Out of the $37.5 million spent so far by the PACs of six major tea party organizations, less than $7 million has been devoted to directly helping candidates, according to the analysis, which was based on campaign finance data provided by the Sunlight Foundation.
The dearth of election spending has left many favored tea party candidates exposed before a series of pivotal GOP primaries next month in North Carolina, Nebraska, Idaho and Kentucky.The 'bagmen are advancing some unique defenses:
Roughly half of the money — nearly $18 million — has gone to pay for fundraising and direct mail, largely provided by Washington-area firms. Meanwhile, tea party leaders and their family members have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees, while their groups have doled out large sums for airfare, a retirement plan and even interior decorating.
Adam Brandon, executive vice president of FreedomWorks, said that much of the group’s super PAC funds go toward training activists to make phone calls and walk door-to-door — expenditures that are not categorized as campaign-related but that pay off politically.Most of us learned how to make phone calls and walk before kindergarten. I understand it's a little harder for the fundies and Bundys.
Here's a heartwarming rags-to-riches tale for the suckers:
Fear and loathing is now the fastest growing market sector.
[Jenny Beth] Martin, the super PAC’s chairwoman, oversees all its expenditures, according to Broughton, meaning she sets her own $15,000 monthly fee for strategic consulting — payments that have totaled $120,000 since July.
She also draws a salary as president of the Tea Party Patriots’ nonprofit arm — getting more than $272,000 in the 2012 fiscal year, according to the group’s most recent tax filing.
Her twin salaries put her on track to make more than $450,000 this year, a dramatic change in lifestyle for the tea party activist, who had filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and then cleaned homes for a period of time to bring in extra money.Outrageous! We can only pray that the Roberts Court will put an end to such unconstitutional disclosure laws.
Fear and loathing is now the fastest growing market sector.
'Baggers like to say that The Tea Party has no leaders. But it has plenty of bleeders. But those chumps can only be bled dry once, and then the astroturf wars will begin in earnest.
3 comments:
To say nothing of Palin, whose PAC has spent almost no money on candidates in years.
They all took--straight to the bank--what Richard Viguerie has been doing for, what, forty-odd years? Direct mail produces results--for the direct mailer.
What is kind of horrifying, though, is the suggestion that the latest crop of propeller-beanied wackos running as Tea Partiers would do better at the polls if they got some of the money raised, as if political advertising is the only variable that matters. Which is kind of like saying that KFC could sell fried shit on a stick if they put enough advertising behind it. (That may well be true, but, damn, it's still horrifying to contemplate.)
Martin went from charwoman to chairwoman, proving that a can-do unto others attitude before they do unto you is all it takes to shake down the rubes and rake in the cash in these here United States you betcha! [Wink]
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