Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Ameriquest chairs appear never to have donated to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

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A number of commenters, here and elsewhere, have been claiming that Roland and Dawn Arnall, the heads of Ameriquest, were major financial supporters (to the tune of $5 million) of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), the notorious anti-Kerry 527 organization.  Some have also suggested that Deval Patrick’s affiliation with Ameriquest and his personal friendship with Arnall call into question Patrick’s Democratic bona fides in light of the alleged SBVT connection.

As far as I can tell, however, the rumor that the Arnalls supported SBVT is false.  There is, of course, no doubt that the Arnalls strongly backed George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2004.  But every news article I could find on the Arnalls’ donations (here’s one example, and there are many others) says that they – Dawn Arnall in particular – donated $5 million to the Progress for America Voter Fund (PAVF), a separate 527 that ran a series of pro-Bush ads during the 2004 campaign.  One can quibble with the content of some of PAVF’s ads (1 , 2 , 3 ), but they don’t hold a candle to the scurrilous rubbish that was put out by SBVT.

So.  If anyone has any evidence that the Arnalls in fact supported SBVT, let’s see it – with links.  (If you post a comment saying there’s an SBVT-Arnall connection without a link or other supporting evidence, I’ll delete it.)  At the moment, it sure looks to me like the connection doesn’t exist, and we’d all be well-advised to stop claiming that it does.

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Comments

  1. I know I was one of the people who made that spurious conclusion.  Personally, I got confused because there were two big pro-GOP 527s in the last election: Swift Boat and Progress for America.  My brain just conflated the two.

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    And I have no idea how the Ameriquest board ever got dragged into this; it’s not Deval’s job to personally control the political spending of any of his bosses.  I was waiting for the real quacks to come in that would link Ameriquest and Diebold together, but it doesn’t look like you’re going to allow for that.

  2. I deleted the original, which contained an unacceptably long URL, and am re-posting it here with the URL turned into a link.  PLEASE do not post really long  URLs in comments or posts – it screws up everyone’s browser windows.  If you don’t know how to post a link (it’s not that hard), use tinyURL instead.  -David

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    My problem with any Deval-Arnall connection  (0.00 / 0)

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    My problem is not whether the Arnall family gave to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth or the Progress for America Voter Fund.  Though the Swift Boat ads were by far more disgusting, both organizations were outcroppings of the Rove Republicans.

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    My problem is that AFTER the Arnall family gave tons of dough to the attacking of Senator Kerry and to the defense of George W. Bush and His War, Deval still supported Mr. Arnall in his bid for an Ambassadorship.

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    See link.

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    Whether the Arnall family gave to SBVT or PAVF is not the problem.  The Arnall family gave millions to, and raised millions more, for Bush-Cheney-Rove.

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    And then Deval supported Arnall for the Ambassadorship.

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    Why would Deval support a Bush-Cheney-Rove supporter?

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    This then leads into the question of “Exactly how much is Arnall/Ameriquest paying Deval to sit on the board?”

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    Deval’s support for Arnall’s Ambassadorial bid is the problem.  Confusing the issue with “Well, Arnall gave to PAVF, not SBVT” only, well, confuses the issue.

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    Thoughts?
    by: BrightonGuy @ May 05, 2006 at 11:23:23 EST

    • is intended to set the record straight.  IMHO, it does matter whether the Arnalls gave to SBVT or to PAVF.  But in any case, my post is not about whether Patrick should have backed Arnall for an ambassadorship.  It’s just about a factual error that has been repeated several times, as often occurs on the internet.

  3. Might I remind everyone that Bill Richardson and Ed Rendell also endorsed Arnall for this ambassadorship?

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    I don’t know Arnall; I confess I don’t like his company and I don’t like his politics, but this sounds to me like wanting so badly to beat a dog, that any stick will do.

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    • …wanting so badly to beat a dog, that any stick will do.

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      And I didn’t know that Richardson and Rendell also endorsed Arnall.

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      Thanks for that information.

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