Over the last couple days we’ve been telling you about this DC outfit called BMW Direct. They are a direct mail shop. And from what we can tell they have a two-tiered business model.
First, they’ve got a few bonafide Republican elected officials who they raise money for by the normal rules of direct mail fundraising business. But then they’ve got a bunch of potemkin candidates for whom they raise insane gobs of money, almost all of which they keep for themselves.
Good work if you can get it.
The biggest moneymaker in this latter category — though there’s some competition — seems 
to be Deborah Honeycutt (R-GA) who’s running in the 13th district of Georgia. In 2006 Honeycutt lost to incumbent David Scott (D-GA) by an impressive 38 points. And since in this cycle her campaign has managed to spend only a measly $16,695 in Georgia, you might figure for round two against Scott, Honeycutt is just dialing it in.
But quite the contrary.
Look at her FEC filings and you find that Honeycutt is one of the biggest players in the 2008 cycle. With the help of BMW Direct she’s managed to raise an astounding $1.7 million.
To give you some perspective, high-profile netroots-backed Darcy Burner raised only $1.37 million over the same period — and that’s a very impressive total.
So where’s all the money going? Well, of that $1.7 million, $1.5 million went to BMW Direct and various affiliated companies. So we’ve been wanting to find out how happy Honeycutt was with BMW Direct raising insane amounts of money for her around the contrary which she gets virtually none of.
Well, it turns out they’re pretty psyched.
Andrew Tilghman got a hold of Honeycutt’s volunteer campaign manager Michael Murphy who says, “We’ve been very pleased with them. BMW Direct has been able to help us raise resources and tap into a thirst in the country for the principles and platforms that she stands on.”
How about Honeycutt’s campaign getting next to none of the money raised for them? “I just work with the resources we have … All I can say is we’ve been very pleased with BMW Direct.”
