So yesterday this got lost amongst the whole Michelle Nunn (D. GA) "leaked memo" story:
http://www.slate.com/...
It's a fascinating picture of what is and isn't a scandal. The same day that Eliana Johnson scooped the Nunn memo, OpenSecrets reporter Russ Choma ran a long investigation of the money sloshing around a shadowy Ohio group that played big in Georgia. The story is complicated, but the gist is that Republican strategist Nick Ayers' firm has been paid by the Government Integrity Fund and the Jobs & Progress Fund.
[The Jobs & Progress Fund] more than $1.6 million into a super PAC called Citizens for a Working America. That group promptly began attacking Rep. Jack Kingston, the 11-term Georgia Republican running against David Perdue for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Saxby Chambliss.
In June, another Ohio nonprofit, the Government Integrity Fund, poured an additional $410,000 into Citizens for a Working America as the super PAC’s attacks on Kingston — and ads supportive of Perdue — continued to roll.
One ad shortly before the runoff accused Kingston of being involved with a straw donor scheme to funnel money illegally to his campaign and hide its true source. The Jobs & Progress Fund also bought its own ads directly, spending more than $138,000 and turning up the pressure further. - Slate, 7/29/14
Ayers has been hired by Gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner (R. IL) and U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue (R. GA):
http://www.opensecrets.org/...
The connection between Ayers and the mysterious groups from Ohio that targeted his bosses’ opponents raises the question of whether there was illegal coordination between the Perdue campaign and the groups. Under the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, it’s not illegal for an outside group — a super PAC or a corporation (including nonprofits) — to fund attacks on candidates, but they may not plot strategy with the campaigns that benefit from their work.
Proving improper coordination is a tall order; some communication between outside groups and campaigns is permissible. But the relationships uncovered by OpenSecrets Blog in a snarl of “dark money” groups, which report little information to the Federal Election Commission, and super PACs indicate at least that key people in the campaigns knew exactly who was spending money to take heavy-handed potshots at their opponents — messages that may not have played well with voters if they came from the campaigns themselves.
And while what happened in the Illinois race wouldn’t fit the legal definition of coordination for several reasons, including the fact that the subject of the attack ads wasn’t yet a declared candidate, it’s evidence of a pattern of activity that was also present in the Georgia race.
“You don’t need a formal agreement, but there’s got to be something to suggest the person [linked to the outside group] has an actual connection to the candidate,” said Richard Briffault, a campaign finance law expert at Columbia University. - Open Secrets, 7/28/14
Here's a little more info:
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/...
Ayers, whose wife is Sonny Perdue’s second cousin, also works for Target Enterprises, a GOP media firm that took in $2.9 million from the David Perdue campaign for media buys.
Under campaign finance law, campaigns cannot coordinate with such outside groups. The Ayers tie, CRP writes, “raises the question of whether there was illegal coordination between the Perdue campaign and the groups.”
Ayers answered the question with a “nope”:
“As I worked with outside groups in Georgia this cycle, a firewall was put in place at Target Enterprises that prevented coordination with the Perdue campaign, which is common practice in the industry.”
“Firewalls” have become commonplace as a small network of firms take in overlapping business in the new Super PAC landscape. The Washington Post explained the issue, with examples from Democrats and Republicans, in 2012.
The OpenSecrets piece also delves into the origins and past work of the various entities working on Perdue’s behalf. South Carolina-based Citizens for a Working America has to disclose its donors, but it gets nearly all its money from Ohio-based nonprofits Jobs & Progress Fund and Government Integrity Fund, which don’t disclose their donors.
OpenSecrets draws a parallel between Georgia and Illinois. Jobs & Progress Fund also was involved in the Illinois governor’s race, which shares some similarities with this race in that Chicago billionaire Bruce Rauner captured the Republican nomination with a self-funded outsider campaign.
Jobs & Progress Fund helped clear the way with early attacks on Rep. Aaron Schock as he was considering a run. Ayers consulted for the Rauner campaign, but there is no documented link between Jobs & Progress Fund and Target Enterprises at the time of the Schock attacks. - Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7/29/14
It makes sense because Perdue was trailing Kingston going into the runoff and was able to pull of a tight and surprising win. Grant it, Kingston mainly focused on conservative voters and Perdue focused on Atlanta based voters but there's no doubt the attack ads helped Perdue win a decent chunk of those conservative voters. Perdue really is the Romney caliber candidate here. A wealthy businessman who's also a job killer and took stimulus money and supports Wall Street bailouts. While Nunn has walked a tight line when it comes to President Obama, her campaign and Georgia Democrats are working hard on winning over the voters:
http://www.npr.org/...
The Nunn campaign is hoping to build on the support President Obama drew two years ago in Georgia, when he came within 5 points of winning without ever campaigning in the state. But Republican political consultant Todd Rehm wonders whether the moderate Nunn will be able to count on that support.
"Without a presidential race that brought out some new voters, some folks who had lapsed into inactivity, it's unclear how to get them enthusiastic if you're not willing to go to the mat for your president," he says.
But there's something that Republicans and Democrats agree on — Georgia's electorate is changing as its population grows, with the number of minority voters increasing and the proportion of white voters shrinking.
"People of color in Georgia tend to vote Democratic. If you're African-American, it's in the high 90s," explains Stacey Abrams, the House minority leader in Georgia's General Assembly and the first African-American elected to that position. "If you're Latino or Asian, it's in the 70s and 80s, which means those are voters that are most likely to be Democratic voters if they're talked to, if they're recruited and if they are turned out."
To mobilize those potential supporters, Georgia Democrats have been working since January to target and contact voters through phone bank and canvassing operations.
But to win, Nunn's campaign will also need at least respectable numbers among white voters. Early strategy memos for the Nunn campaign leaked to the National Review, a conservative magazine, said the Democrat would likely need to win at least 30 percent of the white vote. - NPR, 7/29/14
And Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (D. GA) has been working hard to get voters out for Nunn:
http://www.ajc.com/...
The mayor was speaking Tuesday at a press conference regarding ways to save for a future infrastructure bond worth up to $250 million, pending voter approval next year.
The event came a day after U.S. Senate Democratic hopeful Michelle Nunn’s campaign suffered a massive blow with the leak of internal campaign documents, first published by The National Review Monday.
Reed, who is largely considered one of Georgia’s most prominent Democrats and prolific fundraisers, has pledged his support for Nunn and already campaigned on her behalf.
Asked what advice he would give, the mayor paused.
“Every campaign has ups and downs. You don’t know the quality of your campaign until you’ve been hit,” he said. “They should count this as a hit. And she’s going to be just fine.” - Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7/29/14
This race is still ours to win, we just have to get the base out to the polls. Nunn's built a strong grassroots army but she's going to need our help in order to win. Click here to donate and get involved with Nunn's campaign:
http://www.michellenunn.com/