Club For Growth Seeks To Help Specter Donors Ask For Their Money Back
The Club For Growth is looking to employ a fun new tactic against their long-time nemesis, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-turned-D-PA), and has sent a letter to the FEC asking permission for this novel maneuver: To send a mass mailing to previous Specter donors, reminding them of the incumbent's offer to return donations to anyone who asks, and including a form to help them do just that!
The Club, of course, previously bankrolled then-Rep. Pat Toomey's conservative primary challenge against Specter in 2004, which Specter just barely won by 51%-49%. Toomey became the Club's president some time afterward, then left to challenge Specter again in 2010 with the group's full backing. This then led to Specter's party switch, and he singled them out for condemnation during his press conference announcing his move.
The Club's letter to the FEC includes their arguments for why they believe this action by them is permitted under the law, along with various disclaimers -- that Specter is not legally required to return donations and their own letter would remind recipients of this, that they would not broker any mailing lists from this, that they won't solicit recipients for any donations to the Club or another candidate, etc.
Bottom line: Assuming this is legal, the Club has found yet another way to annoy Specter.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
It seems like for the moment the lack of any voices with any mainstream credibility is the right's biggest problem, and the club for growth is the left's best ally.
June 25, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes and when they send me that sort of email badmouthing Specter, I will gladly tell them that I intend for Mr. Specter to keep my donation and that further, they can stop sending me any requests to donate to the Republican Party in the future. When I sent the money, I intended for it to go to Specter and that is exactly where it went. No more money for Republicans and no more votes either. The party is getting too rotten and controlling for many of us and we plan to vacate the party.
June 26, 2009 12:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
And then can we get the money from Joe Lieberman and all those Republicans that use to be Democrats in the 80s?....Idiotic!
June 25, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
And can I get money back from Reagan's corpse? He was a party switcher too, and has done far more damage to the cause than Specter could even dream about.
June 25, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not that I gave him a cent, but I kind of think the guy who was a "Uniter not a Divider", who wasn't into nation building and led the suckers to believe he would keep America safe, strong and financially stable was not what he promised. Lots of duped Americans deserve a refund.
June 25, 2009 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is clearly illegal.
It's pretty clear that you can not use public FEC data to do solicitation or advocacy.
If the FEC allows this, it would open the flood gates of people using public campaign donation data for direct mail and fundraising, which would be terrible.
In fact, campaigns are allowed to "salt" their FEC reports with fake names and contributions to catch groups that are using their FEC data illegally.
I don't see how Club for Growth can possibly believe they'd be allowed to do this.
June 25, 2009 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink