Once again, so-called “Dark Money” PACs have begun spitting out hateful and misleading ads which seek to destroy any primary competition to John McCain.
In this latest primary, Dr. Kelli Ward is the target of slam ads. One of McCain’s PACs is called American Grassroots Action. They are running ominously-voiced, scare mongering and misleading messages against Ward.
They take a sound bite, out of context, and make listeners think that Ward is too dangerous and has poor judgment. Pure scare tactics and deception.
I looked into the so-called American Grassroots Action PAC and found that more than 85 percent of the funding is from people and firms OUTSIDE OF ARIZONA. You can easily confirm this online. The top eleven donors are all from outside of Arizona and make up 85 percent of the donor cash for this PAC. Why would so many rich donors outside of Arizona want McCain in the US Senate again? They have a financial interest in keeping him there. Who is he loyal to? THOSE DONORS, not us.
McCain is well funded by people outside of Arizona. Every election McCain can be trusted to destroy and personally attack any primary challenger with massive amounts of his own campaign money as well as PAC money to destroy any Republican challenger.
I hope we will give our support to Dr. Kelli Ward to be the Republican candidate this election. She would certainly care more about Arizona.
Of the 46 top donors giving more than $200 in the 2016 election cycle, out of state donors accounted for 91 percent of the Arizona Grassroots PAC money collected, per their FEC filings.
Their 2016 Arizona Grassroots Action PAC collections amount to $1,192,262. The top out of state donors account for $1,085,000 of that total.
The top eleven donors account for 85 percent of the total.
They name themselves ARIZONA Grassroots, inaccurately and deceptively.
They are pushing negative ads against Kelli Ward in favor of John McCain.
Arizona voters are being pelted with negative ads advocated by a hand full of rich people outside of our state. They represent corporate and equity firms and gaming firms mostly, who benefit from John McCain being a reliable ally in legislation in their favor. Even one of the Chicago Cubs owners, Todd Ricketts is involved. The largest donor is Gregory Wendt from San Francisco ($250,000) who heads a business analysis firm covering the gaming/casino business, leisure, and others. San Francisco-based Wendt is a huge Democrat and donor, with some small donations to Republicans for cover. McCain is smiling quietly while Wendt and other Democrats trash conservative challengers for the US Senate for AZ. Wendt supported Obama, Feinstein, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and many other Democrats over the years. 11 people living outside of Arizona are the biggest donors for the Arizona Grassroots Action PAC. 11 people intruding in our election who do not live here, yet they support John McCain and many are Democrats. WHY??
This is why John McCain does not work for Arizona any more. He is supported by outside interests who want to keep him in Washington DC, who trash anyone running against McCain to Arizona voters. Then once he wins the primary, he knows Arizona is mostly conservative and he wins the general election. Then he goes back to Washington and flips us the bird. I wish you would shed light for the readers about what is going on with these dirty, nasty ads on the radio and TV against Kelli Ward. Democrats and establishment Republicans have a stake in keeping McCain in office.
Here is the URL for open secrets.org that accounts for the donors and the money, per FEC filings: http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00558445.
Thank you for the great work Sonoran News does!
Steven Caddy
