Oops.
The guardians of all truth, honor, integrity and Small Town Real American Family Values® got nailed with their hands in the cookie jar. This time, it was about soliciting pay to play between disparate corporate interests on legislation.
Exclusive: Conservative group offers to sell endorsement for $2M
The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.
For the $2 million+, ACU offered a range of services that included: "Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and / or other members of the ACU’s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)"
The conservative group’s remarkable demand — black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as "pay for play" — was contained in a private letter to FedEx that was provided to POLITICO.
The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.
In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. After FedEx says it rejected the offer, Keene signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS. Keene did not return a message left on his cell phone.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/...
The letter:
http://www.politico.com/...
We have estimated that you will need to target 10 states with an average of 5 Congressional Districts per state, similar to the size of Iowa. Some states may have slightly fewer Congressional Districts like Mississippi; others more, like Alabama or Louisiana.
For the activist contact portion of the plan we will contact over 150,000 people per state multiple times at a cost of $1.39 per name or $2,147,550 to implement the entire program.
Each person will be contacted a total of seven times totaling nearly 11 million contacts total in the ten targeted states.
If we incorporate the targeted, Senator-personalized radio effort into the plan, you can figure an additional $125,000 on average, per state.
After being rebuffed on their KA-CHING!!!!! moment, the guardians of truth, morality and free enterprise retaliated.
After the rebuff, American Conservative Union changed sides. ACU Chairman David A. Keene was one of eight conservative leaders who signed a letter to FedEx Chairman Frederick W. Smith, a champion of capitalism who in the past has been a favorite of conservatives.
The letter accuses FedEx of "falsely and disingenuously" labeling the rules change a "bailout" for UPS, since FedEx would become subject to the same arduous union structure.
The letter is also signed by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who is also on ACU’s board. FedEx is pushing its case with a website called www.BrownBailout.com.
The letter signed by the conservative leaders concludes: "To paraphrase the words of Ronald Reagan, ‘Mr. Smith, tear down this website.’"
Read more: http://www.politico.com/...
I'm shocked, shocked that Big "C" Conservatives would act this way.