As discovered by Bernstein in August, the Republican Governors Association (RCA) PAC created a fake front group to hide their money in supporting Charlie Baker. The Commonwealth Future PAC that you have been seeing on television with Beth Lindstrom which tries to sound like a Massachusetts group is really a front for national Republicans, checking the OCPF today, 99.7% of the money came from the RGA. Massachusetts Super PAC disclosure bill recently signed by Deval Patrick required that the top 5 donors be disclosed, at the time the PAC only had one donor, so they rounded up 4 people donate 5k each to make a top 5 and you know the rest of the 6+ million is from the RGA. Check the Correspondence tab for the letter informing the PAC of Mass law, it’s pretty funny.
More recently, the RGA created a second front group called the American Comeback Comm Massachusetts Independent Expenditure PAC and you guessed it, it has nothing to do with Massachusetts. At this point the sole donation was from the RGA which was put towards mailers for Charlie Baker.
We’ve seen the attack ads, but if you are wondering what they define as a Support ad for Baker, they defined this one as Support:
This is an attack group.
So why are they hiding, setting up front organizations to hide their money, well if you didn’t know the RGA is mainly funded by the inner bowels of Republican sleaze, Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson as their top donors. Their 2014 election cycle top donors also include Harold Simmons of Contran Corp and Bob Perry of Perry Homes, if those names sound familiar they created the Swift Boat Vets.
If Charlie Baker wants to talk about issues facing the commonwealth, the real commonwealth, not his fake Massachusetts PAC groups, he needs to take control and either denounce the attack ads or own them. If he wants to stand with the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson and the Swift boaters then own them and stop this charade. That’s not a governor we want or deserve.
I didn’t know the RGA could or did raise money. I thought it was just an association.
It is to Republican Governors and candidates what the NRSC and NRCC are to GOP candidates for US Senate and US House respectively. Democrats of course have equivalent organizations.
Makes $32 million dollars per day as personal income from the gambling syndicates he runs. He “donates” money to Republicans, most recently Mitt Romney. Hard to say how much exactly, but it’s in the tens of millions. Vote Yes to Repeal the Casino Bill and stop the flow of money to men like Sheldon Adelson.