What's more, it was revealed the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation used $250,000 or a portion of that grant to fund these mailers. Yeah, those friendly folks that fund the PBS News Hour. Well, they're making news now. Stay tuned to The Flathead Memo, Montana Cowgirl and Big Sky Words for updates.
Because I’m sorry, but I’m just not going to believe this was thought-up at the university level – eggheads don’t have that much sense. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of common sense either to know that the Koch brothers have had their hands all over the universities, as this October 2014 report on Koch brothers university funding shows.
As you can see, both Dartmouth and Stanford are on that list, although there’s 5 pages and more than 100 universities on that list (correction, Montana is on the list with MSU - Bozeman, which I missed earlier today).
So what are the Koch brothers funding? I bet they run the board, but I’m willing to wager things like timber, coal, oil and other resource-based disciplines are getting money, and I’m willing to wager that various ‘friendly’ political science departments – or just faculty members that have been identified as such – are getting some of that cash as well.
We already know from Montana Cowgirl this morning that both professors Bonica and Rodden from Stanford “are both Hoover Institution Fellows.”
What’s more, she points out that Stanford doesn’t even do a content overview or edit, or even look at whatever is being sent out, they just look to see how much money it’s going to cost them. Boy, they sure teach responsible practices to our young future generations over there in California, don’t they?
So what is the Hoover Institution? You can get some basic information from Wikipedia there, although I’m sure it’s been heavily edited and tilted to favor whatever cause supports it. So what is that cause…where are they getting their funding?
On that same Wikipedia page, this is all you get (click to enlarge):
See, I’m trying to figure out, who funded this thing and what similarities are there to who’s funding other candidates. It’s clear to me that Lawrence VanDyke has benefited from this shady mailer, and big time. Just last week we know that he had a major Family Research Council fundraiser and I’m sure strategies were put in place to ensure he’d get a further leg up:
And there’s nothing to say a PAC can’t send out mailers like this that will benefit a candidate, and all because Montana had corporate campaign contribution limitations stripped-away in 2011 with the Citizens United decision.
When did those shady mailers hit the outgoing mail? What if we said that those mailers probably hit the mail on Tuesday, and could have been authorized by the Hoover Institute after the go-ahead was given from the Republican Party?
Tuesday morning would have let that poor debate performance by Daines sink in, and damn it, something would be needed to get that base fired-up and to the polls. Thankfully this political mailer was just waiting in the wings, like that Walsh plagiarism investigation was just waiting in the wings during the summer.
And remember, candidates don’t need to know anything about this – they can’t know anything about this! There has to be no communication or coordination between the PACs and the candidates, something that makes it awfully easy to wash your hands of something like this.
Did any of the current Montana Republican candidates know about this mailing? I’m not saying that, and I’m not saying any of them authorized it. I’m just saying that all of them stand to benefit, a happy little accident.
When you have dastardly plans un-hatched already and just waiting in the back room, you need to wait for the right time to unleash them. The Republicans had a terrible week in Montana. Daines lost the first debate. The Republicans had a brief up-tick on Tuesday when the second debate wasn’t aired. The mailings were also authorized that day.
This is all speculation of course, but it is mighty convenient, isn’t it? I mean, who’s going to be talking about Daines for the next week, or Curtis, or Lewis, or Zinke’s military records? That’s right, no one.
It’s amazing how much power a little ‘research’ project can have, isn’t it?