to help the truly needy, cutting benefits to the hungry, denying proper & decent medical care to the sick & suffering & forcing their selfish will on the entire country, are still called Anarchists in my book.
So when there is a Republican President and a Democrat Congress shuts down the Government the Democrats are Neo Nazi’s?
Christian- Brant over at Haymaker is using your 2011 April fools parody as if it was an actual news story that you wrote- kind of funny but yet sad at the same time.
Here’s why I am an Independent.
Several comments have been made about people hijacking the Tea Party name and the left using one right wing idiot’s photo standing in front of the White House with a Confederate Flag to brand all legitimate Tea Party members (and everyone right of center) as racists.
The left, particularly those blowhards on MSNBC and their followers, are constantly calling the Tea Party racists, bigots and wanting to overthrow the government and relish in shutting it down. They use Obama as their convenient crutch because he’s Black.
The Tea Party exists whether some people like it or not. The Tea Party is no different than The Whig Party, Free Soil Party, Opposition Party, Know Nothing Party or the Constitutional Party just to name a few, as they were all born in their times for a reason.
The Republican Party was founded out of many of those groups fracturing over states rights, slavery and other issues of the day.
Many of them went to the Democrat Party, a party that was also born out of a fracture with the Federalist Party.
People on the left, in the party I now call the New Hypocrisy Democrat Party, fail to understand history. Maybe because they spend so much time trying to re-write it.
They forget little tidbits like the KKK was formed by Southern Democrats to harrass/murder anti-slavery Republicans. They forget that the first Grand Wizard was recognized at their convention in 1868. Instead, they want to jump 100 years and assign the KKK to Republicans.
Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was one of the party’s biggest racists, bigots and segregationists, but shhh…they won’t talk about that.
Bottom line is, the Tea Party will exist as long as there are candidates and voters who elect them, whether you agree with their platform or not.
Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. Democrats should remember that, but they won’t
How very independent of you.
You should try it sometime.
What I like is the new ignorance saying Lincoln was a Democrat!
Thank you Mr. Coyote, I have enjoyed your online comments for several years!
Like I always say, ‘Strive to be smarter than the democrackkks WANT you to BE!’
…and remember, being a registered democrackkk, in my book, makes one a CRIMINAL, as it’s led by total CRIMINALS. You people better wake up.
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