JTL vs. the Political Machine continued…

Today is part four in a series examining the loss of the “JTL Campaign for Martin County Commissioner,” a campaign that focused on the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. The goal of this series is to learn, understand, and educate the public at large as to the “local” political process.

The past two blogs reviewed the Write in Candidate, Chase Lurgio; the Firefighters Union and their PAC, Citizens for Public Safety,  and C-PAC, the PAC for the Stuart Chamber. Today we will look at a Tallahassee based Political Action Committee, (PAC), that calls itself “Committee to Elect Real Conservatives.” This PAC put out a negative ad and a negative video to promote my loss and the win of sixteen year incumbant, Doug Smith.

Why…

#4

Committee to Elect Real Conservatives:

Because it is a Tallahassee registered PAC, we must go to the Florida Department of State, Division of Elections. You may recall we also went here yesterday when following what entities gave money to the Stuart Chamber’s C-PAC. As we learned yesterday after clicking on this link, one goes to COMMITTEES to type in the name to find the wanted:
http://dos.elections.myflorida.com/campaign-finance/contributions/

What is bizarre is that when you pull up this PAC its largest contributor at $25,000 on 8/2/16 is FLORIDA JOBS. The same PAC that gave $25,000 to C-PAC. So when one follows the paper trail and looks up Florida Jobs it leads to the same thing as yesterday… Among many, but most recognizable to me, again, Duda and Sons Inc., Florida Crystals, FPL, and United States Sugar Corporation. I must note there are others as you can see yourself, like Pubix Supermarkets and Disney.

So who is this PAC?

It is easy to find out if you know where to go. It can be found right there on the Florida Division of Election’s website. Just type in by name. “Committee to Elect Real Conservatives.”
http://dos.elections.myflorida.com/committees/ComLkupByName.asp

Now things start to get kind of weird.

The Chairperson is Josh Cooper. So who is he? Well oddly enough the only information I found about Josh Cooper is that he owns a company named Strategic Information Consultants, a of division of Next Generation Strategies. This company is most well-known for doing opposition research for Governor Rick Scott when the governor was first elected.

Wow! How could this be? Why would such high rolling people be interested enough in Martin County to start a PAC just a month before the election and spend thousands of dollars to influence the outcome? Who got them to do it?

Hmmmm?

This article from 2011 by the Tampa Bay Times mentions Josh Cooper and gives insight:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/gov-rick-scotts-office-bills-taxpayers-25000-for-consultants-work/1164798

So now for the negative ad that arrived on August 10th, less than a month after the PAC filed with the Division of Elections on 7/16/16 and less than a week after Florida Jobs donated $25,000. There is a video too. I laugh every time I see it.

So in closing, here is something to think about…

The only way we will ever have clean water in Florida, and a healthy St Lucie River Indian River Lagoon is when the powers that be stop tying to heard us like sheep with their lies. Even little lambs know that lies are “baaaaaad!” 🙂

Baaaa negative ad video:(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32uNBYN1AQo)