It’s bad enough John Carney is using state party funds donated by Democrats like us to fund his lack luster campaign. But now he needs to answers questions as to whether his campaign inappropriately using the State Party to bypass campaign finance limitations and prop up his stalled campaign.
In Delaware we are blessed with campaign finance laws that are relatively clear compared to many of other states. There is a strict limit of $1,200 for a contribution to any campaign for statewide office. It doesn’t matter who or what is donating to the campaign the limit is $1200. That’s $1200 for individuals, $1200 for PACs, $1200 for LLC’s, $1200 for corporations. It’s pretty simple, but there are some suspicious donations to the State Party from friends of John’s. John needs to tell voters what’s going on.
Much to the dismay of many Democrats, the State Executive Committee of the Democratic Party began running radio ads for John Carney on July 22 and started running television ads on Aug. 12. It has been well publicized how unprecedented this is, and this spending has no gone well over $100,000 on Carney’s behalf.
The initial campaign finance reporting period of 2008 ranged from 1/1/2008 – 8/8/2008 showed $444,427 of income for the State committee, but almost 38% came in the last four weeks a great deal of which came in large chunks from Carney related sources.
For instance, Jeffrey Immelt, a close friend and college football teammate of John Carney donated $10,000 to the state committee on July 30th just days after the radio ads started. . Mr. Immelt has hosted fundraisers for John Carney during his run for Governor.
Stephen Frank Mandell, another college friend who has no other ties to the Delaware Democratic Party gave, along with his family, $26,000 from 7/30/2008 – 8/8/2008.
Mark E. Murphy who is on Carney’s public list of supporters contributed a whopping $40,000 from himself and his company Murphy Marine Services from 7/11/2008 – 7/29/2008. Mr. Murphy has hosted Fundraisers for John Carney during his campaign for Governor.
Below the fold is a chart outlining some of the major contributions to the state party in the brief period of time immediately preceding some of the media buys on behalf of John Carney’s campaign.
The implications of this are serious. If Carney now wins the primary and this activity is shown to be an illegal campaign financing scheme, it could tilt the election to the Republicans in a year that they have no chance of winning. Clearly, Carney has some explaining to do.
Click on chart to view it full size.
