This past Friday, Republican Congressional candidate Paige Kreegel called his Republican opponent in the special election for Florida’s 19th Congressional district, Curt Clawson, and forewarned him about an imminent attack on him by a Super PAC that was set up to support Kreegel.
Kreegel left Clawson a voice message on Friday, and the Values are Vital PAC attack ads on Clawson began airing the following day.The Curt Clawson campaign put out a the entire audio clip of message Kreegel left on Clawson’s phone.
“Yeah, Curt, Paige Kreegel, if you don’t already know, I just read or heard that the PAC people are going to spend so much negative on her and so much negative on you. It’s not something I wanted and not something I can prevent. Anyway, that’s the way it is.”-Paige Kreegel
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Oops!
How did Kreegel know that the attack ad against Clawson was going to be pushed out before it actually aired?
So what was it? Did Kreegel read about the attack ad, or did he hear about it?Here is the Clawson campaign response to Kreegel:
“While this is for sure a shocker, and may mark the first time a candidate for federal office has so blatantly spoken for a Super PAC, the threatening message is in keeping with Paige Kreegel’s checkered past. Sadly, Paige Kreegel thinks the laws he would be elected to make don’t apply to him and indeed so-called ‘values’ aren’t so vital to him. The people of southwest Florida are fed up with insider politicians like Kreegel and deserve an outsider like Curt Clawson.”
It is a big no-no for candidates and their committees or campaigns to collude with outside groups, but apparently this does not apply to the Republicans in this particular special election.
“I have not broken the law,” Kreegel said in an interview Saturday with the Tampa Bay Times. He said he learned about the negative ad through the FEC report that was filed on Friday. Records show the committee also paid for mailers.Values are Vital is run by Anthony Farhat, who was Kreegel’s finance director in 2012. And two former campaign staffers say Kreegel discussed setting up an outside attack group in the 2012 race, which was won by Trey Radel, whose cocaine escapades in Washington led to the current special election.
The aides say Kreegel’s refused to go negative on Radel in the GOP primary, just as he has done in this race. “But he wanted to do it through a third party. He wanted to set up a Super PAC to hit Radel,” said Matt Dobler, who managed the 2012 campaign.
“He several times tried to get me to set up an independent expenditure group,” said Jason Roe, who was a 2012 consultant. “I told him repeatedly that it would be illegal. That didn’t seem to phase him.”-Tampa Bay Times
Big Oops!
Kreegel denies any involvement with the PAC and its ad, stating that his former Jason Roe, is currently suing him for more than $50,000 from his 2012 campaign.
“I think curt’s a decent guy and I hate to see this crap go on.”-Paige Kreegel
But wait, Kreegel is not the only candidate in this race who has apparently comingled with outside groups to attack his opponents. The Shark Tank reported on the fact that a couple of other PAC’s have attacked Clawson, both of which share the same address and Treasurer as Benacquisto’s own Alliance for a Strong Economy PAC.
Of course Benacquisto denies having anything to do with this unbelievable coincidence.
The Values are Vital PAC that started airing in Fort Myers, Florida, calls out both Clawson and Benacquisto for having past ties to Democrats, me, mentioning Clawson’s donation to Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Benacquisto’s past as registered Democrat.
We touched on both of these two candidates ties to Democrats, including Benacquisto’s husband’s past as a top Democrat donor campaign donation bundler for President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Senator Bill Nelson, and others
