Brilliant new anti-Pearce ad from CUP

Citizens United for Progress, the group responsible for sending out fliers targeting state Senate President Russell Pearce in the Legislative District 18 recall election, will begin running the above anti-Pearce attack ad on local TV either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week.

The info in the ad is solid, even if the source of the ad is suspect. On Thursday, the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office announced an audit of CUP and two other so-called “Citizens United” groups.

The SOS argues that the group should register and follow reporting requirements dictated by Arizona law.

“Any entity whose primary purpose is to influence elections,” said Bennett via press release, “they must register as a political committee, disclose their contributors and list their expenditures.”

CUP, through its statutory agent, Phoenix attorney Steven Hirsch, argues that because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission,it doesn’t have to do jack.

In Citizens, the high court forbade the government from restricting political expenditures by corporations and unions. It did not invalidate requirements on reporting those expenditures. But Hirsch takes another view.

“It is…correct that Citizens United for Progress has not registered or filed expenditure notifications with the Secretary of State,” Hirsch wrote to state elections director Amy Chan on October 21. “We respectfully disagree with your inferred conclusion that this non-profit entity is required to do so.”

CUP’s “primary purpose” seems to be that of influencing the outcome of the LD18 recall race. Formed as a non-profit corporation in August, it has as its “director ” one Justin Tash, an undergrad at Arizona State University. The mailing address given is a UPS mail box on ASU’s Tempe campus.

Tash is the son of William Tash, owner of Cactus Investigation, a private detective agency,of which William’s son Justin is a part owner.

Though it’s a little difficult to swallow that an ASU student all on his lonesome could form a corporation and raise enough money to send out thousands of fliers and produce a slick TV ad, I guess it’s possible that Tash is a young Barry Goldwater in the making.

Still, one wonders if Tash was recruited to be the “director” by the moneymen (or women) behind the enterprise. A lot of lawyers around town use Cactus Investigation, you see.

The group’s spokesman, Republican political consultant Chase Barrett, denies that Tash was recruited. According to Barrett, the group has “a variety of donors,” and its main purpose is “educating the electorate.”

Sources have indicated to me that GOP consultant Kyle Moyer has had a hand in the creation of CUP. So far, Moyer has not returned my calls asking for comment. Barrett, however, said that Moyer was not involved in CUP

Also, Barrett promised that CUP would not be disappearing after November 8, and that it had “other issues” that it would be advocating for or against.

Barrett was briefly the spokesperson for Pearce-foe Jerry Lewis after Lewis announced his candidacy for state Senate. In 2008, he worked for Republican Kevin Gibbons in the LD18 GOP primary, where Gibbons challenged Pearce.

No doubt the wingnut blogs will attempt to make much of these associations. However, the pool of Republican political consultants in this town is highly incestuous, to say the least. They all know each other, and at one time or another, seem to have worked either with or for each other.

Take Moyer, for instance. Moyer apparently still owns shares in Chad Willems’ Summit Consulting, which is managing Pearce’s re-election campaign. This, at least, is what Summit’s most recent filing with the Arizona Corporation Commission indicates.

Yet, Moyer is a local player in his own right with Kyle Moyer and Company, which appears to be  involved with a different Citizens United group, the pro-Wes Gullett “organization”Arizona Citizens United.

ACU also boasts a UPS box as its headquarters, and once again, attorney Steven Hirsch is the non-profit’s statutory agent.

ACU’s director is Rachel Naylor, a young employee of Moyer’s. I’ve contacted both Naylor and Moyer in a variety of ways, asking for them to confirm that she is the same Naylor listed as director. So far, no reply.

Though, politically, I like both the CUP mailers and the TV ad, I wish that the people behind CUP had enough stones to do things by the book and not hide behind these various intrigues and this lame the-Citizens-United-decision-absolves-us-from-all-wrongdoing line.

Jerry Lewis has not been deceptive in his campaign. Nor has the anti-Pearce, pro-recall group Citizens for a Better Arizona. Better if all the deception’s in Pearce’s lap as we head into November 8.

So much sweeter then will be the win.

In the final days leading up to the Nov. 8 general election, both want voters to know the difference.

“I think it’s our job to be 100 percent the guardian for consumers,” said incumbent Democrat Brandon Presley, who seeks a second term. “My record is unparalleled in the history of the Public Service Commission of voting against rate hikes. I’ve stood up to special interests more than anybody ever. That’s the truth.”

Presley said he opposed the biggest rate increase in state history by rejecting Mississippi Power Company’s Kemper County Coal Plant, which would raise its south Mississippi customers’ utility rates a reported 45 percent to cover the cost of the $2.8 billion project.

Republican challenger Boyce Adams said he would have supported the plant had he been in Presley’s seat because of its economic impact and clean coal technologies.

“Energy is the future in Mississippi, and I think the energy economy will lead Mississippi out of this recession,” Adams said. “But we have to make sure we have our doors open for business and cut unnecessary regulation.”

He then chided Presley for rejecting the coal plant against the desires of Mississippi’s top political leaders, and he disputed the company would raise utility fees.

“The 45 percent rate hike is not factual, it’s a scare tactic promoted by the Sierra Club,” Adams said. “There is no rate hike associated with the project.”

But in a document filed by Mississippi Power Company with the Public Service Commission in 2009, the company itself estimated its average residential customer would pay an additional $60 per month from 2014 through 2020 to fund the plant.

MPC said it represents about a 30 percent increase. But the Mississippi Business Journal, which has done a series of stories on the issue, said it’s actually a 45 percent increase based on average residential consumption of 1,200 kilowatt hours per month.

Adams also accused Presley of illegally accepting a campaign contribution four years ago from Mitchell Scruggs and then hiding that fact. According to state election rules, candidates for the Public Service Commission can’t accept campaign donations from people or entities regulated by the PSC.

Until three weeks ago, Scruggs had served as president of the North Lee County Water Association, which has come under fire for a series of allegations involving mismanagement and falsifying water samples.

“The minimum penalty for willfully accepting campaign money from anybody you’d regulate is removal from office,” Adams said. “It’s not legal or ethical.”

Campaign finance records show Presley accepted $1,000 from Mitchell Scruggs Farm on April 27, 2007. The money was returned to Scruggs on Jan. 31, 2008.

“Obviously, I didn’t know he sat on the water board at the time I accepted the donation,” Presley said. “I don’t know every person who sits on every board in the district. But as soon as I realized it, I returned the money. Period.”

Adams said he’s in the same position as Presley, yet he hasn’t accepted a single contribution from anyone associated with a utility.

He has, however, accepted donations from Washington lobbyists who work on behalf of utilities. Matt Wise and Bret Boyles, both of whom lobby for AT&T, each gave Adams $250 this year.

“It’s different, they’re personal friends,” Adams said. “They are not registered lobbyists in Mississippi. There’s nothing legally that prohibits” contributions from lobbyists.

Adams went on to criticize Presley’s handling of the North Lee County Water Association debacle. He said had Presley heeded the early warning signs, he could have avoided the entire situation. Instead, Adams said, his opponent ignored customer complaints about poor water quality until the issue became public through the Daily Journal.

Presley said his investigators handled each of the 77 complaints filed by North Lee customers to the PSC since he took office. But none of them alleged falsified water samples or mismanagement from the supervisor and board of directors.

Presley also questioned how well his opponent would have handled North Lee in light of Adams’ Sept. 26 letter to all water association boards in the district.

“I want you to know that, if elected, I will not overstep my authority as commissioner, like some have done in the past,” Adams wrote. “I vow to work with each water association to assist in their needs – not dictate their performance.”

He also said the “the last thing we need right now is more regulation.”

Adams said he meant the letter as an invitation to collaborate, not as a carte blanche to operate outside the law. He also said that most water associations work well with their customers and the government and he doesn’t want to unnecessarily burden the good boards with rules written for the bad ones.

Presley said he supports more regulation for water associations and wants the entities subject to the state’s Open Records and Open Meetings law.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/54434–public-service-commissioner-race-gets-heated

Democratic strategist and author Jason Stanford managed the campaign for Perry’s 2006 opponent Chris Bell, and says while Perry has hit his opponents hard, he has largely avoided the sort of “whisper” campaign tactics attributed to longtime Bush advisor Karl Rove.

“A smear campaign is whispering around Texas that Ann Richards was a lesbian, which is what Karl Rove did,” said Stanford. “What Rick Perry does is take facts and go to the most ridiculous example.”

Stanford says facts are key when candidates go on the attack.

“People respond favorably and are more likely to vote when you make constructive attacks that are relevant and credible and made in the right tone,” said Stanford. “If you start smearing someone irresponsibly, they’re less likely to vote. It turns them off. Attack politics done well turns on voters, engages them and gets them to vote.”

Stanford says Cain‘s campaign erred in its response to the harassment allegations, exposing a lack of experience in dealing with the hard-hitting realities of presidential campaign politics.

“What is happening to him is not smearing, it’s politics,” said Stanford. “Someone is bringing up his own record against him. That’s the way it works, and Cain doesn’t like it.”

 

Regardless of whether Romney had effective responses to some of Perry’s attacks, the Texas governor won the debate when he introduced himself as “an authentic conservative, not a conservative of convenience.”

Right now about 70 percent of the Republican electorate will not vote for Mitt Romney. If debating skill, electability, a presidential mien, and fundraising success mattered to most Republican primary voters, Romney would have locked up the nomination a long time ago. But Republicans don’t want him. They don’t know who they want, but they don’t want Mitt. Heck, for a time they even wanted Donald Trump, and then Michele Bachmann had a fortnight as the frontrunner.

Last night Rick Perry laid claim to the anti-Romney mantle. It doesn’t matter at all whether he won his exchanges with Romney. What matters is that he had the exchanges with Romney. Perry will win the nomination by getting votes from Herman Cain, Bachmann, and other pretenders to the anti-Romney crown, not by convincing Romney voters that they should be with him. Those aren’t his voters, and there just aren’t enough of them to make a difference.

Tactically, Perry was purposeful and mean, exactly the effective tyrant we have come to know and loathe here in Texas. From his right cross of an introduction to turning a question about health care into an attack on Romney’s hypocrisy on illegal immigration, Perry did not let anything, much less Anderson Cooper, stop him from doing what he showed up to do.

Anyone who has been watching these debates knows that Perry wasn’t too mean last night. This is a Republican electorate that has cheered Perry’s mass executions, These Republicans want their red state red meat, and Perry gave it to them.

Romney came across last night as a chief executive who had lost control of his boardroom. His imperious body language toward Perry while lecturing him on the debate rules seemed prissy at best. Perry backed Romney into a corner and elicited this awful defense: “We went to the company and we said, look, you can’t have any illegals working on our property. I’m running for office, for pete’s sake, I can’t have illegals.” That didn’t backfire on Perry. The immigration issue has finally backfired on Romney, who apparently thinks that hiring undocumented Mexicans to mow your lawn is okay if you’re not running for office.

Romney is a skilled debate, and last night he had the crowd on his side. But find me another crowd of Republican primary voters that will applaud Mormonism as mainstream, and I’ll welcome you to Utah. Romney’s been at this long enough to know that Rick Perry is made of tougher stuff than Cain, Bachmann, or Trump. There might have been seven candidates on the stage last night, but Romney knows that he has only opponent from here on.

Read more…

“And that’s a shame.”

So the Austin-based political consultant has teamed up with James C. Moore to pen a book about the governor.

The book, entitled “Adios Mofo: Why Rick Perry Will Make America Miss George W. Bush” originated when Stanford and his Democratic pals realized the governor was running for president.

“We’ve all underestimated him for a long time,” Stanford said. “Him running for president is a good excuse for a fresh look at Rick Perry.”

Stanford said the governor has been pushing a “radical” agenda on Texas for the past decade and the book is going to take a “long view” of his gubernatorial run.

“Rick Perry is better at using power than anyone else we’ve seen on the national stage since LBJ – and he has an agenda that makes Goldwater look kind of moderate,” said Stanford.

In all, the book will take a humorous tone with the governor and for as much as this Austinite doesn’t like the man, he says he’s having fun writing it.

“I’m having so much fun I don’t want to go to sleep at night,” he said. “I’m getting up in the morning to write. This is more fun that I’ve had in a long time.”

What happened yesterday?

1. The conventional wisdom was that Mitt Romney, who still can’t top 25%, was the presumptive front-runner after he landed Gov. Chris Christie’s endorsement. Then Romney proceeded to go out on stage and very smoothly and professionally take a massive crap in his pants. Romney said he would support another bailout to support the currency but not to create jobs. In fact, he said he opposed the auto industry bailout, which has not only saved the auto industry in this country but prevented us from having to sell Michigan to Canada on layaway. Clearly, Romney thinks hewing towards the center means espousing wildly unpopular and wrongheaded ideas. Add to that his condescending “I’m not finished! I’m not finished!” and you have the very model of a modern major frontrunner who can’t finish.
2. “Rock you like a” Herman Cain had his day in the sun, and the light revealed him to be a black Ross Perot rather than the friendly black man the Tea Party currently imagines him to be. Yes, Cain said nice things about Alan Greenspan. This is heresy to the modern Republican Party, but what do you expect from a former member of the Federal Reserve Board? Even worse was Michele Bachmann pantsing his 9-9-9 plan as a new federal consumption tax that won’t pass muster with the Teavangelical wing. Last night began Cain’s inevitable descent from first place into a paid gig at Fox News.
3. Then you had Rick Perry. He’s the only one besides Romney with the resources to put together a real ground operation in Iowa, much less in other states as well. And Perry is the only one who can become the anti-Romney. He stayed on message, didn’t give Saturday Night Live any new ammo, and generally escaped without sustaining further damage to his hull. For this, the pundits decreed it a disaster for him. But what drew less notice was Perry feeling his way around a Romneycare-begat-Obamacare attack that now has real legs. Romney’s response was, essentially, that Romneycare is working. This defense won’t work, and eventually Perry will draw real blood, but these are the early rounds of this fight.

Oh, wait. Yeah. Those guys. What can you say? The former governor of Utah told a fart joke. Michele Bachmann told a devil joke. Newt joked about jailing cabinet officials. And Rick Santorum continued to surprise everyone by appearing periodically on screen.

Here’s my blink-and-you-miss it appearance on the local ABC station this evening. While I was giving my interview, I got the idea that last night was a dress rehearsal for the real show to come. Watch for Romney to continue to fail as the fake frontrunner, Cain to prove unable to lead, and Perry to fight his way back into a two-man race. Settle in. This should take a while.

Joaquin Castro (D): Texas’s 35th District

Few candidates have generated as much buzz as Castro, a 37-year-old rising star viewed as a leader among the next generation of Hispanic pols. Castro is doing his part to match the hype, raising $500,000 during the opening quarter of his campaign — a sum that indicates he can keep pace with his Democratic opponent, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, one of the most formidable fundraisers in the House. Doggett raised $375,000 during the third quarter and has $3.3 million cash on hand.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65809_Page2.html#ixzz1b5yJ7ELs

Rick, for all of our sakes, it’s time to pull it together. Here’s how:

First, wipe that smile off your face. Who the heck is this Rick Perry, all grinning and smiling like he enjoys hanging out with his competition? The Rick Perry in Texas would rather be feared than loved. The Rick Perry onstage in these Republican debates looks afraid that someone might not like him.

It’s not working.

The problem with the nice guy strategy isn’t just that you are not a nice guy when it comes to political combat. The bigger problem is that the Republican Party we’re seeing at the debates is not made up of nice guys. Successive audiences have cheered the mass application of the death penalty and letting the uninsured die for lack of money, and then they booed an active-duty gay soldier. What’s next? Cheering teachers who lost their jobs because you didn’t want to raise taxes?

These yahoos want blood. Pretend you’re jogging and Mitt Romney’s a coyote. Spill some blood onto the stage. Call Ron Paul an irrelevant poseur. Ask Rick Santorum how the view from last place is. Call Michelle Bachmann crazy—or better yet, just call her a congresswoman. You’ve got research. You’ve got a mean streak. Use it. Nasty is the new Republican black.

Next, slow the game down. You got called up to the majors. All these other guys have been hitting each other’s pitching for months. Stop over-swinging, or in this case, trying to do too much.

Here’s your attempt to slap Mitt in the last debate:

“I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of against the second amendment before he was for the second amendment? Was it was before he was before the social programs from the standpoint of he was for standing up for Roe versus Wade before he was against Roe versus Wade? Ah, he was for Race to the Top. He’s for Obamacare, and now he’s against it. I mean we’ll wait until tomorrow to see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight.”

Here’s what Reagan would have said:

“There he goes again.”

Make it simple. There is a reason they’re called one-liners. You want to plan them in advance and then say it with a snarl. The audience will howl with approval, the pundits will mutter into their jowls about how much you’ve improved, and it’ll read better in the paper the next day. It’s the same thing you did in Texas when smacking us around. Just because Mitt Romney has more debating experience than everyone else you debated down here combined doesn’t mean that the game has changed.

Third, stick with the immigration answer. Your defense of giving in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants not only makes sense, but it’s also the closest you’ve come to rhetorical competence. More importantly, the hyperbolic reactions from the single-digit ghetto on stage with you scares the Hispanic Republicans you need to win the nomination and, god forbid, the White House. And finally, defending your decision to help these Mexican kids living in Texas makes you look like you have not only a heart, but also a spine. I’m sure there’s a pollster somewhere telling you how many votes you’re losing because you won’t disavow your position. Standing fast makes you look like the anti-Romney, which is where you need to be anyway.

Good luck to you, governor. I’m rooting for you to get the nomination, but not for the reason you think. If you get the Republican nomination, I get one thing I’ve always wanted—a chance to finally see a Democrat beat you.