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New FEC Reports Show GOP Firm Still Making Big Bucks From Georgia Race
It was a spectacular 2nd quarter for Deborah Travis Honeycutt and her campaign's direct-mail firm, BMW Direct.
We told you last week about how the conservative Washington firm was raising big bucks for the Georgia Republican but eating up almost all of that money in fees. Interestingly, Honeycutt doesn't complain about the firm's tab.
Now Reader BK points out new FEC disclosures filed Saturday showing the firm raised almost $1 million on Honeycutt's behalf during the second three months of 2008, but spent at least $736,000 of that on fees related to a massive nationwide direct-mail campaign.
That brings Honeycutt's total raised so far this election cycle to almost $2.6 million, according to the FEC report (even though she has no challenger for next week's primary election). That puts her among the biggest fundraisers nationwide in this election cycle.
Yet despite the astounding sum of cash, her campaign in suburban Atlanta remains oddly low profile.
While she raised almost $1 million during the second quarter, she spent less than $50,000 in her home state -- including a $4,962 filing fee, $6,000 on "mobile truck advertising," $3,400 in canvassing fees, $2,250 on a local public relations consultant, office rent of $167 per month and a handful of travel expenses. She also gave $5,850 to her campaign manager and husband, Andrew Honeycutt, for expenses listed as "consulting -- campaign strategy."
Honeycutt now has about $290,000 cash on hand and about $175,000 in unpaid debts for direct-mail services.
She's facing Rep. David Scott, a three-term incumbent from an overwhelmingly Democratic district.
In 2006, she lost to Scott by 38 points. Maybe she'll do better this year.
Comments (15)
Yeah, maybe this year she will lose by 39 points. :-D
July 7, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has it occured to anyone else that this may be sort of a political money laundering scheme?
Could the GOP and BMW Direct be using this as a way to skirt around donation limits to other candidates? First recruit straw candidates for otherwise vacant ballot spots, then funnel donations to that straw candidate but use the money to fund the direct mail expenses for real candidates in competitive races who have already maxed out donations from their big donors.
Somebody with access to the donor list for D.T. Honeycutt should cross reference that with donors for BMW Directs more legitimate candidates to see if there are any donors in common who just happened to have already maxed out on the legit candidate.
July 7, 2008 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I followed a link over the weekend somewhere (I can't remember where, so no URLs available at the moment) in TPM that took me to a story on the College Republicans and a direct mail scandal, in which elderly Republicans received desperate and misleading letters that caused them to donate more money than they could afford. This was around the Bush/Kerry presidential competition. The DM campaign was run by Response Dynamics, and the percentages they received for their campaigns rivaled BMW's.
I don't know how to find out if there's a relationship between BMW and Response Dynamics, but someone who knows how should take a look.
While the College Republicans scandal didn't have a money-laundering aspect, what it had was direct mail sent out in the names of Republican causes that didn't even mention the College Republicans and implied that the donations would go straight to Bush's campaign, in many cases.
July 7, 2008 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
A clue may lie in the "vendors" that BMW direct is engaging. I pulled a few threads and tracked at least one of the subcontracted direct mailing companies to DCI.
For the unitiatiated, DCI is the Larson-Feather-Synhorst company, based in Arizona, that does direct mail, robocalls, fundraising, etc. Jeff Larson, a DCI principal, was just caught giving Norm Coleman free rent at a house in DC.
Jeff Larson also is overseeing the nonprofit Minneapolis-St. Paul Republican Convention host committee.
I think there is merit into considering this a money laundering scheme - because you've got a lot of $ changing hands through intermediaries. Exactly what Tom DeLay was alleged to have done.
July 7, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
@Facilitatrix:
Here's Response Dynamics' web site (aka RDI).
Associated companies (owned by RDI):
- Response Dynamics (RDI)
- Mid-America Printing (MAP)
- Data Response Direct Management (DRDM)
- The Best Lists, Inc
- Fulfillment Management Serices (FMS)
One of the links lets you see descriptions of the mailing lists they have/sell.
It might be fun to cross reference the associated companies with any vendors that BMW Direct has been using...
July 7, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also interesting to note that Response Direct's two principals (Kanfer and Kumko) were responsible for fundraising for the political committee that cut the 1988 infamous Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis.
The (George HW) Bush Presidential campaign claimed no connection to the committee.
Here's the Times article from 1988:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3DD1031F930A35752C1A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
July 7, 2008 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here are some more raw links from Democratic Underground:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1108892&mesg_id=1108892
July 7, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. I had found some of this, but I no longer have links from what I found, because my cache cleared after I had a Firefox issue and had to start fresh.
I'll be a good girl and bookmark the valuable stuff.
July 7, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is a question for your reporters: is there a financial connection between Deborah Travis Honeycutt and BMW direct?
It sounds to me like she, or a relative, is getting kickbacks from the company, possibly through some sort of employment deal, or through a 2nd hand payoff.
July 7, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone else see the similarities between these folks and the lobbyists they hold hand with AFTER being elected? They are pretty comfortable working in this environment even BEFORE becoming representatives...
No wonder it is epidemic AND endemic in the swindling political arena...
July 7, 2008 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
DON'T WORRY FOR A MOMENT ABOUT THIS GOP CANDIDATE
The Democratic Party in Georgia is so TERRIBLY
INEPT, they could not win a race with Jesus Christ
at the head of their ticket.
It's really pitiful.
Our sitting US Senator SAXBY @M$*$)SL29 is nothing
but a Bush ASS KISSING $-grabbing SOB, who'd sell
his mother at HIGH NOON on the White House lawn for a vote a/o a Dollar.
All the DEMOCRATIC PARTY WOULD HAVE TO DO IS hand out bumper stickers saying "SAXBY = BUSH", and they'd win hands down.
You don't think they realize that . . . do U?
July 7, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
...And can I just take a moment to recognize the passing of Jessie Helms? He was a hell of a man and lets hope he makes it there!
July 7, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would love to see someone with TPM take a look at the National Black Republican Association and its funding and involvement with BMW. They are placing billboards claiming Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican, and running inflammatory anti Obama ads on radio. www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/06/martin-luther-king-jr-was-a-republican
The NBRA is headed by a woman who founded it in 2005 named Frances Rice, whose bio touts herself as someone who spent 20 years in the active Army, retiring in 1984. She is 64 now, which would have made her 18 when she claims to have registered to vote "as a Republican" in 1962 in her native Georgia, which has never required party registration. She seems to have enlisted at age 20, and while still in the military acquired a BA from Drury College in Missouri in 1973, a Masters in Business from Golden Gate University 1n 1976 and a JD from Hasting's College of UCal in 1977.
That's a pretty hefty educational investment the military made in her, and pretty rapid promotion once she became an officer. She claims to have retired as a Lt. Colonel and served in the JAG office (or perhaps acheived that rank after retirement while in the reserves.) She also claims to "have commanded troops in the field" when she came to the defense of 2006 Republican congressional candidate Tramm Hudson, who defended his "blacks can't swim well" comments by saying it was based on his Army command observations.
Although Rice lists her profession as "attorney" she is not listed with the Florida bar. She also claims she was a member of President Reagan's Private Sector Initiatives Task Force, but that body seemed to have been terminated by Executive order on December 31, 1982 while she would still have been in the Army.
In any case the political claims of her group are outlandish, and her acheivements seem outsized although not impossible. Given what BMW seems to be getting away with using marginal candidates, this group may be another piece of the puzzle.
July 7, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I will repeat a note I sent to TPM when they first broke this: I would be highly surprised if this whole thing isn't a looping enterprise with the "candidates" in on the take. Otherwise, how do you explain the fact that they seem to completely non-plussed by the fact that with tons of money being raised, they are getting virtually none of it.
They don't care and if you are actually part of the scheme and in it get part of the cut, why should you care?
I could also be persuaded towards the view of another poster that this is a shell structure designed to re-direct funds for who knows what purposes. The GOP has long apparently had a black network which can generate and move funds for use on the dark side...things like the phone bank jamming in New Hampshire and the voter registration "drives" that collected new registrations and then trashed any Democratic paperwork.
You don't think the Donald Segretti's of the world disappeared after Nixon do you? Nope...they became the Roger Stone's of today.
July 7, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
July 7, 2008 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink