"We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge" - Barack Obama (aka President Malaise)
Pandak’s DPV Mailings
By Greg L | 4 November 2006 | Prince William County | 6 Comments
I’ve gone through the latest campaign finance report filed by Sharon Pandak, and it seems as if the Pandak campaign has properly accounted for in-kind donations from the Democratic Party of Virginia. There’s no indication that the campaign contributed to the DPV and engaged in the same practice of improperly “renting” the non-profit bulk rate permit of the Democratic Party of Virginia as was done by the Jeanette Rishell campaign. I guess their campaign staff is a little more competent than those working for Rishell.
One question remains, however. The first hit piece “No, Corey, No” has the disclaimer “Paid for by the Democratic Party of Virginia, www.vademocrats.org” but does not indicate who authorized the mailing. A subsequent mailer includes “and authorized by Sharon Pandak, candidate for Chairman”. My understanding is that the law requires the name of the organization or individual who authorized the mailing, and it’s missing from the hit piece DPV sent in support of Pandak.
Is it really worth a the price of committing a violation of campaign finance law to deliberately hide from voters who authorized that piece of trash? Maybe Pedro will happily tolerate the stink of this, but not I.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
You can follow the discussion through the Comments feed.
6 Comments
Views: 809
Loading ...
Greg, the reason is that there is no authorized by line is because the candidate did not authorize the piece of mail. In the case of the mailers in which there is an authorized by line I am sure that the DPVA and the candidate talked about the content of the mailer in advance. With the piece you mention the DPVA probably did not talk with the candidate about mailing it out in advance. I believe that a PAC can send a mailer or air TV ads without the candidate’s approval. Note all of the attack ads on TV right now that are paid for by the parties but not the candidates.
I don’t particularly like these mailers, or the nasty mailer I got from Stewart’s campaign, but I doubt any laws were broken in producing and mailing them.
Well, someone authorized it and by law whoever did is required to be identified on the mailing. Just putting who paid for the mailing is insufficient.
Even an independent expenditure is required to have both the party paying for the mailer and the party authorizing the mailer to be disclosed. All of the other Pandak lit I’ve gotten had both components of the disclaimer, when they were the same party, and when they were not. This particular piece did not identify the authorizing party.
It’s a violation.
If there was a violation in this case it was the DPVA’s violation and not the Pandak campaign as they did not pay for or authorize it. Both sides are playing dirty right now. Just look at the false and deceitful mailer the Republican Committee sent out. I have a post up about that right now.
We don’t know if Pandak authorized it, since this is the sole DPV mailer for Pandak that doesn’t say it was authorized by her.
I saw your post, and I’d honestly be shocked if it didn’t turn out that the in-kind of $61K by DPV wasn’t financed almost entirely with developer money. With DPV focused on other races like Webb and Kellam, this in-kind is suspiciously generous. Did PWCRC have enough hard data to support their claims though? I don’t know. I hope they did, otherwise the committee membership will likely be asking some pointed questions.
One arguably claims the other is developer-friendly. The other claims the opponent is opposed to all publilc safety funding. To me, even though it’s a hard-fought race Pandak’s side is engaged in the more eggrgious behavior.
Your mileage may vary.
I hate negative campaigns. I am tired of all of the attack ads on TV and showing up in the mail box. Neither side is better/worse for their attack ads. They are equally wrong there.
There’s definitely a place for them, and like it or not they’ve been a part of the political landscape since George Washington declined to run for a third term.
Just imagine running a local race in a market where the local media is somewhat hostile and your opponent has been evading questions about their record or history of political activism. How do you get the truth out there for voters to consider unless you point these things out?
As long as it’s not personal, I’m fine with negative campaigning — and rebutting it.