Imagine in November you had a choice……

Between a candidate funded by corporate and out of state special interests including “dark money” and one funded by a large number of individual contributions? Assuming the candidates have no political affiliations, which candidate would you vote for? I’ve asked this question to several people over the past few weeks and now I’d like to see what you guys think.

22 thoughts on “Imagine in November you had a choice……”

  1. Very informative!! What about 501(c)(7) non profits?
    You know me, I am always going with the most disclosure.

  6. The problem with your question/proposition is that the candidates who attempt to make “dark”/outside money a (false) issue are the ones who aren’t getting any (or much) or it, i.e., they want it, too, but for whatever reason (see below) they aren’t receiving much/any.

    For example, in the upcoming “jungle primary,” McDaniel, Hyde Smith and Espy are all getting varying amounts of outside money and all would gladly take as much as they could hustle up. McDaniel isn’t getting as much as he wants because the math simply doesn’t support him surviving the primary. Therefore, attempting to paint McDaniel as the candidate receiving (mostly) individual contributions because of a choice by McDaniel/his campaign to refuse outside money is disingenuous. This is plainly demonstrated by McDaniel’s acceptance, now and in the past, of all the outside money he could hustle up. I’d offer that if Espy wasn’t a well-known and serious black Dem challenger, but rather some white tilt-at-all-the-windmills Dem perennial candidate, a lot fewer outside dollars would be expended on that race. In that race, the bottom line is that the math says that it will be Espy and Hyde Smith facing off and Hyde Smith the probable winner, so that is how the outside money is flowing. Should something change, the flow would change with it.

    In any event, to answer the question as phrased, I would not cast my vote based solely upon who else does or does not support the candidates (short of the extreme and the candidate sought out that extreme, but in such a case, that extreme wouldn’t matter as such a candidate would necessarily do other things to eliminate them as a possible for my vote). I’d rather vote for a (reasonably) decent, (generally) honest citizen-candidate, but most often, it comes down to the least-offensive choice. I’ve only seen a truly good choice a handful of times in almost 50 years of election-watching and the “jungle primary” is yet another election forcing a vote for “least-worse” candidate.

  7. Thank you all for commenting. I’ll leave this open for another 24 hours or so before advancing the topic for those that may be moved to chip in their 2 cents.

    1. My local PBS station did not run it, but I watched online. Sometimes the candidates don’t even know what these PACS are going to say about their opponents!! And they get blamed for dirty politics.

      1. What seems to happen more often is the candidates coordinate with these PACS despite the fact they are not supposed to coordinate.

        We’ve already seen out of state political advertising involving Chris McDaniel, first when he qualified to run against Wicker and again after he swapped to run against Cindy Hyde Smith.

        Anyone interested in light reading should take a look at Tate Reeves 2017 campaign finance reports which contained a huge contribution from Centene as well as sizable donations from Joe Canizaro and the principal and company called Marko Enterprise LLC, which leads here and here.

        The C-L writes that Tater has over $5M in the bank which means he raised north of $4M in 2018. A vote for Tater is a vote for these private, out of state business interests.

  8. 501 (3) C does this mean BWYC can contribute as part of Dark Money? Seems like a lot of Dark stuff happening over there with all of this shenanigans as non profit…

    1. Bay Waveland Yacht Club is a 501(c)(7) social club per their determination letter and last 990. The dark money groups are 501(c)(4) organizations, which do not have to disclose their donors.

        1. It is under the umbrella of the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. Go to Secretary of State website. Same ones running both entities.

      2. Doug is correct about the Yacht Club filing currently as a (c) (7), but that is Federal, IRS. They are telling the state they are a (c) (3). Can a non profit file in one category with IRS and another with the State?All in the name of being “fraternal!”😎😜

  9. Actually the FBI already has both the Judge and Dr. Ford’s sworn testimony from last Thursday. I thought they were just trying to see if any of the individuals named by either one could corroborate their testimony.

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