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Time to Denounce Taxpayers for Liberty: Sleazy Tactics & Shadowy Group

by Ben DeGrow | 5:29 pm, March 13, 2010 | 17 Comments

Update, 3/17: More to the story: Sue Rehg of Larimer County explains the unfortunate tale of how her name got connected with Taxpayers for Liberty.

Earlier this week I introduced you to the mysterious Taxpayers for Liberty group and their survey results mailing on the U.S. Senate race:

Suffice it to say, the group Taxpayers for Liberty is very fond of Ken Buck, while railing on Jane Norton for not returning the questionnaire and Tom Wiens for filling out the questionnaire identically but having a voting record, or something like that.

If only I knew how nefarious it all was. Frankly, I’m sick of the underhanded tactics and the lack of transparency — most especially in a Republican primary. I asked around about the Taxpayers for Liberty (TFL) survey, and here’s what I’ve found:

  1. The Jane Norton campaign says they haven’t seen the survey
  2. The Tom Wiens campaign says they had to submit their survey multiple times after they learned that TFL was not acknowledging having received it from them
  3. The Ken Buck campaign says it was just another survey that they had no problems filling out and returning

In short, the Taxpayers for Liberty survey is a dishonest and underhanded scheme implemented by a shadowy group, and its “results” utterly worthless. If only we knew the extent of its reach.

In the process of researching TFL, I learned about a very similar technique pulled off within the past couple months in Colorado by the national Ron Paul group Campaign for Liberty (CFL). On January 26 CFL sent out a letter praising Ken Buck and that, among other things, proclaimed: “The bad news is, Republican Jane Norton has not responded to her Candidate Survey.” On January 29 — three days later — CFL sent a letter to the Norton campaign introducing the survey and asking her to return it. Hmmm…. (See a copy of both letters and the CFL survey here.)

Former Congressional candidate and Americans for Prosperity state director Jeff Crank has been on top of this story for awhile, on his Colorado Springs radio show. I’m a little late to the game. He has reported on CFL’s twisted survey and most recently on the possibly fictitious name serving as the executive director of TFL. That’s right: there is no Andrew O’Neill in the Colorado voter database, and only one person by that name listed statewide in the White Pages. Maybe, for the time being we should just presume that the Andrew O’Neill pictured to the right is the person running TFL.

So is there a connection between Campaign for Liberty and Taxpayers for Liberty? (Update: Forgot to mention that I called Campaign for Liberty several times — leaving a voice message when I got the opportunity — and emailed once, for comment and/or information. I received no response.) Some of you may recall that CFL ran pro-Ken Buck TV ads here in Colorado back in late January. The activity led to some serious grumblings from the CFL membership about Buck’s lack of Ron Paul-pure convictions on foreign policy, and ultimately a January 30 response from CFL president John Tate.

Two and a half weeks later (on February 17) the registration name on Taxpayers for Liberty was changed from Larimer County Republican activist Sue Rehg to Denver attorney Adam Kehrli. So it would make sense that the same entities behind the first sleazy survey didn’t want to continue dragging CFL’s name through the mud and anger the Ron Paul purists, and thus opted to use the empty vessel of TFL to perpetuate the scheme.

But who are the murky operators behind the scheme? Because we don’t have the freedom and needed transparency in our campaign finance laws, I can’t say for sure — not without a smoking gun or someone willing to go on the record. We do know they certainly are working to promote Ken Buck’s candidacy (within the constraints of a 501c4 organization under the letter of the law) and make some money for themselves along the way. And all signs point to the same operators who pulled off similar and other dirty tactics in the 2006 Republican 5th Congressional District primary.

The legacy of the 5th CD dirty deeds is exactly why Republicans need to speak up now and denounce Taxpayers for Liberty. Even if we never get enough sunshine to expose TFL to the light of day and start the disinfecting process, the reprehensible way this underhanded 501c4 group operates will only sow more seeds of division within the Republican Party and weaken our chances to unseat the appointed Senator Michael Bennet in the November election. I’m not the only one who doesn’t want 2010 to be a repeat of 2006.

In particular, candidate Ken Buck ought to come out and publicly condemn the tactics used by TFL, third parties that are seeking to manipulate the game to his benefit. Were he to pursue that course, I and many others would be impressed by Buck’s courage and integrity. The longer he stays silent, though, the more questions will linger about the nature of the relationship between his campaign and this rogue group. And that wouldn’t be healthy for Ken Buck or for the Republican Party.

On a related note, I also find the work of Taxpayers for Liberty disgusting insofar as it mimics and distorts the genuine grassroots engagement of Colorado’s Tea Party movement groups — for ignoble, self-serving and divisive ends. I would like to see the various Tea Party and 9/12 leaders in our state denounce Taxpayers for Liberty, and demand the group comes clean on their funding (I have a good idea of who is funding the TFL scheme, but no solid proof) and operators, and stop the shenanigans. Such a course will be easier for grassroots leaders to take than for any of the candidates.

Because just like the rogue group Taxpayers for Liberty’s actions are unhealthy for the candidates and the GOP as a whole, they are also unhealthy for the conservative movement, our ideals of liberty and limited government and the political process in general.

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Comments

  1.   Donald Johnson
      March 13th, 2010 @ 6:53 pm

    Great job, Ben. Buck had better get on this right away, or his very clean reputation will be at stake and more bloggers and the mainstream media will be picking up your story.

  2.   Chuck Moe
      March 13th, 2010 @ 9:16 pm

    I’ve asked both Interim CFL Colorado State Coordinators and they had no knowledge of the Ken Buck/Survey advertisment. This action was coordinated by the National Campaign For Liberty.

  3.   Donald Johnson
      March 13th, 2010 @ 10:02 pm

    Do you believe them? Should we?

  4.   Chris Maj
      March 14th, 2010 @ 8:36 am

    There’s no cry for transparency to be had here. Government spending what they stole from taxpayers, yes. Individuals exercising their right to free speech, no. To reiterate the recent supreme court’s question: what part of “congress shall make no law” does congress not understand?

    Ben’s entire post reads like a Jane Norton press release – including the comments from neo-con Donald Johnson. Although it should come as no surprise that statists question anonymity. They would have our every politically hued word tagged and taxed if they could. When we give them the keys we get tragedies like McCain-Feingold.

  5.   Chuck Moe
      March 14th, 2010 @ 9:01 am

    I do believe them. I sent quite a few emails and spoke to quite of few Colorado CFL members and I don’t believe any of this was coordinated at a state level.

  6.   Ben
      March 14th, 2010 @ 1:00 pm

    Chris, I’m disappointed in your response, which distracts from the issue. I’m not a Jane Norton supporter. If the roles were reversed, and a rogue group was doing this on behalf of Jane Norton (or Tom Wiens, or Cleve Tidwell, whoever) I would have approached it the same way.

    This isn’t an attack on free speech or a call for government regulation of campaign activity. Quite the opposite, I think this kind of activity thrives in the more heavily regulated environment created by McCain-Feingold.

    I believe with free speech comes responsibility. And as part of my responsibility of being a citizen in our Republic, I want to aid in the self-regulation of this sort of activity. Where citizens neglect their responsibilities of self-government, including calling out a group for its underhanded tactics, that’s where state regulation comes to fill in the vacuum and makes things even worse.

    And yes, I’m a big advocate of government transparency — a different kind of transparency requiring the mechanism of the force of law to enact. Please don’t confuse the two.

    If you merely wish to question my integrity and to engage in name-calling, though, that’s your free speech prerogative. But I think your approach is misguided.

  7.   Donald Johnson
      March 14th, 2010 @ 1:38 pm

    Chris, I’m not a neocon because I’m not Jewish and I’ve always been a small government, libertarian conservative in all respects.

    Chuck, I just got the TFL’s direct mail piece. Like its TV ad, which ran on ABC this morning, that piece is a dishonest distortion or Norton’s record. Given their performance so far in the campaign, I don’t believe them when they say they don’t know anything about the campaign.

    As Ben says, under handed, secretive organizations are free to attack political candidates honestly and dishonestly. But they will pay a price for their dishonesty, which is obvious to anyone who is following the campaigns at all closely.

    They will pay the price because I and others will post our opinions of their distortions and their candidate on all relevant blogs and web sites. For me, there is guilt by association. If Buck doesn’t come out and say he thinks the campaign is distorting Norton’s record and should be stopped, then I and others will question his integrity and qualifications as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Sooner or later, other blogs and the media will pickup on this fight within the conservative community, and it will hurt the Buck campaign. At least I hope so, unless Buck does the right thing. He’s a smart guy, and I have thought he was a man of integrity, but if he lets this go on, I’ll have to change my mind.

    Tea Party folks are angry with politicians who pretend to be one kind of person and turn out to be self-serving careerists. If Buck turns out to be just another ambitious win-at-any-cost politician, he will show that he is not the kind of candidate that the Tea Party folks can trust. And they won’t.

    As I’ve said several times, I do not have a candidate in the U.S. Senate contest. I just want a Republican to win.

  8.   Ben
      March 14th, 2010 @ 2:09 pm

    Also worth noting … The Lefties are taking the lead on insisting this is no big deal:
    http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/11851/shocker-attack-groups-play-dirty

    FYI, no, I’m not “shocked, shocked” by the TFL-type activity. I’m just sick of it.

  9.   Chris Maj
      March 14th, 2010 @ 3:48 pm

    Ben, in your OP, you bemoan the lack of “needed transparency in our campaign finance laws,” but counter in your comment @ 1:00pm that this isn’t “a call for government regulation of campaign activity.” Are you suggesting that laws created by the government are not a form of government regulation? Or do you support the practical nullification by the states and the people of all federal laws regarding speech because they are not delegated by the Constitution, are not law, but are altogether void, and of no force? (To echo the “Principles of ‘98″ as first anonymously penned by Thomas Jefferson in The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.)

    Donald, I don’t think your private religious affiliation is any of my concern, but claiming you are “a small government, libertarian conservative in all respects” while — in other threads within the past week on the PPC — supporting anti-liberty, big government programs like the War on Drugs and War on Iran, well, it leaves me doubting any deviance from mainstream neo-con political ideology.

    Ken Buck’s support amongst many Colorado Campaign For Liberty members is well-known because of his call for an auditing of the Federal Reserve. This C4L support is in large part the result of an extremely effective grass roots outreach effort by the Buck campaign — which heightened after the departure from the Senate primary of Austrian economist, and now HD-61 candidate, Luke Korkowski.

    In November, Buck called on Senator Bennett to co-sponsor S.604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act, and posted a press release about it on his campaign website:

    https://www.buckforcolorado.com/pressclips102k9.php

    In January, Buck answered The Question correctly again in the C4L candidate survey. If you take a look at the results of the surveys, then you’ll note there’s still no response from the Norton campaign:

    http://www.campaignforliberty.com/candidatesurvey.php

    Good show, though, Ben and Donald, to attempt a smear of the Campaign For Liberty! If it wasn’t one of the more organized groups fighting the establishment Republican party takeover of the Tea Party movement — especially in Colorado — then some might actually take offense. A dangerous thing when economic and personal liberties are brought together again under the same tent!

    NOTE: Chris Maj is a member of the Campaign For Liberty.

  10.   elpresidente
      March 14th, 2010 @ 3:51 pm

    Drop the “neocon” garbage Chris.

  11.   Ben
      March 14th, 2010 @ 3:59 pm

    No attempt on my part to smear Campaign for Liberty … I don’t agree with all its positions, but I do support a stronger application of the 10th Amendment and auditing the Federal Reserve. I still don’t appreciate you impugning my motives.

    Yes, it’s a problem that Jane Norton won’t respond to the survey. It’s also a problem to attack somebody for not returning a survey before they were sent it.

  12.   iLoveTea
      March 14th, 2010 @ 4:08 pm

    What does the Tea Party have to do with any of this? Why should they denounce it? I feel the Tea Party or 912 organizations making a deal out of this only ties them to something they have nothing to do with. Please explain the connection? Should we denounce any sleazy tactic from her til November even if we have nothing to do with it? I say ignore it, let Ken Buck deal with it, but the Tea Parties shouldn’t stick their noses where they are not involved.

  13.   Chris Maj
      March 14th, 2010 @ 4:15 pm

    Ben, was the letter you reprinted from the Norton campaign the first attempt at getting Jane to answer the Campaign For Liberty survey? Or is it more likely that her campaign’s limited grass roots network failed to identify this issue as important enough to merit outreach to C4L members?

  14.   Donald Johnson
      March 14th, 2010 @ 4:23 pm

    ILTea,
    Tea Party and 9.12 groups should get involved because they are calling for fiscal and political integrity. That Buck and Taxpayers for Liberty are showing a lack of intellectual integrity in their attacks on Buck strongly suggests that they will show little political integrity during the campaign. If the Tea Party and 9.12 groups are as focused on integrity as they say they are, if they are as angry at politics as usual as they say they are, they must denounce Taxpayers for Liberty or lose their credibility, imho.

  15.   Donald Johnson
      March 14th, 2010 @ 4:26 pm

    Correction:
    ILTea,
    Tea Party and 9.12 groups should get involved because they are calling for fiscal and political integrity. That Buck and Taxpayers for Liberty are showing a lack of intellectual integrity in their attacks on NORTON strongly suggests that they will show little political integrity during the campaign. If the Tea Party and 9.12 groups are as focused on integrity as they say they are, if they are as angry at politics as usual as they say they are, they must denounce Taxpayers for Liberty and its tactics or lose their credibility, imho.

  16.   Chris Maj
      March 14th, 2010 @ 4:41 pm

    Donald, did you check the GOP SOP to pull out that “if they are as angry at politics as usual as they say they are” line of garbage?

    iLoveTea, I believe that the members of the Tea Party organizations, 912 project groups, and Campaign for Liberty are much closer, ideologically, than progressive statists like Donald, who occupy the neo-conservative, big government wing of the GOP. So it makes sense for Donald to call off with their heads at any sign of organized insubordination amongst the grass roots of the party. They want your vote, and maybe some of your money, but not your ideas or ideals.

  17.   Keith Olson
      March 15th, 2010 @ 5:05 pm

    Donald Johnson is the one with no integrity. He portrays himself as unbiased but betrays himself with each sequential post. He cannot pull off his deceit due to his overwhelming urge to attack Buck to enhance Norton’s chances. Read each of his sequential comments. By the end he has already tried and convicted Buck. Do not be fooled by Johnson’s claim of being impartial.

    Donald said: For me, there is guilt by association. If Buck doesn’t come out and say he thinks the campaign is distorting Norton’s record

    Donald said: That Buck and Taxpayers for Liberty are showing a lack of intellectual integrity in their attacks on NORTON strongly suggests that they will show little political integrity during the campaign.

    Seems Donald’s slip is showing! Indicting Buck without any evidence Buck did anything wrong.

    Donald you were long ago marginalized by your bias.

    Why would Ken Buck who has spent all this time establishing himself as the legitimate candidate allow and one person or organization to threaten his campaign? Ben you have always been fair but in this instance you are walking the edge when you lay blame at Ken Buck’s feet.
    This group obviously is engaged in a campaign against Jane Norton. Would it be possible that the group is funded by liberal monies? If it were a liberal organization have they not struck two GOP targets with one blow? I have not seen any of the mailings or ads (perhaps they are not targeting no.colo.) to get a feel for what all the attention is about. One thing I do know is Ken Buck has worked too hard to be attacked from within by innuendos. I understand what motivates a Donald Johnson but I certainly appeal to your sense of fairplay in this regard.

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