Michigan chamber funnels $5.3 million to RGA to attack Bernero and Democrats

We can expect many, many more attack ads against Lansing Mayor and Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Virg Bernero while Rick “Chief Executive Outsourcer” Snyder gets to keeps his millions and maintains the lie that he does not accept PAC money and is running a clean, positive campaign.

Rich Robinson, the director of the non-profit and non-partisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network, released a report on Tuesday that said the so far in 2010 the Michigan Chamber of Commerce has contributed more than $5.3 million to the Republican Governors Association (RGA).

The RGA also received $1 million form News Corp., which owns Faux “News," and it has been very busy smearing Bernero. It has spent so much money, that it refuses to even say how much. In fact, it has been "bullying" Michigan television stations into not revealing to the public the size of their substantial ad buys. If a station dares to be honest and reveals that number, they don’t get to share in the millions in smear money and ad revenue.

The spending has been so large that the Outsourcer did not buy a single ad from the time of the primary election in August until just a few days ago.

Earlier this month Robinson tried to get Snyder to convince the RGA to reveal that information, but he claimed “he cannot stop the Republican Governors Association's efforts to push Michigan television stations not to release information about the size of the organization's ad buy.”
The Internal Revenue Service classifies the RGA as a 527 organization whose primary purpose is to support or oppose candidates for public office. Robinson only found out abut that huge donation because contributions to the RGA must be disclosed through the IRS. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce is a 501 (c)(6) nonprofit corporation that does no public disclosure of its donors. Its members’ dues payments are tax deductible as business expenses. In other words, the chamber can accept money from anywhere and from anybody, including foreign governments.

Robinson said the advertising agency for the RGA is Target Enterprises of Encino, Calf. The RGA’s third quarter report to the IRS shows $15.5 million worth of media buys through Target Enterprises. Target has asked several Michigan broadcasters to withhold records of its Michigan gubernatorial ad buys from their public files, and some broadcasters have complied with Target’s request for non-disclosure. Target was the advertising agency for the Rick Snyder’s campaign committee through the primary election. So much for Michigan first with the Outsourcer.

“The Michigan Chamber of Commerce has been aggregating contributions from anonymous donors for candidate-focused electioneering advertisements since the 2000 state election,” Robinson said. “They’ve spent millions of dollars for television advertisements that sought to define political candidates’ suitability for office, and they reported nothing about the sources whose contributions paid for those ads.”

Most people have this old fashioned image of the chamber of commerce as promoting business and the community. That is a false image.

“What is new in 2010 is that the Chamber’s primary financial purpose now appears to be aggregating contributions to give to the Republican Governors Association, an organization whose purpose is to promote the election of candidates for public office,” Robinson said. “The Chamber’s function as a business association is secondary, financially, to its role as a political fund aggregator.”

Millions already spent on TV ads in gubernatorial campaign is chump change compared to Amway guy cash

Despite seemingly incessant political TV ads from Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidates attacking each other, television advertising is lagging far behind the pace of Michigan’s last two gubernatorial campaigns, according to Rich Robinson of the non-profit Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

In fact, five candidates and one nonprofit organization have spent $3.3 million so far, with Republicans “Manoogian” Mike Cox and Rick Snyder accounting for 79 percent of that total. Snyder’s television advertising started three months before any other candidates this year but his spending has slowed dramatically over the last month, as has his support. Since Memorial Day, Cox has outspent Snyder, $634,726 to $161,030, although Snyder has spent more overall, $1,4 million to $1,1 million.

But that’s chump change compared to what the Amway guy – AKA Republican Dick DeVos – spent in 2006 trying to by the governorship. At the end of June in 2006, DeVos had already spent $7 million despite the fact he did not have a primary opponent. The Michigan Democratic Party had spent $2.3 million for gubernatorial television advertising over the same period. The two parties spent nearly $13 million by the time of the primary election in 2006.

Among the other Republican candidates, Mike Bouchard has spent $98,000, including $48,000 in the last month. All of Bouchard’s spending has been on cable. ”Twitter” Pete Hoekstra’s television spending has been limited to $5,470, all on one Sunday in May.

The remaining advertiser on the Republican side is a group known as “Americans for Job Security.” AJS has spent $273,000, all in the Grand Rapids market, for ads attacking Hoekstra. The ads appear to be synchronized with the Cox campaign.

Local television stations pulled the AJA ads after Hoekstra's lawyers complained the ads were false and misleading. The Cox campaign has denied any connection, but with Cox’s troubles with the truth it’s pretty clear he is behind them.

On the Democratic side, Speaker of the House Andy Dillon, D-Redford, has spent $335,380. Dillon has spent $282,880 on broadcast outlets in Detroit. The remainder of his spending has been on cable. Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero have not purchased television advertising.

The candidates have not filed a complete campaign finance report since year-end 2009. Their next reports are due on July 23.

The Michigan Campaign Finance Network (MCFN) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that conducts research and public education on money in Michigan politics.

Ward’s alleged campaign finance reform bills die predictable death in lame duck session

It just boggles the mind that all Chris Ward has to do to get on the front page of the Daily Press & Argus is to write a letter. If I were at all cynical I would say this is just one more attempt to help clean up his record for his next run at political office. Has anyone from that newspaper ever asked him a tough question, and if they did ask a tough question did he answer it and did the response ever make it by the editors?

A package of bills pushed by Rep. Chris Ward, R-Brighton Township, was approved by the House but is awaiting action in the Senate, where Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming, has been reluctant to schedule it for consideration.
A spokesman for Sikkema repeated the senator's stance Friday that he won't bring the bills up.
But Ward argued that, with the lame-duck session under way, now is the perfect time to move forward.
In a letter to Sikkema and Senate Majority Floor Leader Bev Hammerstrom of Temperance, Ward urged action: "I commend you for your efforts to make this lame-duck session as meaningful as possible. This issue rises to that level of importance in my mind, and there is no better time than now when a significant number of members no longer have a vested interest in retaining the status quo."

This so-called "election campaign finance reform" package of bills that came through the committee Ward chairs does more to benefit his party than anyone else, especially HB 6128. It was the only bill in the five-bill package passed in the House last June that Ward actually sponsored, and it was also the only bill that received any opposition. In fact, it barley passed by five vote because it really benefits his party.

Rich Robinson, Director of the non-partisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network, said in published reports in June that the bill favors Republicans because they rely on wealthy individuals for contributions. He also said an individual who violates the law faces up to three years in prison and fines of up to $5,000 or both, but if a large corporation or company violates the law all they face is a fine of up to $10,000. Huge corporations like Enron, other energy companies and pharmaceutical companies that funnel huge amounts of cash to Republicans would have no deterrent to continuing that practice.

With just three session days remaining in the Lame Duck session, there is little chance the bills will even get to the Senate floor. Perhaps Ward should have looked at real campaign finance reform instead of putting on a show.

With Ward’s record of junkets, free meals from lobbyists, gifts to rich developers and doing the bidding of rich contributors anyone would have been suspicious when he pushed for alleged campaign finance reform.

Veteran journalist Jack Lessenberry was just one who was suspicious of his alleged campaign finance reform, writing, "Be still, my sloshing heart. Actually, my personal blood pump never even skipped a beat once I noticed that the sponsor of these bills was Chris Ward. That is the moral equivalent of Monica Lewinsky opening a charter school of chastity.”

After January we can expect to see a stab taken at passing some real campaign finance reform that benefits the people and not the Republican Party.

TV political ads outpace actual political coverage on TV news

Both the subscription only Gongwer News and MIRS are both reporting on the great job TV “news” did on covering politics in the last election cycle, and it compared the amount of time it spent on actual coverage of the election and issues compared to the obscene amount of cash it took in from political commercials.

As a former print reporter, I clearly have a bias for newspapers. But it takes no genius to see how shallow TV news really is. They spend more time promoting and hyping what’s coming next than on politics. That’s followed closely by crime coverage. Newspapers do a much better job, and they pay for the ink and newsprint to convey the in-depth information. TV uses the public airway for free, and most of the estimated $34 million of his own money the Amway Guy spent went to these TV stations for ads.

In the month leading up to the election, Great Lakes states saw 2.5 times more political TV advertising than they did 30-minute TV news covering the election, according to the second part of a study released by the University of Wisconsin's NewsLab.
According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network (MCFN), in Lansing political coverage averaged 1.46 minutes of airtime during a 30-minute newscast. Through September, the average was 27 seconds of airtime on political stories during a newscast.
In Detroit, the MCFN said, the average in October and leading up to the November 7 election was 1.23 minutes of time, compared to 22 seconds of time spent in September.
But political advertising in the Detroit market averaged 4.21 minutes per newscast. Similar, comparable data to the amount of political ads in the Lansing market was not available.
However, Ken Goldstein of the (University of) Wisconsin study said that in all the markets, all ads as well as weather and sports coverage took more than half of a newscasts' time at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Each broadcast averaged about nine political ads, Mr. Goldstein said.
Taken alone, the lousy job TV did covering the election and the issues is atrocious, but when you combine the TV ads its obscene. TV stations need to take those millions it pocketed and actually fulfill its mission of informing the public on the issues, or it needs to start being charged for using those airwaves like newspapers are charged for ink and newsprint.

I would like to see more local political and issue shows. The best in the state, “Off the Record” is on public television. The only local issues show on commercial TV I know of is on WDIV Detroit.