Bee the Recidivist?

I see it all the time. Someone skirts the law, cuts a corner, and gets away with it. Next time it’s just a little bit easier to make the choice to ignore what he knows is right, and what he knows to be the law. He took ‘advice’ from his lawyer. He got away with it. Nobody really cares if he just fudges a little, right? It’s so much easier than obeying all those pesky laws. Why not just push the envelope a little further. He has to admit, to himself, at least, getting away with it is a bit of a thrill. It can become sort of… addictive.

Having managed to slide on campaigning for Congress more than a year out from the end of his Senate term in violation of Arizona’s Constitution and statutes by playing Schroedinger’s candidate for a few months, it seems now Tim may be embarking on a new flirtation with lawlessness. The following ad is buzzing around the internet:

It doesn’t speak to Tim’s candidacy for Congress, nor does it have any sort of disclaimer as to who paid for and sponsored the ad, which is required by the federal campaign finance laws that govern congressional campaigns, even though this clip is obviously a tv capture. I imagine it might have been some fluffery from Tim’s "exploratory" period.

But it really makes you wonder who paid for it. Shouldn’t Bee at least be responsible for telling us that much? Bee’s campaign claims no affiliation with the creators. I have no reason not to believe them; but I also have no reason to believe them, either.

It could be just an honest bit of internet-based fandom for Tim’s work in the Senate, or some innocent legislative flackery that’s been re-purposed by Bee boosters having no coordination with the Bee campaign, as they claim. But it makes me wonder if Tim is savoring another taste of skirting the rules while claiming clean hands?

The whole thing rather smacks of this little jewel from fellow blogger Tom Dunn, who created a YouTube channel to distribute this and one other pro-Bee video (which was much more clearly journalistic in terms of content, being just a public speech by Bee):

Tom claims at the end of the video to not be affiliated with the Tim Bee Exploratory Committee (which, keep in mind, was registered as a candidate’s primary committee with the FEC at the time, and was thus subject to federal campaign spending regulations), and that was certainly true… until Tom became a principal member of Tim’s campaign.

Illegal? Not strictly speaking, no. A little too convenient to be strictly legal? Perhaps. When one looks at these incidents of legal corner-cutting by Tim’s campaign in isolation, they really aren’t that big a deal. But when they are looked at as a pattern of behavior, they make you wonder whether Tim is just negligent about how his campaign is run or if he actively supports cutting these legal corners by his campaign.