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Georgia Campaign Doesn't Complain About Hefty Fundraising Fees
We finally heard back from someone at the campaign of Deborah Travis Honeycutt. A couple days ago, we reported that a Washington-based fundraising group raked in more than $500,000 for the little-known Republican running for Congress in suburban Atlanta.
That money came from a nationwide direct-mail effort targeting self-styled conservatives who want to help defeat Democratic lawmakers.
But only about $17,000 of that amount was spent in her district. Most of the rest went to fees paid to the fundrasing firm, BMW Direct, and its affiliates and vendors.
That didn't seem to bother her campaign manager, Michael Murphy.
"We've been very pleased with them. BMW Direct has been able to help us raise resources and tap into a thirst in the country for the principles and platforms that she stands on," he said.
Murphy was unable to say what that campaign money raised was spent on. The three campaign staffers are volunteers, and so far the main activity has been "pressing the flesh," he said.
Murphy couldn't say exactly how much was ultimately given to the campaign. Those details were handled by Andrew Honeycutt, the candidate's husband and "campaign executive," he said. (Andrew Honeycutt has not returned our calls)
"I just work with the resources we have," Murphy said in the interview today.
"All I can say is we've been very pleased with BMW Direct."
Comments (12)
"...BMW Direct has been able to help us raise resources and tap into a thirst in the country for the principles and platforms that she stands on,"
Principles like being sure the funding is spent and only 10% reaches the intended cause or principles like screw your supporters... they have lots of money to burn anyhow.
July 2, 2008 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some enterprising Dem group should put together a nice letter to send to all of the many conservative donors that have been fleeced by BMW Direct to warn them about the dangers of getting swindled by shady GOP campaign direct mail operations!!!
We want to warn these poor folks about the potential dangers of donating to Republicans!
July 3, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
A good question was raised about where these lists came from. A huge % of the people are "retired" or have provided "no info."
July 3, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha Ha Ha hope all the conservative Republicans are this lax with their precious funds. It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel.
July 2, 2008 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
wouldn't it be interesting to find out whether some of BMW Direct's "candidates" were benefitting personally from their connection to BMW? but on the flip side, is the $17k that they actually spent in her district a lot more than she would normally hope to raise as a longshot? if the latter is the case, of course the longshot campaigns would not be the first to raise a fuss.
July 3, 2008 3:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Something is screwy here.
The Save New York PAC contributed $5k to Honeycutt in 9/06. The Save New York PAC appears to have been set up in late 2003 by Scott Mackenzie and Michael Benjamin who ran against Schumer in '04.
The Save New York PAC is still active and pays NYC Republican activist, Robert Horan, a few thousand dollars periodically to be the treasurer although most of the money goes to BMW.
The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund, another BMW outfit, also donated to Honeycutt. But the Susan B. Anthony List received contributions from the ATT PAC, Porter Goss campaign, John Doolittle and Pete Sessions.
Why would supposedly legit candidate campaigns give money to a BMW ripoff political committee?
I don't have time to look at any more BMW records at the moment but I am beginning to agree with C92 that some off-balance sheet financing is going on.
July 3, 2008 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
The shame of it is that my 93 year old aunt donates a part of her social security check to outfits like this thinking that she is helping "christianize" the USA when all she is doing is pouring money down a rathole.
I have to wonder how many other older citizens are taken in by this type of scam.
On the other hand, this explains why I only donate money directly to local organizations and avoid going through "fund raising" organizations.
July 3, 2008 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Besides following the disappearing . . . dare I say . . . laundered money, prosecutors/chronicaling journalists need to follow the relatives of the folks involved (probably to Dubai or some tropical island-state bank).
July 3, 2008 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
So who is gonna be the first to check if ol' Debbie is driving a new BMW?
July 3, 2008 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is a case of a republican getting nothing for something. oH, except her looser status.
July 3, 2008 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do you spell kickback? The campaign doesn't care that out of a half a million they only get $17,000, oh please.
July 5, 2008 3:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Probably part of the accelerative impact of circular contributions. If every PAC in the cabal gave one of the others, in turn, a million dollars would have been donated to all the organizations, but not a cent would have actually changed hands - just one big check kiting scheme with no opportunity to bounce a check - worse still, probably as legal as it is illegitimate.
July 7, 2008 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink