Day: May 21, 2014

Hogan: coordination allegations “absurd and false”

This was a pretty quick response to an accusation over three years in the making. I’ll begin with fellow candidate Ron George’s perspective, which is reflected in statements within from David Craig’s campaign:

Today, the Ron George & Shelley Aloi for Maryland campaign joined the Craig-Haddaway for Maryland campaign in filling a complaint with the Maryland Board of Elections alleging illegal coordination between between Change Maryland, LLC and Larry Hogan’s various campaign committees.

“These actions by Change Maryland, LLC and Larry’s campaign committees represent an egregious breach of the public trust and utter disrespect for the law. We expect candidates for public office to hold themselves to a higher standard. These laws are designed to promote transparency,” said David Craig.

“The public should know where contributions are coming from and where they are going; It’s a matter of public trust. Furthermore, they should expect those who want to make more laws follow the laws we already have,” said Delegate Ron George.

On January 31, 2014, Change Maryland, LLC filed its most recent contributions and expense report for the period of January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2013 listing total contributions received of $145,995 while expending $213,040.

“We believe that all current and prior activities of Change Maryland, LLC appear to be directed by Larry’s campaigns and those activities should be considered part of his gubernatorial campaign for reporting purposes. With this complaint, we are asking the State Board of Elections to investigate. If the Board of Elections doesn’t, we can expect organizations in the future to skirt campaign finance laws to hide where their money comes from and where it goes. I hope the Board of Election agrees with us that the process should be transparent and uphold the integrity of law,” said Paul Ellington, campaign manager for Craig-Haddaway for Maryland.

Hogan responded, almost immediately:

“The entire premise of these allegations by two desperate campaigns is utterly absurd and patently false.  Had David Craig and Ron George bothered to do even a cursory check, they would have seen that the “about” page at Change Maryland’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMaryland/info) and website (www.changemaryland.org), clearly states Paid for By Hogan-Rutherford to Change Maryland.   In short, Larry Hogan for Governor owns Change Maryland and has since he became a candidate.

Unlike David Craig’s campaign which has already been found guilty and fined for violating campaign laws, our campaign has worked closely with the Maryland Board of Elections to ensure from day one that we comply fully with all state laws.”

Background:

Before starting his campaign for governor, Larry Hogan’s team sought guidance from the State Board of Elections on whether or how Change Maryland, a 527 political organization, could interface with a campaign for governor, also a 527 political organization.  The guidance received was that Hogan for Governor could purchase the assets of Change Maryland much like campaigns purchase mailing or contact lists from any other organization.  Immediately upon registering as a campaign for governor, with the SBE, the campaign entered into a purchase agreement for all of Change Maryland’s assets at fair market value.

Obviously there’s the question of how they determined what “fair market value” was, but we’ve known for three years that Change Maryland could be a handy vehicle to keep Hogan’s name in circulation after his abortive 2010 campaign. The question came up on one of his first interviews  as Change Maryland leader, with Maryland Reporter‘s Len Lazarick.

As far as the market value, if you look at the first Hogan financial statement the apparent “fair market value” for Change Maryland is $18,164.05, which is listed as an “asset purchase” made April 7. It was about 2 1/2 months after the campaign was formed, and the “contact list” pales in comparison to what the campaign had paid to date for mailings – for that purpose, the Hogan-Rutherford campaign spent nearly $121,000 employing a New York-based firm called SCM Associates during the initial months of its campaign. It was almost as if someone thought at the last minute, “hey, we better cover ourselves on this one.”

I’ll admit I’ve had campaign finance questions about my unusual situation of being a blogger and candidate for which I’ve sought advice from the Board of Elections, but $18,000 seems to be a lowball estimate for an organization whose 527 clearly states it churned through over $350,000 last year, raising over $140,000 by itself in a year when only one of the opposing candidates did as well.

So we have found out that the “perpetual campaign” is not just a Barack Obama phenomenon. Obviously he wasn’t going to admit it publicly, but all along many have suspected that Change Maryland was simply the lead-in to the 2014 Larry Hogan for Governor campaign – after all, why bring up a past campaign if you’re not running, as this archived Change Maryland page shows – just as any number of PACs created by particular failed candidates were formed as a way to keep their name in the limelight and (more importantly) create a donor database.

The beauty of Change Maryland, though, was that contributions to it didn’t count against a contribution limit to Hogan for Governor, and there’s little doubt that list is being mined again. In one respect, it’s a stroke of genius and perhaps there’s some sour grapes from the others about not coming up with the idea themselves. After all, we could speculate back in 2011 when Change Maryland was formed that David Craig and Charles Lollar were probably going to run in 2014, along with perhaps Brian Murphy and maybe even Michael Steele. (The entry of Ron George was a little bit more out of left field.)

These accusations, however, served to blunt the news that Hogan had reached the seed money threshold required to qualify for matching funds.

By qualifying for matching funds, the Hogan campaign is guaranteed $2.6 million immediately after the primary.  The Hogan campaign has received contributions totaling over $600,000 from more than 3,000 contributors since formally entering the race in late January. By reaching the matching funds threshold, will also receive over $260,000 in Fair Campaign Finance Act matching money.  In all, by qualifying for the match, the campaign says it will spend over $4 million “taking on the political establishment.”

Obviously Hogan has to win the primary to cash in, and that’s by no means certain when “undecided” has such a big share of the electorate. Classifying his opponents as desperate seems a little premature, and it may be a pretty tense couple days before the party’s unity rally slated for June 26.

I don’t think anything will come of this, but there is the potential for an October surprise if Hogan wins the primary and the Board of Elections indeed decides there’s some fire among all the smoke. I trust the other side about as far as I can throw them.

Brown’s ‘molehill’ problem

It’s not quite to the level of Senate President Mike Miller’s 2006 comments about burying Republicans upside down, but Anthony Brown showed the arrogance of the current state regime recently in a Washington Post story by John Wagner:

Brown told the crowd Thursday that he considers the primary “the bigger objective” in a state in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 2 to 1.

“We take that hill, and then we’ve got a little bit of a mole hill to take in November,” Brown said.

Larry Hogan has been trying to make fundraising hay out of Brown’s remarks:

We’ve seen a wave of support in the last 48 hours, further solidifying what we’ve known for a long time: Marylanders are sick and tired of arrogant career politicians like Brown who are more concerned with their own political goals than the wellbeing of average families and job creators. We are ready for honest leadership that is focused on the serious problems facing our state.

It’s clear that despite what he may think, Marylanders do not believe that Anthony Brown deserves a promotion to be the next governor of our great state.

Granted, it’s a little harder to define Brown as arrogant or say anything else negative about him without being possibly defined as racist or even anti-veteran since Brown served in the Army, including a stint in Iraq as a legal consultant. (The subject of the Wagner article was a new veterans’ support group backing Brown.) Given that a persistent problem facing returning veterans is finding work in the civilian workforce, one would think they would refrain from supporting a candidate who saw so many jobs and so much wealth leave the state, doing little to stop either from happening. Yet, despite that fact, many Marylanders don’t care until it affects them and if you live in the I-95 corridor the chances are pretty good that it doesn’t – or at least not enough to get riled up and vote for the opposition party.

But I contend there is a formula for success in this state, and it involves some bold new initiatives. For example, eliminating the income tax is one piece of the puzzle, but it presents a chicken-and-egg question: assuming a Republican win shows there’s a mandate for the change, one has to show there’s the prospect for a Republican win that’s broad enough to scrape off about 20-25 Democrats in the House and 8-10 in the Senate to create a workable coalition. I’ve run the numbers: splitting all the contested General Assembly races 50-50 leaves Republicans with deficits of 50-91 and 18-29 in the House of Delegates and Senate, respectively. We would have to win a vast majority of contested races to secure even a bare majority. (That can be a project for 2022, once we re-elect a governor who will draw fair districts.) In the TEA Party election of 2010, the Democrats won 62 of 101 contested House races and 20 of 28 for Senate, so 50/50 would be a huge win.

The other day I gave some turnout statistics, and they showed that gubernatorial election turnout is trending downward among all parties. As uninspiring as the current crop of Democrats appears to be, there’s somewhat of a chance that turnout among Democrats will fail to make 50% – it was under 55% in 2010 and has slipped downward for several cycles in a row. (Note also that a certain percentage of Democrats cross over in top-ticket races.) If Republicans can be excited enough to bring turnout to a level achieved in Presidential years (roughly 80%) they have a great chance of success. It’s that simple, because all the polls in the world are done based on what the pollsters believe the turnout will be on Election Day. If they assume 60% of Republicans turn out and we get 80%, that will shock the world because that predicted double-digit defeat will become a whisker-close win. And make no mistake: the media will be polling to favor their editorial slant and dispirit the opposition.

So if you couple the bold new initiatives with the explanation of why they will succeed in making the average Marylander’s life better, victory can be achieved. I’d like to come out of the ground a couple years early and see that shovel shoved right back into Mike Miller’s face. Let’s show the arrogant bastards that we can win this state, and leave that little molehill as the pile of dirt we displaced in our resurrection.