No real progressive group in Florida has ever heard of them, much less worked with them. However, they are VERY flush with cash. This mystery group in its brief existence has already conducted a statewide mail campaign, bought tons of ads, and put out robocalls in South Florida smearing Charlie Crist.
The group incorporated in Delaware recently, and has rather bizarre ideas of what "progressive" means. I heard about this group in a visit to a Seminole County meeting yesterday, where members told me the group was fighting a local penny infrastructure tax. Their mailers are nasty in attacking Crist, but they also run ads like this one:
Odd. Supporting school vouchers and Florida's disastrous charter schools are not known to be "progressive" causes.
The group said its leader is Jamie Fontaine. Even after repeated requests, she won't disclose the donors:
I will not at this time provide the names these supporters because their only motivation is to engage and have a meaningful impact.
Sure. Ya now, secrecy in campaign donations is very GOPish.
You know what else is GOPish? Deception. They were already busted for collecting donations from fake Democratic websites. So this is par for the course.
The group has tried to buy ads on numerous sites, like this one. But many weren't having any of it because besides refusing to say where all this money came from, the group uses deceptive practices like lying about being part of a national effort and not putting any citations or references in their mailers.
Ms. Fontaine apparently has been engaged in liberal causes in the past. My educated guess is that she was thrown some moolah to give the group some credibility and she convinced herself that she's actually helping Nan Rich, Crist's more liberal challenger.
Ads against Crist without citations saying he fails a "progressive litmus test" is probably not the best strategy if everyone wonders if you are really a GOP front group.
If your real goal is to help Nan Rich, you are failing miserably.
If your real goal is to help Rick Scott, same deal.
I got that in the mail a few weeks ago and thought it smelled bad from the start. The "school choice" thing is a dead giveaway -- and also indicates that Scott's campaign has no real understanding of what their ideological opposition stands for. The good news is that it will likely backfire, because progressives will (as you did) easily see it as a fraud.
ReplyDeleteMost progressive PACs are 501c3 registered, meaning that the donors can be identified. This group, Progressive Choice Florida, has this blurb on the bottom of the page:
ReplyDelete"Paid for by Progressive Choice and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Progressive Choice Florida is a project of Progressive Choice, a 501(c)(4) social welfare advocacy organization."
The fact that it is a 501(c)(4) organization proves that it is a right-wingnut organization, despite the claims on the site to support left-wing causes. And when they say "social welfare advocacy organization" they do so like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.