Investigating corruption on one side of the aisle

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington or "CREW" as it is usually known, is one of the favored recipients of Democracy Alliance donors.

The political strategy behind the CREW approach

Some voters won't pull the lever for a politician whose conduct they don't trust, even if they agree with his political views.

The political strategy behind CREW is to spend huge resources investigating and writing stories about GOP corruption. Sometimes CREW writes about real and disturbing corruption. Sometimes it flyspecks. But what it doesn't do is spend its huge financial resources looking for corruption on the Democratic side of the aisle.

As a 501c3 tax-exempt organization, it can look for corruption wherever it wants. And where it wants to look for corruption is on the Republican side of the aisle.

Creating a public perception of an ethically-challenged GOP

Imagine a teacher--call her Dolores Umbridge--who teaches a classroom of 20 children--10 girls and 10 boys. Umbridge ignores the behavior of the girls, but spends a lot of time looking into what the boys are up to. Whenever Umbridge discovers a behavioral lapse on the part of a boy, she reports it to the school principal.

It won't be long before the school principal decides that boys, by-and-large, are much more ethically challenged than girls.

That's the strategy CREW is pursuing.

A strategy with a cynical electoral payoff

Voters, reasonably enough, distrust allegations of corruption or shenanigans that are flung at a politician in the heat of an electoral campaign by the opposing campaign.

Voters, however, aren't familiar with the overall motivations and cynical, long-term, electoral strategy of groups like CREW. At least some voters will take anti-corruption materials at face value. If you're a leftist billionaire, it's a good investment to spend tens of millions muddying up the corruption waters to swing the vote a few percentage points on Election day.

Moving the strategy into states

It should surprise no one to learn that CREW now has a branch in Colorado.

It should also surprise no one that CREW-Colorado doesn't disclose its donors: Left-leaning 'ethics watchdog' refuses to reveal funding sources.

Tie your political opponents up defending against complaints

One of the ugliest ways the left is using its huge new warchest is on a blizzard of complaints about alleged election or campaign finance infractions. Since libertarians and conservative usually believe that campaign finance laws and regulations are an unconstitutional abridgement of 1st amendment speech protections, libertarians and conservatives are tempermentally ill-suited to cynical exploitation of campaign over-regulation to tie up an opponent's time, resources and mental energy. The left has no such compunctions. This is an area where right-of-center proponents are bringing a rubber knife to a gunfight.

Return to homepage

Return to Table of Contents

Click on a link below to find out what leftist billionaires are planning in your state:

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming