In a week filled with all sorts of Republican party lying and cheating– from Texas to the Supreme Court– it’s been a full belly of despicable words and deeds to digest, but it’s worth pointing out that Ed Markey won the Massachusetts special election for John Kerry’s vacated Senate seat winning by a margin of 54.8% to 44.8% in defeating Republican Gabriel Gomez.
It wasn’t much of a shock, but even in a losing battle, GOP shenanigans reached a new low.
A Super PAC called, “Americans for Progressive Action,” which spent over $700,000 on television ad buys attacking Markey, is actually a Republican party operation established by former consultants to Karl Rove, Michele Bachmann, and World Net Daily’s Joseph Farah.
The Super PAC recently disclosed that their deceptive electoral strategy for adding another Republican to the Senate roll call was funded by one man– John Jordan, 41 year old CEO of Jordan Vinyard and Winery:
Mr. Jordan and his family, who established the prestigious Jordan Winery in California’s Sonoma Valley in the 1970s, are longtime Republican donors who have given over $250,000 to GOP candidates and causes over the past three election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Mr. Jordan gave more than $60,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2011 and 2012, and has hosted fundraisers at the family estate for Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Republican Governors Association.
But his expenditures on Mr. Gomez’s behalf, which are expected to top $1.5 million, dwarf anything he has done before and make him an even larger contributor to the Gomez cause than the GOP’s own National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has put $900,000 into the Massachusetts race.
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Mr. Gomez continues to lag behind Mr. Markey in nearly all polls, with several recent surveys showing him behind by double digits. But Mr. Jordan still has hope, arguing that low turnout may rebound to Mr. Gomez’s favor.
Spokesperson for Americans For Progressive Action Super PAC has stated that it is:
“focused on having a positive impact on elections in America by supporting and promoting candidates that represent a better future for America. We believe that this will include people with a more independent streak who care more about doing what is right, than relying on partisan politics.”
They ran ads, like this one, attacking Ed Markey for things like voting to cut $780 billion from Medicare and using the wave of IRS fake-scandal mongering to attack his vote for The Affordable Care Act.
The irony is that ‘Honor and Truth’ were a selling point for “Americans for Progressive Action” and this is all just a day in the life of GOP election scams and defrauding the American public.
The bonus irony is that John Jordan, Super PAC man and self-made inheritance baby of the family’s wine salesman fortune got into this hoping that he’d depress voter-turnout with misleading ads because he got tired of watching Gabriel Gomez getting “beat up” by political ads from outside groups.
One guy trying to sway an election to put a Republican in a U.S. Senate seat is the Citizens United version of “One Man, One Vote.”
The bonus-bonus irony is that Republicans keep getting away with this wall-to-wall lying and cheating in such obviously cynical ways and the media keeps feeding the Crooky Monsters live microphones for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
The cheaters didn’t steal this one, but that’s not to say they aren’t trying to find new ways to steal it next time.