Wednesday’s intergalactic adventure proved popular, so in the spirit of keeping things weird, today we’re going to tell you a ghost story!
Once upon a time (2020), in a magnificent but poorly-esteemed kingdom (Florida), it looked like Democrats might win a few key state elections, enough to tip the balance of the state Senate out of Republican control. But then, the ghosts appeared.
In three key races, advertisements for new, independent, “no party” candidates were served up to residents, aimed at left-leaning voters. The “ghost” candidates never did any sort of real public campaigning, but there was so much advertising that they did receive thousands of votes- and thereby sealing victory for the Republican candidates.
One of the “ghost” candidates, who got over 6,000 votes and shares a last name with the incumbent Democratic candidate who lost by just 32 votes, has since pled guilty to accepting almost $45,000 in bribes from Republican political operative and former state senator Frank Artiles.
But Artiles wasn’t the only Scooby-Doo villain behind the ghost candidates who helped the GOP retain power. The funding for ads has been traced back to dark money PACs, and it shared a mailing address that just so happened to be home to Associated Industries of Florida, a major trade lobby group. Alex Alvarado, a political consultant behind the groups promoting the “ghosts,” said that he doesn’t work for AIF, though, and just used the building for mail delivery because “it’s easy to pick up stuff there because they have a receptionist. I work out of my house.”
But if he’s working out of his house, why wouldn’t he have his mail delivered to his house? And if he needed somewhere to receive mail, why not a P.O. Box? Also, while we’re hypothetically asking questions to Alex Alvarado, why did he pay a then-25-year-old community college student $1,500 to use her name on paperwork designating her the chairperson of a political organization called “The Truth,” and then not contact her at all while using the organization to run ads promoting a spoiler candidate? And then, when she called, pay her another $2,500?
Still, the plot thickens!
Annie Martin and Jason Garcia of the Orlando Sentinel have obtained documents linking the state’s public power utility, Florida Power & Light, to the executives behind the scheme.
Garcia and Martin write that while “none of the records sent to the Sentinel show FPL donating money directly to Grow United,” one of the organizations that funded the groups that ran ads for the spoiler candidates, “they do show that consultants who were controlling Grow United billed FPL for millions of dollars shortly before they started moving money through it in September of last year.”
Time for another round of hypothetical questions!
Why is a public utility spending its funds on political consultants when its monopoly is so tightly regulated? If it wasn’t funding these spoiler candidates, what were the seven-figure checks to the consultants supposed to be for, and where’s the proof of that “consulting, research and digital” work on “energy and regulatory issues?”
And if it weren’t for meddling kids (who grow up into reporters and such), would everyone still believe in ghosts?