Frank Russo has so far had the best coverage of Rudy Giuliani’s involvement in the Dirty Tricks campaign to steal a bunch of California’s electoral votes. It appears that practically everyone associated with this campaign had a tie to Rudy Giuliani in some form or another. We already knew that the lone funder, laundered through a hastily assembled LLC in Missouri called “Take Initiative America,” was actually the chair of Giuliani’s northeast funding operation named Paul Singer. What we didn’t know was that this laundering, crafted to skirt the strict election laws in California, was part of a pattern of interlocking front groups that would hide who was behind this whole thing – perhaps even the candidate himself. This quote is from Chris Lehane, who was running the opposition to the Dirty Tricks campaign and was in a position to delve pretty deeply into what was going on here. (I know not everyone here’s a fan of Lehane, but this sounds genuine)
“Virtually everyone who was involved in this at every level had a Giuliani connection, and no real connection to the other Republican candidates. Two of the partners at the law firm at the law firm that was responsible for this were Giuliani contributors, including Charles Bell who contributed $1300 days before the initiative was filed and he’s the deputy treasurer. You have Charles V. Hurth III, who does not have a history of political giving–I believe he had given a hundred dollars to a state senator prior to this and he gave $2,000 to Giuliani. You have John Wilcox, who was the spokesperson for Hurth, who comes out of the Bill Simon organization. Bill Simon is a Co-Chair in California for the Giuliani campaign as well as a policy advisor. Kevin Eckerly, the spokesperson for the effort is someone who has been quoted in the press being supportive of Giuliani and the Giuliani campaign. And again, when you went through all of these folks, each and every time, virtually every road ultimately led back to Giuliani.
“And, you know, I’ve said before, I’m originally from the state of Maine. You to bed at night, there’s no snow on the ground, you wake up and there’s snow on the ground. You can pretty safely conclude that it snowed. In an effort like this if everyone who is involved are connected to one Presidential campaign and they continue to gather signatures and you wake up the next day and find out that the person who in fact was funding it was indeed from the Giuliani campaign, I think one conclusion that one can safely draw is that it was the Giuliani campaign that was ultimately behind this.
“When you have a series of shadowy Nixonian front groups that are created to directly impact who the next President of the United States is going to be, then that’s something that is a cause for concern, not only of voters here in California, but all across the country.
I think it’s safe to say that the string-pullers in the Republican Party would be happy with Giuliani as a nominee, mainly because of his faux-moderate stances that play well outside the base, and his willingness to play as dirty as anybody this side of Karl Rove. “Nixonian” is the key word. This decade has been filled with ratfucking and voter suppression and all sorts of attempts to influence state and national elections. The Republicans have time and again seized on the creakiness of the election systems, which vary from state to state, and used everything at their disposal to turn the system against Democrats and toward their own candidates.
You can absolutely see that Giuliani’s core message that he wants played in the media is that he’s electable. His strategy memo specifically lists California as one of the states which would suddenly become competitive were he the nominee:
More importantly, the Mayor puts blue states like Connecticut, New Jersey, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington in play. Pat Toomey, President of the Club for Growth, states that “If Giuliani wins the nomination, he would be a fascinating candidate in that he really re-draws the map.” Toomey points out that Giuliani could carry New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania ‘”so he changes the political calculus of the Electoral College dramatically.”9 And Mayor Giuliani may be the only Republican candidate that can now compete and win in Ohio against Hillary Clinton.
If that were the case, he wouldn’t need to finance a dirty trick from behind the scenes that would deliver 20-odd electoral votes to him. If the states were truly in play, he would play by the rules. No, this is an attempt to put this map-changing bug in the ear of the media so they’re not surprised by a victory in some blue state, whether it came about legally or not. It’s the classic strategy of an ultra-confidence public veneer, combined with manipulating results behind the scenes.
There’s already an FEC complaint filed, along with a request to refer the matter to the US Justice Department. But those investigations will go nowhere, even in the off chance that they are initiated. This is something that will have to be investigated and dug up. Take Initiative America was created in one day and suddenly received a $175,000 infusion of cash from a Giuliani fundraiser (and the date of this transaction was – and this is precious – September 11). Considering that this initiative would impact the Presidential election, no agent of a campaign could contribute more than $2,300. Furthermore, he violated disclosure requirements. Here’s some highlights from the press conference following the formal FEC complaint.
So we would very much like the FEC to look into this, to determine what Mr. Giuliani knew, when he knew it, what conversations he and Mr. Singer had about the contribution, about Take Initiative America; how Take Initiative America was created, whose idea was it? Did Mr. Hurth talk to Mr. Singer? How did it come about that $175,000 was transferred the day that the corporation was established? There had to be some coordination there and we’d like the FEC to into it.
The other thing we’d like the FEC to ask is: Where did the $175,000 come from? Did it come from Mr. Singer personally” Or did it come from a corporation that he controls?
If it came from a corporation that he controls, then that too would be impermissible because Federal candidates prohibited under Federal law from soliciting or accepting a contribution from a corporation.
We’re also concerned that there may have been coordination between the Giuliani campaign and Californians for Equal Representation. In fact, Marty Wilson, the chief fundraiser for Equal Representation, who resigned just last week, was quoted in the press as saying that he had “heard” that the Giuliani people were interested in the effort in California, and that they were praying that it would commit–it obviously refers to the money.
This feels like one of those things that starts small and just balloons. Paul Singer has a colorful past; he’s known as a “vulture,” someone who buys up debt from poor countries and demands payment at a substantial markup. I’m certain more can be gleaned about this guy, his connection to the Giuliani campaign, and what Rudy himself may have known about his involvement with the Dirty Tricks campaign in California. These are the kind of things that take down political careers.
Russ indicates that he would not vote for the $50 billion supplemental that Bush is now asking for, and believes that the same thing is happening to the United States that happened to the Soviet Union when it went into Afghanistan – we’re being bled dry by Bush and Dreier’s ill-conceived war.
The good times just kept on rolling, until well, it got really freaking cold at Zeitgeist. We had about 30 people there, who braved my overly optimistic weather forecasts and the contact highs to come out and have some beer and conversation. Every once in a while it is great to just turn off the computer and meet some of those people that you talk to online. Plus, the quarterlies brought in about $1500. Not bad for the beginning of what we hope to be a great tradition in California’s progressive politics