Posted on 03/02/2009 4:22:00 PM PST by DesertRenegade
The amount of money that the Gill Action Fund has contributed to the Log Cabin Republicans — about one-third of its total budget in some years — is raising questions about Democratic influence over the GOP organization and its search for a new president.
Tim Gill, founder and chair of Gill Action, is widely known for funding the campaigns of pro-gay politicians, many of them Democrats. He’s a wealthy entrepreneur and founder of Quark who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to various Democratic causes and candidates, including to the campaigns of Sens. John Kerry, John Edwards and Chris Dodd, as well as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Gill is viewed as publicity shy, but made a rare public appearance at last year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver where he lives.
Sources familiar with Log Cabin, who spoke to the Blade on the condition of anonymity, said Gill Action’s contributions last year comprised $250,000 of Log Cabin’s $750,000 budget. The sources said in 2007, Gill Action’s donations constituted a similar percentage of Log Cabin’s budget.
One source described Gill as “the largest single contributor to Log Cabin.” But another source expected that the amount of money that Gill Action donates to Log Cabin this year would be somewhat less because one of the big contributions made in 2008 — around $75,000 — was intended to help the organization maintain a presence at the Republican National Convention.
Gill Action didn’t respond to the Blade’s requests for comment on its involvement with Log Cabin. Terry Hamilton, chair of Log Cabin’s board, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sources also told the Blade that Patrick Sammon, the president of Log Cabin through last month, didn’t make major decisions without consulting Patrick Guerriero, a former Log Cabin president and current executive director of Gill Action. Sources said Sammon also consulted with Bill Smith, Gill Action’s national political director.
“I don’t think there was a single significant decision that was made at Log Cabin under Patrick Sammon’s administration that was not passed through Gill Action,” one source said.
Sammon confirmed that he consulted with officials at Gill, but said they were among about a dozen people that he relied on regularly for advice.
“Considering Bill and Patrick’s political experience, it would be absurd of me if I didn’t discuss with them what we were doing,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I made my own decisions — obviously with input and oversight from the board of directors — but I certainly never felt pressure from anyone to make certain decisions about anything.”
The sources also said a controversial TV commercial that Log Cabin aired targeting anti-gay former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2007 before the Iowa caucuses was written and funded by Gill Action, but executed through Log Cabin to ensure the GOP organization’s name was attached to it.
The ad, which sources said Gill Action paid $100,000 to air, notes Romney’s earlier support of abortion rights and repeats a quote from him wherein he calls himself independent from former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
As for radio ads that Log Cabin ran later during the New Hampshire primary targeting Romney, one source said donors other than Gill Action provided the funds for those broadcasts.
In an interview with the Blade in January, Sammon declined to disclose how much money Gill Action has contributed to Log Cabin, but said Tim Gill “is someone who believes a lot in the importance of a bipartisan strategy” for advancing gay rights.
“He’s someone who understands that a one-party strategy is not the way forward and so he’s been a generous supporter and I hope that he will continue in the future,” Sammon said. “But I certainly believe that he’s someone who understands the importance of Log Cabin’s work. And we certainly appreciate his support.”
But one source said Gill’s involvement with Log Cabin has rendered the organization “political poison” in GOP circles, alienating its base of donors and other supporters. The source said Democratic involvement with Log Cabin is particularly problematic due to the Republican Party’s significant losses in 2006 and 2008 because “now more than ever, there needs to be a Log Cabin that’s relevant and able to speak out on the rebuilding of the party.”
“Sadly, almost everyone in the Republican Party sees Log Cabin as little more than a tool of the Democratic left,” the source said.
The sources also said they believe Gill Action is influencing Log Cabin’s presidential search process by offering Log Cabin a $100,000 donation in exchange for final approval of its next president.
The sources said they believed Jeff Cook, a former national field director for Log Cabin, would have been an acceptable candidate for Gill Action because he met with Guerriero, while other candidates weren’t offered the opportunity for such meetings.
In an interview with the Blade last month, Cook said he “decided not to continue in the search process” and declined to elaborate.
Hamilton, the board chair, told the Blade last week that the organization has been receiving resumes for the position of president every week, but didn’t expect to make a hiring decision in the next couple of weeks.
Sammon told the Blade in January that the organization expected to end 2008 with at least $100,000 in consolidated debt. He later said that donors committed “upwards of $125,000” in support of the organization and that Log Cabin would be in the black in March.
It was unclear if any part of that amount came from Gill Action. One source said that $50,000 came from a “regular Republican donor” and that the amount was not unusual for him to give.
One source speculated that part of the debt relief might be Sammon forgiving the amount that is owed to him by Log Cabin. The source said Log Cabin owed Sammon thousands of dollars after he put organizational expenses on his personal accounts. The same source claimed at least two board members left Log Cabin following the settlement.
Sammon declined to comment specifically on those assertions because the sources were unwilling to talk on the record.
“The fact is politics is a tough business and I’m sure that some people disagreed with the decisions that I might have made and they’re looking to hurt me or the organization and I feel sorry for them,” he said. “I’m very confident of the leadership I had over the organization that by-and-large I made most decisions that were the right ones.”
As of the end of last month, Log Cabin had no full-time staff. Hamilton was designated as the leader and spokesperson for the organization until a new president is found. Part-time staffers and consultants were handling preparation for Log Cabin’s National Convention in April in Washington, D.C.
The Republican Party should never have crawled into bed with the Log Cabin folks. If we could just get Steele to crawl out of it now....
“Because, at heart, they are democrats.”
To the Members of the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts:
I am writing to thank the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts for the advice and support you have given to me during my campaign for the U.S. Senate and to seek the Club’s formal endorsement of my election. The Log Cabin Club has played a vital role in reinvigorating the Republican Party in Massachusetts and your endorsement is important to me because it will provide further confirmation that my campaign and approach to government is consistent with the values and vision of government we share.
I am pleased to have had an opportunity to talk with you and to meet many of you personally during your September meeting. I learned a great deal from those discussions and the many thoughtful questions you posed. As a result of our discussions and other interactions with gay and lesbian voters across the state, I am more convinced than ever before that as we seek to establish full equality for Americas gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent.
I am not unaware of my opponent’s considerable record in the area of civil rights, or the commitment of Massachusetts voters to the principle of equality for all Americans. For some voters it might be enough for me to simply match my opponent’s record in this area. But I believe we can and must do better. If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent cannot do this. I can and will.
We have discussed a number of important issues such as the Federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which I have agreed to co-sponsor, and if possible broaden to include housing and credit, and the bill to create a federal panel to find ways to reduce gay and lesbian youth suicide, which I also support. One issue I want to clarify concerns President Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” military policy. I believe that the Clinton compromise was a step in the right direction. I am also convinced that it is the first of a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nation’s military. That goal will only be reached when preventing discrimination against gays and lesbians is a mainstream concern, which is a goal we share.
As we begin the final phase of this campaign, I need your support more than ever. By working together, we will achieve the goals we share for Massachusetts and our Nation.
Sincerely,
W. Mitt Romney
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1831372/posts
2004 - Log Cabin Congratulates Our Victorious Candidates (2004) (Note, McCain and Paul on the list)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1519618/posts
Republican Main Street Partnership (George Soros is funding the Moderates)
Jim Nicholson, former Republican National Committee Chair - meeting
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985970-2,00.html
Members of Team 100, an elite group of Republicans who have given more than $100,000 to the party, received an extraordinary letter this week from John Moran, finance chairman of Bob Dole’s presidential campaign and former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. As first reported in the Washington Post, Moran charges that the R.N.C. has been hijacked by the Christian Coalition “and others who are adamantly opposed to a moderate agenda”; that these forces (led by Coalition executive director Ralph Reed) engineered the election as R.N.C. chairman of Jim Nicholson, who “will now be beholden to the far right for their support”; and that as a result, the members of Team 100 ought to be “giving consideration to throwing our financial support to a committee or organization that has a more moderate Republican political philosophy.” Saying the Coalition is at a point where it is “exercising significant control” over the R.N.C., Moran suggests that the G.O.P.’s future “is in jeopardy.”
During this same timeframe, the Federal Election Commission was suing the Christian Coalition for illegally supporting the Republican party.
John Moran told the party’s wealthiest donors to give their money to someone else, because the Republican National Committee is under control by religious extremists.
Coburn co-chairs the Congressional Family Caucus and is an exemplar of Christian Coalition values: He scores 100 percent on the Pat Robertson-Ralph Reed machine’s voter guides. But is he anywhere near the American mainstream that decides national elections? Panicked GOP elders had to school him in the fact that nudity and violence were just plain unavoidable in the Holocaust before he retreated.
It’s religious-right poster boys like Coburn who make some Republican leaders fear that their party is doomed to drive away even more women and moderates, thereby continuing its losing streak in presidential elections and risking a bicoastal congressional meltdown. A post-election survey by American Viewpoint, a GOP pollster, for the Log Cabin Republicans found that Christian Coalition support made voters dramatically less likely to vote for Dole-Kemp everywhere except the South.
When Ralph Reed once again lorded his power over the party in January - bragging to the columnist David Broder that ``Christian conservatives were decisive’’ in electing James Nicholson to succeed Haley Barbour as GOP chairman - one party powerhouse got sore enough to take action. John Moran - the GOP and then Dole finance chairman in recent years - wrote a letter to 15 other Republican heavy-hitters saying that the Christian Coalition and far right had put the party ``in jeopardy.’’ He proposed that big donors give to a separate organization to promote a more moderate GOP.
In an interview, Moran, a 65-year-old retired investor and a self-described ``quiet’’ conservative, told me he’d rather be playing golf at home in Florida than fighting for his party. But once his letter leaked out to Dan Balz of The Washington Post, he was deluged with calls from others in the GOP ``donor base’’ tired of ``raising money to support a part of the party we don’t agree with.’’ Two weekends ago in Palm Beach Moran spoke to an executive meeting of Team 100 - the top, six-figure GOP contributors - and found that instead of having to defend himself he was ``really well received.’’
Moran says he is ``not trying to split the party.’’ He will meet with Reed and be hopeful about Nicholson (``I will give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being’’).
But what if the religious right’s intransigent litmus tests, especially about abortion, preclude a recentering of the GOP? Won’t the Christian Coalition’s tough grass-roots organization trump Moran’s big bucks?
``Yes, the moderates have the money and the hard right has the organization,’’ says Moran, ``but you can build all kinds of organizations with money.’’ Tanya Melich, the usually pessimistic author of The Republican War Against Women, says a Moran rebellion could succeed where others have failed because it involves ``white male establishment Republicans - a lot of them, not just a few - and not just Northeastern moderates but those living in areas where the party is basically strong.’’
Moran’s is not the only closeted post-election GOP insurgency. In Washington, 17 congressmen are organizing the Main Street Coalition - which one of its leaders, Amo Houghton, describes as a mirror image of the Democratic Leadership Council, the group instrumental in nudging the Democratic Party from the left to the Clintonian center. But Main Street is not only an effort to formulate centrist GOP policy. It is recruiting a ``star-studded cast’’ of civic leaders, says Rick Lazio, the Long Island congressman, among them top businessmen ready to write checks. ``It’s almost scary how easy it is to sell it,’’ he adds, which may be as good a poll as any of just how much Main Street and Wall Street Republicans alike are finally willing to challenge the far right. MEMO: Mr. Rich’s column is distributed by the New York Times Syndicate,
122 E. 42nd St., New York, N.Y. 10168.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E3D71230F933A15752C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
January 20, 1999
G.O.P. Urged to Quit Group Called Racist
The chairman of the Republican National Committee called on his fellow party members today to resign from the Council of Conservative Citizens, saying ‘’it appears that this group does hold racist views.’’
‘’A member of the party of Lincoln should not belong to such an organization,’’ said the chairman, Jim Nicholson.
He appealed directly to Buddy Witherspoon, one of the party’s national committee members from South Carolina, to resign from the council. Mr. Witherspoon told Mr. Nicholson that he would not.
Mr. Witherspoon insisted that the council’s South Carolina chapter held no racist views, but was simply an advocate for conservative causes, especially the right to display the Confederate flag in the South.
The council, based in St. Louis, has become a national embarrassment for the committee in recent weeks amid reports that two Republicans, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the majority leader, and Representative Bob Barr of Georgia, spoke at its meetings. Both have distanced themselves from the group.
http://www.lcrga.com/archive/99021401.shtml
Log Cabin Republicans, Inc.
Excerpt:
RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson insisted there is “a cause for optimism” about GOP relations with minorities. He said their “shared legacy,” dating back to the party’s founding on an anti-slavery platform in 1854, is “a foundation on which to build” better relations.
In addition, the party’s next presidential nominee could help it overcome the legacy of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” with a more moderate message such as “compassionate conservatism,” a favorite term of Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.
But as long as candidates such as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, now campaigning for Congress in Louisiana, feel at home in the GOP, the “ party of Lincoln” is going to be viewed with suspicion by minorities.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1796766/posts
From the ORIGINAL Cache of the 2004 Republican National Convention
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Log_Cabin_Republicans
Log Cabin Republicans campaigned AGAINST Bush in 2004.
Log Cabin (Republicans) need to account for where they got the money to fund the $1M ad campaign against President Bush in 2004 in key battleground states. This is a Federally-regulated organization (IRS and FEC rules apply!), but they have never documented where this money came from.
Better late then never? Too little too late?
I’m leaning toward too little too late.
“is raising questions about Democratic influence over the GOP organization “
I wonder about the ‘dem influence’ over all the GOP organizations. You can’t tell the dems from the R’s any longer.
Under the banner of full discloure, the Alliance Defense Fund exists “to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective.”
Not surprising that they would feel this way.
BUMP
Mr. Steele’s target group.
You can’t tell the dems from the R’s any longer.
= Unity
If giving up and giving in is ‘Unity’, then that’s what we’ve got for sure.
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