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WFP Scandal: Now the Wing Nuts have Ammunition
WFP and six local candidates, including Bill de Blasio (candidate for Public Advocate, ironically enough), Brad Lander, Daniel Dromm, et. al. broke campaign finance laws. That is a simple fact. WFP, and SOME (by no means all...John Liu for example did not participate) of their endorsed candidates played a little money scheme that allowed them to escape campaign finance laws that are designed to keep elections a tad cleaner and more transparent. They violated these laws, in effect using opaque and shady schemes to boost their effectiveness illegally.
Those are the facts and I personally think WFP needs to be held accountable for their violations...as do the candidates that participated.
Now some right wing nut cases (who I won't do the dignity of linking to) are picking up on this legitimate scandal and using it to show their attacks on ACORN (which WFP grew out of and is still connected with) were legit.
Goddamn it. The WFP and Bill de Blasio just gave these right wing nutcases ammunition to use against us. WFP in essence cheated and the Republicans are going to hold it against the Democratic Party. And those who really are interested in clean elections and fairness are left either helping the right wing nut cases expose WFP's scandal, or to let the scandal alone because we don't want to be associated with right wing nut cases.
This scandal is well documented by City Hall News in a whole series of excellent articles:
http://www.cityhallnews.com/news/128/ARTICLE/2053/2009-08-09.html
http://www.cityhallnews.com/news/132/ARTICLE/2080/2009-08-18.html
http://www.cityhallnews.com/news/132/ARTICLE/2113/2009-09-02.html
http://www.cityhallnews.com/news/132/ARTICLE/2105/2009-08-26.html#
http://www.cityhallnews.com/news/132/ARTICLE/2150/2009-09-15.html
In these articles, WFP people basically ADMIT they were skirting the laws. They are even caught in some distortions of the truth. The Campaign Finance Board has said they violated the laws.
This whole thing was discussed even earlier on Room 8 by Hildy Johnson in a difficult to follow but nevertheless revealing article.
And yet some of my fellow progressives want to sweep this under the carpet just because some right wing nutcases want to use it as ammunition. I hear (privately so far) my fellow progressives saying it wasn't so bad what they did or it is class warfare or all sorts of nonsense. No folks. The WFP and Bill de Blasio got caught red handed breaking the law. One of the candidates involved, Daniel Dromm, I had even endorsed myself (before the WFP did) and I am happy enough he won. But he also should be investigated for this because we cannot tolerate breaking campaign finance laws even when we like the culprit. Maybe it will be found WFP took the lead and the candidates didn't know any better. Or maybe all 6, good and bad folks alike, were willing to bend or break the law to win. I don't know. But it should be treated like a scandal and investigated like a scandal even when we like one or more of those involved.
If you don't like the fact the right wing has some new ammunition in their stupid crusade against ACORN (and most of their crusade IS stupid and IS class warfarae), blame WFP. They are the ones who systematically violated the laws and so exposed the left to this criticism from the right. If we sweep it under the carpet, we are being as bad as the Republicans who hide their scandals as long as they can, and then blame the media when the scandal gets exposed. I like to think the left is better than that. When one of our own gets caught, say, with bribe money in his freezer, I like to think we reject the sleazeball. This year WFP violated laws and joined forces with the infamously corrupt Vito Lopez machine in Brooklyn. I will not deny that is a scandal just because the right has latched onto it.
I am not the first blogger to see it this way. Gatemouth on Room 8 has already discussed this exact aspect of the scandal:
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/silver_lining.html
So let's not follow the lead of the Republicans and try to hide our scandals. The WFP and six (only six!) of its candidates broke the law to try and get around campaign finance laws. It is that simple. Had Republicans done the exact same thing, every progressive blogger in the city would be on their case about it.
Guilt by association
Okay, so the WFP broke the law. It doesn't necessarily follow that those candidates who got support from the WFP also broke the law.
Jimmy Van Bramer and Danny Dromm are good people, and I'm glad they won (I supported both of them, including contributing early to their campaigns -- you can look it up). It's possible that they participated in some WFP shenanigans without knowing that what the WFP was doing was illegal. Anyone who has dealt with the Campaign Finance Board knows just how convoluted and onerous the rules and regulations can be.
I don't know the other WFP-supported candidates as well, but I would be very slow to excoriate any of them simply because they got what was (and probably still is, despite the problems) a highly-sought endorsement. If you want to win you have to play the game, and the game is very, very rough.
Re: Guilt by association
Well I agree that it isn't automatic. I like Dromm and was glad he won. But I also know Bill de Blasio and Brad Lander enough by now to know they would be more than willing to bend or break rules if they thought they could get away with it. But I do not judge the other candidates because I do not know them well enough. But that doesn't change what I said. They SHOULD be investigated. If they are innocent of wrongdoing, GREAT. And my gut tells me Dromm is innocent. But my gut isn't good enough. His campaign needs to be examined to see if he was complicit. Even if I like him, I want him to go through the same scrutiny.
Re: WFP Scandal: Now the Wing Nuts have Ammunition
You're posts over the past couple months have continued to suggest you're really surprised to learn of the WFP financing scheme. This has been going on forever. That's why the endorsement is so coveted, not necessarily because of the WFP brand, but because they put footsoldiers on the ground for you. And if there's any "coordination" - a very loose term - between the campaign and the WFP, there's a violation of campaign finance laws.
You might hate Lander, de Blasio, and several others, but anyone who did get the WFP endorsement in the past several years probably broke campaign finance laws in some capacity, and I'm sure that includes candidates that you've supported.
Re: WFP Scandal: Now the Wing Nuts have Ammunition
Um, the WFP has not been found guilty of doing anything. This blog post is slanderous, but, one shouldn't expect much more from you considering your pathetic and rather odd obsession with the WFP that's developed lately. Admonishing you is rather pointless.
Instead, I will just let anyone who has stumbled in here to read this hack's postings that the WFP has not been found guilty of any violations of campaign finance law by anyone other than Isaac Dovere, the New York Post, and Mole333. The New York Times, for example, was so convinced of such that it endorsed most of the WFP's candidates while specifically making a case for reform.
Re: WFP Scandal: Now the Wing Nuts have Ammunition
Mole,
I know it's all sour grapes -- WFP has beaten you so many times that you just lose your mind and spout specious "facts" to justify your hatred. WFP did NOT "break campaign finance laws." As you wrote, "That is a simple fact. WFP, and SOME . . . of their endorsed candidates played a little money scheme that allowed them to escape campaign finance laws . . ."
That's what City Hall News' "reporter" claimed, but he is the boyfriend of a Gioia operative who was trying to discredit DeBlasio and the WFP.
That's also what Josh Skaller claimed when he filed a complaint with the Campaign finance Board which was DISMISSED on Sept 11th. In a press release on that date, the CFB dismissed "A complaint received on August 26 from Josh Skaller’s campaign for City Council in District 39 regarding various alleged unreported expenditures by candidate Brad Lander."
This means that THE LANDER CAMPAIGN DID NOT VIOLATE THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW, AS ALLEGED BY HIS OPPONENT AND REPORTED AS "SIMPLE FACT" BY YOU. That is, unless you believe the CFB is in cohoots with the WFP.
It's loose-with-the-facts guys like you who turn spurious allegations into "simple facts" that are then referenced by others. It's people like you who repeatedly abuse the power of the blog to get back at your political opponents who give the right wing nutcases fuel for their craziness.
If you are so interested in CFB violations, why didn't you do the simple work of checking out the CFB web site? Laziness? Mendacity? Hypocrisy? I don't know, but I suspect it was "simple" reportorial incompetence.
And this is only one of dozens of inaccurate and/or vicious attacks contained in your post.
Unfortunately, this is a pattern with you. You make up "facts" to support your (usually) losing battles. Your animus toward any person or organization that questions your great wisdom has blinded you.
Please do yourself and all of us progressives a favor and learn the difference between a politically-motivated allegation and a fact. OK? Then people wouldn't dismiss what you write as they now do.
Now it's your turn to attack me for having the audacity to catch you in the act. Fire away, O Brave One!