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March 18, 2010 08:49 PM UTC

The Continuing Story of "Our 527"

  • 12 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Back in January, we discussed the Scott McInnis gubernatorial campaign’s replacement of their relatively inexperienced campaign manager with Nancy Hopper. Ex-manager George Culpepper had, as the tale was told to us, not exactly distinguished himself during his tenure, and the switch to Hopper was an attempt to reorganize and professionalize McInnis’ campaign.

But as the Colorado Independent reported late yesterday, there may be more to the story of Culpepper’s “departure,” with a familiar twist–did he just move over a spot on The Diagram?

Colorado campaign watchdog groups are keeping a close eye on a Virginia nonprofit group with a Littleton address, which they suspect may be the smoking gun gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis alluded to on a cryptic voicemail nearly a year ago.

Before he had even filed his paperwork to run for governor, the former six-term GOP congressman from Colorado’s Western Slope left a voicemail for a potential campaign contributor referring to a 527 group set up by Republican political operative Sean Tonner.

Late last year, McInnis campaign director George Culpepper resigned, later phoning a Montana newspaper to tell them he still supported McInnis but quit to “form Western Skies, a political strategies organization based in Colorado.”

Tonner, president of the conservative lobbying firm Phase Line Strategies, in 2008 registered the Western Skies Coalition, a 501(c)4 nonprofit “dedicated to promoting issues that make our nation great.” Western Skies drew criticism from the left for trying to “green wash” Republican state Senate candidates in ad campaigns during that election cycle that painted them as pro-environment.

“We’ve got Sean Tonner on board. Sean’s doing our 5-uh, or a 527,” McInnis said on the infamous voicemail first posted on the Complete Colorado website in April of 2009. “We’ve got lots of support in the oil and gas industry.”

…”[McInnis] said Sean Tonner is setting up our 527, so maybe he was talking about Western Skies,” [Colorado Ethics Watch’s Luis] Toro said. “And then when his former campaign manager [Culpepper] quits or leaves and goes to run that very same organization, that’s a red flag, so we’re certainly going to be watching this closely.”

It’s interesting, because when we posted the version of events surrounding Culpepper’s replacement as McInnis campaign manager relayed to us, a number of Republicans jumped to Culpepper’s defense (see comments), asserting that he was in fact quite competent, et cetera, contrary to our summary of Culpepper as “long on antics and short on substance.” We’re not so vain as to rule out the possibility of being wrong about Culpepper, particularly in light of his apparently continued employment by widely-suspected McInnis campaign assets–but that would seem to invite a few questions of its own.

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12 thoughts on “The Continuing Story of “Our 527””

  1. But no one does a thing to close the loop hole.  D’s have had a majority vote and ample opportunity to amend McCain-Feingold but it’s  still with us.  Is that because it’s against the law to talk about them?  No.  Plenty has been said.

    As for George Culpepper, I haven’t talked with him in months but on Facebook his priorities are his family, getting his advanced degree and team sports. He appears to be pretty darn busy with the first two.  

    1. Well, okay, it does have some ongoing impact: campaigns still can’t co-ordinate with independent expenditures.

      With the Supreme Court decision, corporations no longer need to hide behind 527s – they can produce their own unlimited independent expenditure ads.  IMHO no legislation short of a U.S. Constitutional Amendment can solve that problem, and I’m not an advocate for the ones I’ve seen so far.

  2. But no one does a thing to close the loop hole.  D’s have had a majority vote and ample opportunity to amend McCain-Feingold but it’s  still with us.  Is that because it’s against the law to talk about them?  No.  Plenty has been said.

    As for George Culpepper, I haven’t talked with him in months but on Facebook his priorities are his family, getting his advanced degree and team sports. He appears to be pretty darn busy with the first two.  

    1. It usually happens when you click post again thinking you might have missed it the first time.

      And I think the problem McInnis is facing with this isn’t necessarily that a 527 exists (I think you have a valid point about changing current law, but given the recent SCOTUS ruling, I don’t know how the 527 issue could be reconciled without violating the first amendment) but that McInnis accidentally acknowledged some sort of connection between himself as a candidate and a 527 that would be campaigning for him–but is barred by law from being affiliated with any candidate or candidate’s committee.

      Who knows if this will come back to bite him, but it should be noted that the original voicemail was leaked by a conservative website.

      2. Nobody’s saying the loopholes aren’t big enough to drive a car through. Both Democrats and Republicans use 527s. But the trouble here is in McInnis’ voicemail acknowledging the 527, because it could lead to a lawsuit or complaint being filed.

        Is there enough evidence to prove McInnis was involved? Maybe not, but there is enough here to make it look bad. This isn’t the kind of thing you want to be talking about to the media in the middle of a tough campaign.

  4. Rumor has it, or at least what I heard is that Culpepper isn’t even in Colorado anymore. I’m not sure if he went back to Montana or what but I hear he’s escaped our beautiful state. Probably on the run!  

  5. the same guy who was spokesman for the Northern Colorado Board of Realtors in Fort Collins a few years ago?

    Also, is Andrew Boucher, slimy political operative, somehow involved in this?

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