The campaign of Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) released a TV ad today that claims that the $486,000 that the State Doylie Elections Board ordered Republican opponent Mark Green to divest himself was was raised “illegally”. Really? Let’s take a look at the facts:
- At the time the funds were raised for Green’s federal Congressional campaign, state laws did not apply for two reasons – federal laws superceded state laws, and the money was raised for a federal campaign. There are no credible allegations that so much as $1 violated federal campaign finance laws.
- Both at the time those funds were raised and at the time Green transfered the funds to his gubenartorial campaign, the status of state law was that funds raised legally under federal laws for a federal campaign could be transfered to a state campaign with no restrictions. Specifically, in 2001, the State Elections Board (pre-Craps) ruled that, as long as no federal laws were broken in the raising of the transfered funds, no state laws were considered to be broken.
- It took all 4 DemonRAT members of the Doylie Elections Board, including a member whose position on the board is directly tied to Craps’ continued occupation of the governor’s mansion, to first change the rule after the action occurred, and then against the advice of the board’s legal counsel, apply it retroactively.
The Doylies are far more brazen than the McShame/Slimeroad crowd. At least when they neutered the First Amendment in order to protect lieberals and incumbents on the federal level, they didn’t apply their rules to that election cycle, much less to a time period before they could get the rules changed to benefit themselves.
Now, let’s take a look at the pre-primary campaign finance reports for Green and Craps (courtesy WisPolitics). Do note that this doesn’t reflect the highway robbery of the $486,000 from Green’s campaign, but let’s roll with it anyway, rounding each number to the nearest $1,000 (which will introduce some rounding errors). Craps started the summer with $5,176,000 in the bank, raised $494,000, spent $1,622,000, and ended up with $4,047,000 in the bank. Green started with $3,170,000 in the bank, raised $1,388,000, spent $838,000, and ended up with $3,720,000 in the bank.
Green entered the home stretch with a better-than-2-to-1 fundraising37 advantage (this during the Summer of Extreme Craps ads), and (at least before the DEB raid) a deficit of only $327,000 (or less than half his summer fundraising advantage and an 8% deficit to Craps). Even factoring in that raid, he’s still less than his summer fundraising advantage behind ($813,000).
Here’s a bold prediction; whether the Craps strategy of trying to smear Green while starving his campaign of some funds works or not in the public arena, Craps will try to get his Doylie Elections Board to declare the other $800,000 Green transfered from his federal campaign “illegal” by early October, using the “justification” that federal law prohibits the transfer of state campaign funds. THIS CANNOT STAND!
