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Leonard Boswell's campaign wrote a letter to Ed Fallon's campaign asking that he return all money that was raised after Democracy for America sent an email asking its members to donate to the Fallon campaign.
"In light of your criticism of Leonard Boswell for accepting support from Political Action Committees (PACs), I was rather dismayed to see you accepting support and soliciting money for your candidacy from a PAC," wrote JoDee Winterhof, a senior adviser for the Boswell campaign.Fallon countered back saying that he has never taken money from a PAC and never will...
"I've never taken contributions from lobbyists or PACs, and I won't in this campaign either," Fallon said. "We're pleased to receive the endorsement of DFA, which urged its individual members to make contributions to my campaign through ActBlue, an online clearinghouse for donations to Democratic candidates."This entire situation is pretty funny considering that Boswell raised $730,00 in 2007 with $540,000 coming from PAC's.
There is a huge difference between Boswell accepting checks written directly by corporate PAC's and a PAC asking its individual members to donate to a campaign. Fallon's donations come from real people, not an accounting department. Since so much of Boswell's money is coming directly from a PAC, it draws questions to whom Boswell actually represents.
So suddenly the Boswell campaign now thinks it is wrong for a candidate to accept money from PAC's. I want to know if Boswell will be giving back the money he accepted from PAC's and if he's going to be writing a check for $540,000?
2 comments:
It's not that they think taking money from PACs and lobbyists is wrong, but that if you make a cornerstone of your campaign that you don't accept such funds, you should actually...not accept such funds. The Boswell folks are banking on the fact that people will see the fact that DFA asked individual donors to contribute rather then give the money itself is a distinction without a difference.
To be fair, the DFA -is- assisting the Fallon campaign by soliciting donations for him. By that logic, however, so is KCCI, the Des Moines Register or any other news organization that runs a story about Fallon, since it's free publicity. Or maybe Qwest, Alliant, and Mid-American Energy are helping his campaign by allow the lights and internet to work in his campaign offices? Worse yet, Qwest and the power companys must be paid staffers, since he is giving them money for their services.
Fallon keeps screaming about all these campaign finance promises he makes but i think a look at the facts is necessary. First off its different because they are a PAC and not a utility company who is just providing a product where as the DFA is soliciting money from them. Second Boswell didn't say he wasnt going to take money from PACs and lobbyist Fallon did. Also fallon since he first ran for the legislature has been making this pledge about who he will take money from and how much. But time after time he has broken that most notably in his run for the govenor. He took money from at least 6 different lobbyist and said he would not take more than 2400 from an individual donor but once again he broke that pledge. This i assure you is just one instance among many where Fallon says one thing and does another
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