Another great day campaigning in Aiken County! I’m so proud of the youth brigade for the impact that they are making!
Many of you probably received a robocall today from Jeff Duncan’s campaign. A call designed to respond to our public disclosure that he has received a quarter million dollars in special interest money through donations and paid advertising on his behalf.
First of all, we stand by the information that we have disseminated. It comes directly from www.fec.gov and we have distributed media packets that are an inch thick with the documents. It is information that we have spent hours and hours researching, compiling, and checking. We will make this packet available for $20 to anyone who will pick it up at our Anderson office.
The critical sentence in the Duncan campaign’s robocall was this: “Over 90% of Jeff’s contributions come from individuals in South Carolina and other states who know that Jeff is a true conservative.” Okay, first, note that the contributions are from SC and other states. We can show that 79% of his donations from April 1-June 2, 2010, are from out of our district, and mostly out of state. Second, a lot of these individual donations, particularly from out of state, are identified on the Federal Election Commission reports as being “Earmarked thru Club For Growth.” Club For Growth is a special interest group, and since these individual donations are “Earmarked thru Club for Growth” for Jeff Duncan’s campaign, they are in fact, special interest money.
To sum it up, Jeff Duncan has received about $125,000 in direct donations from special interest groups, including Club For Growth and at least a dozen PACs. In addition, Club For Growth PAC has paid for over $125,000 in advertising to run commercials promoting Jeff Duncan. When you see the Duncan commercials on TV, you will note that a lot of them are identified as being paid for by Club For Growth PAC. Together, the donations and paid advertising add up to a quarter million dollars, and so we stand by our assertion.
Now, let me repeat what I have said repeatedly. This is not a personal attack on Jeff Duncan’s character or career in the SC State House. I have not said that this is illegal or even wrong, it is simply a disagreement. It is a legitimate and important issue as to where enormous sums of money come from to fund campaigns and saturate TV. Special interest funding of campaigns is an area of profound disagreement between us, and political elections always boil down to the differences between candidates, not their similarities!
If you will print this email and refer to it, you can speak with confidence on this subject.
We are grateful for the donations that came in today. Work hard tomorrow, rest Sunday :), then we finish hard on Monday and Tuesday.
For God and Country,
Richard
