- Sep 26, 2000
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http://www.reformer.com/headlines/ci_3725668
MONTPELIER -- When Jim Barnett tried to raise eyebrows about a Bernard Sanders television ad buy last week, Sanders' campaign had a ready response.
A Sanders spokesman said the campaign had spent about $30,000 on the ad buy. Records at South Burlington TV station WCAX showed him spending only $13,668, said Barnett, the chairman of the Vermont Republican Party.
"Right now, there is a $16,000 gap in the facts," said Barnett. "Congressman Sanders needs to explain where the rest of this money was spent."
That's easy, said Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager. "There's more than one broadcast station," he said.
Seven months to go before the November election, and the campaign finance brickbats are already flying. It could be a harbinger of what most political observers agree easily will be the most expensive political season in Vermont history.
Millionaire businessman and Republican Senate candidate Richard Tarrant has set the pace for spending so far. As of the end of March, he had spent $1.8 million, including on spaghetti dinners he has been hosting around the state and frequent television commercials that have been running since January.
"If he spends $10 million, and that's not unlikely, and let's say he gets 100,000 votes, that's $100 per vote," said Eric Davis, a professor of political science at Middlebury College.
Sanders, an independent allied with Democrats, and Peter Welch, the state Senate president pro tem who is running for Congress, both have taken money and are expected to take more from national Democratic organizations and drawing Republican criticism for it.
But Democrats have been making the most noise about Republican money, looking for links to the poster boys for what they call the Republican "culture of corruption:" indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
So far, they've tried to score points with the $10,000 Republican congressional candidate Martha Rainville received from Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. and a former top DeLay lieutenant.
They've also been digging into Gov. James Douglas' 2002 and 2004 campaign contributions. The first state campaign disclosure filings for 2006 aren't due until August.
In his first run for governor in 2002, Douglas got $500,000 from a group that is at the center of a Texas grand jury's indictment of DeLay. In the 2002 race, when Douglas defeated Democrat Douglas Racine, he got $450,000 from one account and $50,000 from another administered by the Republican National State Elections Committee, the RNSEC.
The felony indictment against DeLay alleges he was part of a conspiracy that laundered money by using the RNSEC as a conduit for corporate contributions to Texas House candidates. Texas, unlike Vermont, bans corporate giving in state elections.
In 2004 the Republican Governors' Association made $304,000 worth of late October ad buys aimed at helping Douglas' re-election.
The attorney general's office concluded -- and a judge agreed -- that the RGA violated Vermont's campaign finance law by failing to register with the secretary of state's office as a political action committee. The RGA disputed the finding.
Democrats also have accused Douglas of a "flip-flop," blasting the "insidious nature" of out-of-state money in Vermont campaigns when he ran against Sen. Patrick Leahy in 1992 and taking hundreds of thousands of out-of-state dollars a decade later.
Davis said it wasn't clear how much this all resonates with voters.
"I'm not sure how much voters are going to base decisions on who took money from whom," Davis said. "It certainly is going to get a lot of press coverage." He said he would be disappointed "if campaign finance stories come at the expense of stories about issues."
For a state with a history of clean, locally funded elections this recent influx of Republican money, most of it from disgraced sources is frightening.
I don't understand how the Republicans can criticize Sanders for spending 30,000 when their candidate has already spent 1.8 million?
And this info about Tom Delays criminal funds coming to Vermont is sickening. How much money did the Republicans raise and funnell illegaly in the last few years?
And perhaps the scariest quote was the last where scholar Davis says this whole money scam thing doesn't seem to matter to voters.
Scary.
I wonder, how much money did Delay and Abrahamoff raise and spend in YOUR state?
MONTPELIER -- When Jim Barnett tried to raise eyebrows about a Bernard Sanders television ad buy last week, Sanders' campaign had a ready response.
A Sanders spokesman said the campaign had spent about $30,000 on the ad buy. Records at South Burlington TV station WCAX showed him spending only $13,668, said Barnett, the chairman of the Vermont Republican Party.
"Right now, there is a $16,000 gap in the facts," said Barnett. "Congressman Sanders needs to explain where the rest of this money was spent."
That's easy, said Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager. "There's more than one broadcast station," he said.
Seven months to go before the November election, and the campaign finance brickbats are already flying. It could be a harbinger of what most political observers agree easily will be the most expensive political season in Vermont history.
Millionaire businessman and Republican Senate candidate Richard Tarrant has set the pace for spending so far. As of the end of March, he had spent $1.8 million, including on spaghetti dinners he has been hosting around the state and frequent television commercials that have been running since January.
"If he spends $10 million, and that's not unlikely, and let's say he gets 100,000 votes, that's $100 per vote," said Eric Davis, a professor of political science at Middlebury College.
Sanders, an independent allied with Democrats, and Peter Welch, the state Senate president pro tem who is running for Congress, both have taken money and are expected to take more from national Democratic organizations and drawing Republican criticism for it.
But Democrats have been making the most noise about Republican money, looking for links to the poster boys for what they call the Republican "culture of corruption:" indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
So far, they've tried to score points with the $10,000 Republican congressional candidate Martha Rainville received from Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. and a former top DeLay lieutenant.
They've also been digging into Gov. James Douglas' 2002 and 2004 campaign contributions. The first state campaign disclosure filings for 2006 aren't due until August.
In his first run for governor in 2002, Douglas got $500,000 from a group that is at the center of a Texas grand jury's indictment of DeLay. In the 2002 race, when Douglas defeated Democrat Douglas Racine, he got $450,000 from one account and $50,000 from another administered by the Republican National State Elections Committee, the RNSEC.
The felony indictment against DeLay alleges he was part of a conspiracy that laundered money by using the RNSEC as a conduit for corporate contributions to Texas House candidates. Texas, unlike Vermont, bans corporate giving in state elections.
In 2004 the Republican Governors' Association made $304,000 worth of late October ad buys aimed at helping Douglas' re-election.
The attorney general's office concluded -- and a judge agreed -- that the RGA violated Vermont's campaign finance law by failing to register with the secretary of state's office as a political action committee. The RGA disputed the finding.
Democrats also have accused Douglas of a "flip-flop," blasting the "insidious nature" of out-of-state money in Vermont campaigns when he ran against Sen. Patrick Leahy in 1992 and taking hundreds of thousands of out-of-state dollars a decade later.
Davis said it wasn't clear how much this all resonates with voters.
"I'm not sure how much voters are going to base decisions on who took money from whom," Davis said. "It certainly is going to get a lot of press coverage." He said he would be disappointed "if campaign finance stories come at the expense of stories about issues."
For a state with a history of clean, locally funded elections this recent influx of Republican money, most of it from disgraced sources is frightening.
I don't understand how the Republicans can criticize Sanders for spending 30,000 when their candidate has already spent 1.8 million?
And this info about Tom Delays criminal funds coming to Vermont is sickening. How much money did the Republicans raise and funnell illegaly in the last few years?
And perhaps the scariest quote was the last where scholar Davis says this whole money scam thing doesn't seem to matter to voters.
Scary.
I wonder, how much money did Delay and Abrahamoff raise and spend in YOUR state?
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