Happy Christmas (War is Over)
Update: In historic vote, Senate approves health care reform bill
Bad headline alert
Funding sources for Tucson’s “rightward drift”?
Rhonda Bodfield has a front page article in today's Star about Tucson's possible shift toward the right. It may be happening, I don't know. Or it may be a highly mobilized and organized extreme right wing minority that's making lots of noise. We'll learn more about that in the next election cycle.
Meanwhile, here's my question, and I don't know the answer. Has the visible right wing movement in Tucson bubbled up from a groundswell of philosophical and political support, or is it a well funded campaign, the best "grass roots movement" money can plant?
The article lists some recent Tucson-based right wing groups: the Arizona Policy Institute, the Tucson First campaign and, of course, the very visible local Tea Party movement. Maybe someone knows something about the funding of these groups. I would love to know more.
Here's an example of a well funded organization having a over-sized influence on the dialogue in the state. It's the right wing organization I love to spotlight, the Goldwater Institute.
The left doesn't have a state organization to counterbalance G.I. for one simple reason: the left lacks the deep pockets the right has in abundance. It takes lots of money to create the kind of on message, carefully organized noise G.I. generates on an almost daily basis.
I looked up G.I.'s tax returns on the web (all non profit 990 tax forms are public records). The most recent I found was G.I.'s 2007 return. (Anyone wanting to dig further can go through 990s dating back to 2002.)
Here are some of Goldwater Institute's 2007 financial highlights. Remember, these figures are a few years old. I imagine they're all higher now.
Total Revenue: $3,460,951
Top 6 Salaries:
- Darcy Olsen, President: $180,000
- Matthew Ladner, VP Research: $141,031
- Clint Bolick, Dir Constitutional Govt: $126,875
- Jess Yescalis, Development Director: $96,000
- Kathi Bobbe, Director of Finance: $76,000
- Starlee Rhoades, Director of Communications: $73,000
Some of G.I.'s Expenses:
- Compensation of Officers: $180,000
- Salaries and Wages of Employees: $809,692
- Contract Labor: $188,630
- Printing and Publications: $155,054
- Lecture Series Expenses: $166,520
- Dues and Subscriptions: $24,870
There's lots more on the tax form, but these are the highlights. That kind of money buys a whole lot of exposure.
So, do the new Southern Arizona right wing groups have funders with deep pockets to give them the media impact that led to Bodfield's article? Do they make use of well funded national networks that amplify their local impact?
Whether or not money talks, it sure can buy a lot of megaphones.
UPDATE: In case you're interested where some of G.I.'s money comes from, a reader sent me G.I.'s 2006 Annual Report which lists sponsors "At the Senator level and above." (On today's G.I. Contribute page, you have to give at least $1,000 to be a "Senator member." Just so you know, people who give $100,000 or more are "Visionaries.")
The list is more than 125 sponsors long. You can see it by clicking on the link below. (Interestingly, G.I.'s 2007 and 2008 annual reports don't include sponsor lists.)
The top media fraud of 2009
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