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.
Is the author asking for the Democrats to come out of the closet?
I never really trusted the Log Cabin Homosexuals either. You would think Gay Republicans would be attracted to the Capitalist theme of Republicanism since they lack child tax credits in many cases. Either with us or against us Loggies!
I never trusted them. This informatiopn doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Republicans would not be in this situation if they held firm to conservative principles long ago.
LOL, who did.
Well, well.....wonder how Mr. Steele will deal with this news.
Big surprise. they never were repubbies.
Not sure why the original link wasn’t working. Here it is again: http://www.alliancealert.org/2009/02/26/log-cabin-under-democratic-control-sources-say-tim-gill-is-dictating-gop-group%E2%80%99s-direction/
The Alliance Defense Fund is an amazing group who defends Conservative Students and also people of faith and is very active in the Right to Life movement. They do pro-bono work to secure our liberties.
Because, at heart, they are democrats.
This isn’t surprising given the affiliation of most gay men with the Democratic Party.
Hmmm...the FR Romney-loathers keep some light-in-the-loafer company.
Boodily fluids are thicker than politics?
Gill is one of the rich Democrats who flooded Colorado with money to buy our legislature and House delegation.
Not to worry; he'll give us the down-low uhh, low down on it soon enough.
Yeah, I know what you mean. There's just something...well...queer about them, you know?
Or maybe we’ll hear from some McCain dupe on the matter:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2188048/posts
It has been well over 15 years ago, but back when a former employer decided to purchase a copy of Quark XPress, an IT guy went off on a tirade about Tim Gill; it was a beautiful rant and although I can't remember the IT guy's name, I never forgot most of what he said.
And truly, "I didn't know whether to laugh... or vomit."
Mr. niteowl77
In the immortal words of George Takei, “Ohhh my!”
LOL! Well, Gill’s personality has not improved over the years. I just wish he pick on another state for a while.
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