Posted on 07/17/2009 6:35:19 AM PDT by mrmeangenes
Per this Politico article, the American Conservative Union offered to supply Fed Ex with support - for money. Fed Ex declined the offer.
I guess Sarah Palin didn’t pony up the dough.
It certainly seems that Romney was more than willing to write the check however.
David A. Keene needs to RESIGN
Proof?
Learn to read.
True - but we seem to be learning fast.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/The_Conservative_Union_for_rent.html
“”The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.
For the $2 million+, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and / or other members of the ACU’s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)”
The conservative group’s remarkable demand — black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as “pay for play” — was contained in a private letter to FedEx that was provided to POLITICO.
The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.
Maury Lane, FedEx’s director of corporate communications, said: “Clearly the ACU shopped their beliefs and UPS bought.”””
So much for the ACU as an organization.
Busted! So long ACU. Thy deeds will be remembered.
I certainly didn’t see Romney’s name mentioned in the article. Maybe you’re seeing things.
Conservatives were shocked when Keene endorsed Romney in 2007. Now we know why.
http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/keene_endorses_romney/2007/11/29/53324.html
“”Dave Keene, president of The American Conservative Union, has endorsed Mitt Romney for president. The endorsement is a pivotal moment in the 2008 campaign.
Keene, who endorsed Romney on Thursday, tells Newsmax that Romney is a “good conservative” and “the best of the bunch.”
A bulwark of the conservative movement, Keene has headed the ACU, the country’s oldest and largest conservative grass-roots lobbying group, since 1984. With 1 million members, the ACU runs the Conservative Political Action Committee’s (CPAC) annual conference in Washington and publishes an annual Rating of Congress — the gold standard for ideological assessments of members of Congress.
Among conservatives, no one is more highly respected than Keene. As second vice president of the National Rifle Association, he will automatically become president of the organization in three and a half years.
Deal Clincher
Keene’s endorsement is likely to galvanize fellow conservatives in Romney’s direction.
For some time, Keene had been discussing issues with Romney, but he had not issued an endorsement because he is friends with some of the other Republican candidates. Romney clinched the deal with him when they met in St. Petersburg for two hours the day before the Republican debate, Keene said.
“Romney spent most of Tuesday preparing for the debate; then at the end of the day, we spent a couple hours together; and then afterward I had dinner with his campaign manager Beth Meyers and Peter Flaherty who was his deputy chief of staff as governor, and Al Cardenas, who is one of my very closest friends,” Keene said.
Jeb Bush’s former finance chairman, Cardenas is on Keene’s board and chairs Romney’s National Hispanic Steering Committee.
“I had basically come to the conclusion that it is coming down to a race between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney,” Keene said. “And the reason I decided to break my neutrality, which I’ve maintained from the beginning, is that the Mike Huckabee surge in Iowa could easily derail the Romney momentum that he’s going to need to break through what Rudy Giuliani calls his firewall in Florida before the big primaries. And I therefore think it’s important that conservatives who think that Romney is the best of the bunch and are concerned about the impact of a Giuliani nomination on the conservative coalition and the general election, have to come out now because in essence a vote for Huckabee in Iowa is a vote for Rudy.”
Despite being friends with many of the candidates, Romney and Fred Thompson were the only two that he really considered supporting....””
Link to show Romney paid for that?
Until then, you can speculate about why, but you don’t know why.
The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.
Huh? I fail to see the problem here. It involves two private organizations so why are they trying to frame it as some sort of "corruption"? This happens all of the time.
Now, if the ACU tried to shake down a politician, THAT'S a problem. But FedEx? C'mon.
Well, that’s one viewpoint.
I note some of SCU’s favorite columnists are “frequent flyers” here:
http://www.conservative.org/columnists/default.asp
From what I’ve seen, right and left are getting their “marching orders” from right or left oriented “think tanks”, and I imagine these think tanks are being rather heavily funded.
I often wonder if there is a difference between the stated agendas of these groups-and their actual wish lists.
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