March 14, 2007

Watchdog Group Files FEC Complaint Against Duncan Hunter’s PAC

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Today, CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a FEC complaint against long-shot Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter’s leadership PAC. According to CREW, Hunter’s PAC, Peace Through Strength Political Action Committee (PTS PAC), has illegally supported the presidential candidate. Before a potential candidate declares a bid for the presidency, they are able to “test the waters” (money can be spent on travel, polling and under $5,000 can be spent on ad campaigns). It appears Hunter didn’t follow the rules. PTS PAC spent $17,575 to run an ad campaign last December (before he announced his bid) in NH, which promoted the Representative’s support for the construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mother Jones didn’t need CREW to tell us that Hunter is a bit of a shady character. Read some fun tidbits about the Rep. in Mother Jones‘ “The Men Who Would Beat Hillary” and don’t miss our profile on him and his humanitarian brother John Hunter in our current issue. You’d think they were “separated at birth.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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