Dark money: How Wisconsin's most politically influential organizations avoid disclosing their donors

[hue]

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/jack_craver/dark-money-how-wisconsin-s-most-politically-influential-organizations-avoid/article_8ddf078f-1112-5f44-9268-cb9e5f2d3fd2.html

In the week preceding Gov. Scott Walker's 2012 recall election, amid a flurry of attack ads from all sides, one commercial treated Wisconsin television viewers to 30 seconds of supposedly home-spun Wisconsin wisdom.

"I didn't vote for Scott Walker," said a man leaning over a dock, fishing. "But I'm against the recall."

"Recall isn't the Wisconsin way," said another guy.

It concluded: "End the recall madness. Vote for Scott Walker."

The ad was sponsored by the Coalition for American Values, a mysterious Virginia-based group whose rather primitive website offered interested parties little more than a series of patriotic-themed photos — a solider greeting his son, a girl holding a flag — and an address for mailing donations. There were no names of those responsible for running the organization listed on the site.

Since the ads explicitly advocated for the election of a candidate, the group was required to report the spending to the state Government Accountability Board. But the report submitted by the Coalition for American Values didn't offer any insight into where its money was coming from. The only donor it listed was itself.

[EC]

1. That worked then.

but the people that I know that voted that way, will not vote for him in the regular election. Many didn't believe in recalls and said straight out that they would let him go ahead and serve out his term, but that after that, he was done.


What we need is a good candidate and Burke isn't it.