Pro-choice "Personal PAC" ran anti-Rumler phone campaign
Under terms that requires any donations of over $500.000 within 30 days of an election, an item in Sen. Mike Jacobs campaign finance disclosure statements reveals that a Chicago based pro-choice political action committee, Personal PAC, were the organization responsible for phoning voters in the 36th district and mis-representing candiate Paul Rumler's views.
Personal PAC reports in-kind donations amounting to $27,043.93 to Jacobs' campaign, money spent on a phone campaign telling residents that Jacobs was the only pro-choice candidate in the race, when in fact, his opponent Paul Rumler is pro-choice as well.
Amazingly enough, considering the huge sum involved, the group based it's phone campaign on the fact that, according to the group, they'd sent a questionaire to the Rumler campaign on two occasions and had not gotten a reply.
So apparently without bothering to make so much as a 5 cent phone call to check with the Rumler campaign to assertain his position on the choice issue, the group instead launched a $27,000.00 phone campaign to support his opponent.
It seems more than a bit disturbing to imagine how much good that money could do for people in dire need, including young women struggling to raise children, while this group is apparently willing to spend tens of thousands on the basis of not receiving a reply to a questionaire.
And it looks like someone in the Rumler camp really dropped the ball big time by not getting the questionaires returned.
UPDATE: Kurt Allemeier has all the details. Read on...
posted by The Inside Dope @ 3/08/2006
12 comments
12 Comments:
I saw that PersonalPac is tight with Jesse White. Did Denny call in one last favor to save his son who was drowning in his own words?
From the Dispatch/Argus on March 8th:
"Mr. Jacobs, who was appointed to the senate seat last year, denied that his campaign is connected to the phone calls"
Jacobs financial report shows 27K from Personal Pac for the Slanderous phone calls...this report was filed on March 6th.
Ladies and Gentleman,
I wish to announce that commenter YoungDem503 has vaulted into the lead in the competition for "The Inside Dope Literacy Prize for Manglement of the English Language."
Dear readers, behold! The birth of a word. And the word is... "STOOK".
Our valued commenter YoungDem503 spoke a sentence which will not soon be equalled for sheer creativity and "thinking outside the box", when he or she spake thusly,
"For clafifaction I had several theories out there but the underlaying fact I stook to is that Jacobs camp weren't the ones making the calls."
I just can't read that sentence without tears coming to my eyes, often for different reasons each time.
When YoungDem sticks with something, by golly, he stays stook!
It's a thing of rare beauty though, almost never seen in the wild, and something to be treasured.
Hat's off to YoungDem503 for enriching our language and leaving a sentence for all the ages to marvel over.
(But seriously, YoungDem503, you ARE a valued commenter, and thanks for being a good sport. And remember, you still have better grammar and can organize your thoughts much than Bush.)
Anon 22:35.
As slippery as it may appear to some, the fact is that technically, the Jacobs Campaign was not "connected" to the PersonalPAC phone campaign.
If it were, it would be a serious violation of campaign finance laws.
The Jacobs campaign may well have, and likely did know, that such a campaign was taking place, but by Jacobs saying his campaign is not "connected", I take it to mean that his campaign was not actually making the calls or organizing the effort.
How much went on behind the scenes in prompting this PAC to devote such a huge amount of money to a phone campaign to damage Rumler and consequently spread fales information about his views is open to speculation.
Regardless of how this primary election turns out, I have lost all respect for Mike and company and the Jacobs name. Desperate to win, the ends justify the means. The people of the 36th district deserve better
Jacobs may not have been running the phone campaign but he defiantely was aware of it. This could be compared to sitting outside and watching someone step in a pot hole. Sure you didn't did the hole but you knew about it.
Anonymous at 6:34 - obviously you didn't read the article here or in the paper. Jacobs did not make these phone calls. Jacobs filled out a questionaire, something his opponent "forgot" to do. OOPS
So Rumler didnt fill out one questionaire...that gives these people the right to out and distort his views any way they see fit?
Dope I agree with you. They should have given their money to people who actually need it....the helpless...the homeless. Not to some phone bank who in turn was ordered to make false statements.
It is this type of stuff that just outrages me. People will stop at nothing to get what they want. Sure you can say that Jacobs was not involved but for some reason I have a bad feeling about this. Just the way he has gone about being the senator over the last year has been suspect. His campaign finances...his childish statements he makes about his opponents. It all just makes me a little queasy (sp?)
Sorry, folk, but again third-party interest group phone calls have become very common in Illinois. All of your outrage is misplaced.
Personal PAC and many right-wing groups do this all over Illinois.
These common actions do not indicate any unfairness on the part of the Jacobs campaign. All they indicate is that Mike Jacobs filled out their survey and Paul Rumler did not. Rumler should have. End of discussion.
The previous two posts are so off base I don't know where to start.
Youngdem, you are obviously new to politics and don't realize what happens when you run for office. You get surveys from dozens and dozens of groups, most of them are from extremists one way or another. The only surveys that people typically fill out are the ones from local groups. Since Personal Pac is from Chicago, I'd venture to guess that Rumler didn't want to waste his time on an organization that wasn't in his district. I'm sure he didn't expect Mike to make sure that they slandered him. I guess that's what happens when one candidate doesn't fill out the fair and honest campaign contract.
And Anon above, have you searched through Personal Pac's financials? There isn't any precedent for them to spend so much money to attack someone with so little money. You're kidding yourself if you think that Denny didn't pull some strings on this one...or more likely, you're actually Mike himself.
This discussion shouldn't be about filling out a survey, it should be about the sorry state of politics in this area. A non-response becomes a license to slander. How does that make sense? Were these surveys delivered by certified mail? When was the due date? Had Rumler even announced his candidacy yet? Did Jacobs fill one out? What were his answers?
YoungDem.... HA! You're killin' me! haha. Funny stuff... :-)
I found it humerous also.
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