Con Men

by dday

Rick Perlstein used to call his blog The Big Con, and he explained that modern conservatism was, at its root, a giant con game on its own constituency.

Have I got a story for him.

During the first quarter of 2008, BMW Direct, a conservative political firm in Washington, helped raise more than $500,000 for an obscure Republican longshot running for Congress in Georgia.

But in a replay of the firm’s modus operandi in a Massachusetts race, as chronicled by the Boston Globe, most of the money raised by BMW Direct in the Georgia race has come from out-of-state contributors and been spent on supposed campaign-related services provide by the firm and its affiliates.

A half a million dollars in a single quarter is a substantial haul for even well-financed, high-profile candidates, let alone someone like like Deborah Travis Honeycutt, who ran for the seat in 2006 and lost by 38 points […]

Honeycutt’s campaign has brought in more than $1.7 million so far this election cycle. It has also spent more than $1.5 million.

For the most recent quarter, the campaign raised $620,016.72 in mostly small donations from across the country, according to her most recent FEC filing. And she spent $537,622.68 during the first quarter, most of which was to cover the costs of the direct mail campaign.

Only a small fraction of the money went to pay for a campaign on the ground. The total money spent in Georgia was $16,695. That covered expenses listed as political field work, public relations and media.

However, more than $314,000 went to BMW Direct and its affiliates who all work in the same downtown Washington office building. That’s not including the other large payments to other Washington-area firms for direct mail-related expenses.

The best ending to this story would be if there were no Deborah Travis Honeycutt, only a photo grabbed out of a K-Mart picture frame.

This is the modern conservative movement distilled to its very essence – stealing from its most ardent supporters, using politics for profit-taking, promising the world and giving back nothing. If I didn’t know any better I’d think it was a evangelical ministry.

It seems fairly clear that this is theft, and yet I’m struggling to determine how this would be prosecuted as a crime. Honeycutt is on the ballot as a candidate, complying with FEC reports, and using the small-dollar donations to pay staff, a legitimate expense. If she didn’t exist I suppose there would be something about bilking people out of cash under false pretenses, but then the same could be said of every Republican who promised to overturn Roe and limit the size of government. I don’t know if there is a relevant statute. Just a short con by some low-lifes. Or, if you prefer, the Grand Old Party.

…speaking of con men, see too the “PUMAs,” supposedly Hillary supporters who are organizing to stop Obama, run by a woman who’s made one substantive political donation in her life, and it was to John McCain. Rick Perlstein, late of The Big Con, has more.

.