Republicans Sponsor Green Candidate in PA Senate RaceIt’s worse than we knew. Is the Green Party candidacy in the race for Rick Santorum’s seat a wholly Republican sponsored affair?
As reported today by the AP and the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Green Party managed to get their candidate Carl Romanelli on the ballot with a costly petition drive, which was mostly funded by contributors who had also given to Rick Santorum’s campaign. The party raised $66,000 for the effort, all of which they spent on a private company to collect signatures. TPMmuckraker was able to establish that at least $55,000 of that came from conservatives.
Virginia Davis, Santorum’s spokeswoman, told the Inquirer that their office had encouraged the contributions. Why? Because a challenge from the left is seen as a liability for the Dem candidate, Bob Casey.
The $66,000 came from twenty donors, in contributions ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. None of the donors have a history of giving to the Green Party.
The Inquirer reported that $40,000 came from donors who either had given to Santorum’s campaign or lived at the same address as a Santorum supporter. But even more than that came from Republicans. That raises the question whether any of the $66,000 – which comprises the total sum collected by both the local Green Party and Romanelli (with the exception of his $30 contribution) this election cycle – came from actual supporters of the Green Party.
But there’s evidence that even those who didn’t also give to Santorum’s campaign are Republicans.
I called up one couple, Harry and Carol Wolfington, who had given $5,000 each to the Green Party. Mrs. Wolfington hadn’t heard of the Green Party and told me they were conservatives. She referred me to her husband, who she said had made the contributions, but he refused to talk to me.
Together with another $5,000 contribution, which came from a donor who’d given to Republicans in the past according to FEC reports, the Wolfington’s $10,000 means that fully $55,000 of the Green Party’s $66,000 came from Republicans. I was unable to contact the remaining three donors, none of whom have given to the Green Party in the past.
The Green Party of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania hadn’t received a dime in contributions before June of this year. The $66,000 given in that month was an amazing take for a Green Party committee, almost equalling the total ($77,160) received during the 2006 election cycle by all other local and state Green Party committees in the country combined.
