Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Keep Jenny Beth Martin and any sign of her Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund PAC away from Chris McDaniel. The Tea Party name became the opposing candidate in the runoff much moreso than Mr. McDaniel

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6/24/14, "Chris McDaniel to Challenge Election Results," Breitbart, Matthew Boyle

Comment: Keep Jenny Beth Martin and her Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund PAC away from Mr. McDaniel at least until he wins. The media 24/7 spin made the TP enemy #1, McDaniel was a distant enemy #2. Martin's PAC gives McDaniel no money but uses his name to fundraise. The GOP establishment pitch to get Blacks and Democrats to vote for Cochran was about the Tea Party, not Mr. McDaniel:

"The Tea Party intends to prevent blacks from voting on Tuesday." (scroll down at link) Ms. Martin uses Mr. McDaniel's persona to fundraise for her PAC and her $450,000 salary. She's taken in $9 million just this year mostly from small donors and has already spent most of it, per Open Secrets (posted below). Much of her spending can't be accounted for but a lot of it is for crap like direct mail and fundraising. I've never seen such a money grubber as this woman.
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Stolen yard sign
Even the McDaniel yard sign a Cochran worker stole was more an ad for Ms. Martin's PAC than it was for McDaniel. One third of the sign was taken up with the name of her PAC and that it endorsed Chris. With his name alone on the sign Chris would have a much better chance for a positive impression, but Ms. Martin's greed wrecks it. The fact is the media was 24/7 against the TP in Miss. so Ms. Martin clearly damaged McDaniel. He can win if he gets rid of all signs of her and for that matter other TP groups. I understand TP Express did rallies with their bus at the very end of the runoff along with one earlier in the campaign which is fine, but they've also used his name to fundraise many times in the past few months and never gave him a dime. McDaniel should steer clear of "national" TP groups from now on.

Image source: WMC tv Action News 5, via Legal Insurrection

 





















The GOP Establishment distributed the above hate speech in African American communities in Mississippi for the runoff against Chris McDaniel. McDaniel's picture is there but the headline is the Tea Party--not Chris McDaniel. McDaniel needs to ditch national TP groups. via Daily Kos

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From OpenSecrets.org, retrieved 6/25/14:

"Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund Super PAC, 2014 PAC Summary," OpenSecrets.org

2014 cycle through June 24:

Raised: $9,857,176

Spent: $9,341,040

Independent Expenditures, Electioneering, communications:

$1,097,470 (Direct mail, ad services, fundraising, phone banks, etc.)

Jenny Beth Martin gave zero to Chris McDaniel or any other candidate in 2014:

"This PAC didn't make any contributions to federal candidates in the 2014 election cycle." As of 6/24/14

"Official PAC Name:

TEA PARTY PATRIOTS CITIZENS FUND
Location: WOODSTOCK, GA 30189
Industry: Republican/Conservative
Treasurer: PAUL KILGORE
FEC Committee ID: C00540898
(Look up actual documents filed at the FEC)"

"Independent Expenditures Made within the Last 2 Weeks:" to June 24

Many thousands to Richard Norman and his companies, including Active Engagement LLC, for direct mail, fundraising, and the like, $15,800 to her cousin Kevin Mooneyhan for phone bank expenses (scroll down), not a penny to Chris McDaniel. (Source: Kevin Mooneyhan is Ms. Martin's cousin).

Ms. Martin makes Karl Rove look good by comparison. He takes from the rich, she takes from the poor.

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2014 PAC Contribution data:

"Contributions to this PAC from individual donors of $200 or more ( list donors) $1,696,601"

This means over $7 million of the PAC's $9 million in contributions came from small donors under $200. Likely a lot of it raised on McDaniel's name. This is a disgrace.

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 4/26/2014, "Tea Party PACs reap money for midterms, but spend little on candidates," Washington Post, Matea Gold

Jenny Beth Martin
"The donation page on the Web site of the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund pleads with potential donors to “make the most generous contribution possible” to help fund “the ads, the get-out-the-vote campaigns, the research and the volunteer training sessions we need to take the fight to the big-spending incumbents!

Such appeals have helped the groups raise millions of dollars through thousands of small donations.

“I’m just so disappointed with the Republican Party and was hoping the tea party can have some influence,” said Adele Ward, an 81-year-old resident of Kerrville, Tex., who wrote a check for $1,000 to the Tea Party Patriots at the end of March. “I was certainly hoping it was to further their agenda and to support the candidates.”

But of the $7.4 million that the Georgia-based group’s super PAC has spent since the beginning of 2013, just $184,505 has gone to boost candidates, The Post found. Three-quarters of the spending by the Citizens Fund — $5.5 million — has been devoted to fundraising and direct mail.

Tea Party Patriots spokesman Kevin Broughton said the super PAC, which formed in January 2013, has had to spend time “marshaling resources” and plans to be more active in races throughout the summer and fall.

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.
 
Martin, through Broughton, declined to comment. But Broughton said Martin’s fees could not “objectively be considered unreasonable.”

“She works the equivalent of two full-time jobs,” Broughton said. “When I say she probably works 90 to 100 hours a week, that’s not an exaggeration.”

Martin’s cousin, Kevin Mooneyhan, is also on the payroll as a strategic consultant.

And another top Tea Party ­Patriots official, national finance director Richard Norman, is paid $15,000 a month to oversee fundraising for the nonprofit and ­super PAC. At the same time, the group’s two affiliates have paid three direct mail firms run by Norman at least $2.7 million since June 2012 to help solicit funds for the groups, according to public records.

Norman said much of the money passed through the firms to rent donor lists and pay for postage. He acknowledged that his dual roles as a paid adviser and vendor to the Tea Party Patriots posed a potential conflict of interest. But he said he did not use his position with the group to drive business to his companies, noting that he was first contracted as a vendor in early 2010, six months before the organization asked him to come aboard as finance director.

Early on, our attorneys met to discuss ways that our relationship was transparent and everything was overseen by several people to make sure there was no conflict of interest or no insider dealing,” he said."...image above, Jenny Beth Martin at CPAC, March 8, 2014, getty

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