In the Right

Consider:

FDF declares in its Mission Statement:
The Republicans did not lose majorities in Congress by being too conservative. Republicans lost in the 2006 elections because they betrayed the conservative principles of the people who sent them to Washington. They forgot that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

“FDF stands with conservative, pro-freedom candidates against the radical left and their elitist allies in the mainstream media. We tell the truth about Democrats like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi that you will not hear anywhere else. We are unyielding in exposing the dangers that these radicals pose to our American way of life.”

Reading that, one would certainly get the impression that FDF supports Republicans and opposes Democrats.

And a quick look at a list of candidates supported in previous years by FDF confirms this - among them are well-known conservatives like Woody Jenkins, former U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode and William Russell, who last year ran against Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

Interestingly, FDF even contributed $3,000 to Lonegan for governor on Oct. 10, 2008.

Only once does it appear that FDF has engaged in an independent expenditure campaign - last year, it spent $19,001.00 against Murtha.

Supporting Republicans is to be expected. Opposing Democrats is to be expected. But opposing some Republicans to support other Republicans - that puts FDF into the same risky waters into which the Club for Growth regularly dives.

And the fact that FDF has never gotten involved in a GOP primary with an independent expenditure campaign - until now - only makes the effort that much more interesting.

FDF lists its office address as 1155 15th Street NW, Washington, DC, Suite 410 — the same address as a direct mail firm now called “Base Connect,” which used to go by the name “BMW Direct.”

Other firms listed at the same address include:

· Legacy List Marketing, LLC

· Century Data Mailing Services

· Electronic Reporting Systems, Inc.

· Mackenzie & Company

These firms all handle various aspects of direct mail fundraising and accounting - Scott Mackenzie of Mackenzie & Co., for example, is listed as the treasurer of FDF (and a number of other campaign committees, including William Russell’s campaign against Murtha.

Together, these firms - the Base Connect/BMW Direct family - have raised money for lots of GOP candidates in the past.

And they’ve done so, it turns out, in controversial ways.

In 2006, for example, the Boston Globe reported on BMW Direct’s fundraising campaign for Charles Morse, who ran against Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

BMW Direct grossed upwards of $700,000 in its efforts against Frank. Roughly $30,000 of that made its way to the candidate; the rest - more than $670,000 - was gobbled up by creative fees, list rental fees, caging fees, accounting fees, compliance fees, printing fees, and postage costs, all of which went to BMW Direct and its affiliates and vendors.

You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing, and you don’t have to be a professional campaign operative to know that a 96 percent cost of fundraising is over the top: What matters is not how much money you raise, but how much money the candidate can spend on the campaign itself. Net dollars, not gross, are the key to success.

Spending a dollar to raise a dollar just doesn’t make sense for most campaigns.

But in New Jersey, governors’ races have an extra complication that makes this high-cost fundraising less unattractive: Candidates can opt in to a public funding program that gives them $2 of taxpayer funds for every dollar they raise privately.

Those are gross dollars raised, not net, so the incentive is to raise as much as possible, never mind the cost of fundraising.

So where most candidates wouldn’t settle for walking away with just 5 percent or 10 percent of their gross as their net, Lonegan would be perfectly happy to do so - because, under the state’s public financing system, he would actually be walking away with 205 percent or 210 percent of his gross as his net.

It should be no surprise, then, that among the clients listed on the “About Us” page of the Base Connect firm’s Web site is “Steve Lonegan for Governor, challenger, 2 cycles.”

To recap:

The supposedly independent foundation that just launched an allegedly uncoordinated attack against a candidate in New Jersey, in an effort to aid a candidate it has already contributed to, uses as its direct mail fundraising firm the same direct mail fundraising firm used by the candidate who benefits from the allegedly independent expenditure - and they share office space.

If FDF and the Lonegan for Governor campaign committee simply shared the same direct mail fundraising vendor, the connection might be considered tenuous enough to escape notice.

But FDF is housed in the same office space as Lonegan’s direct mail fundraiser.

Is that, by itself, proof of illegal coordination? Of course not.

But it is enough to ask questions.

And it is enough to say this - if these people haven’t broken a law, they’ve sure stunk up the joint, and they’ve done it in a rather obvious and ham-handed manner.

And, given that Steve Lonegan employs these people to raise money for him, one can fairly ask: If Steve Lonegan hired these guys, is he really the right man for the job?