Ryan Zinke’s Love Affair with PAC Money

I decided to dig into Ryan Zinke’s campaign finance reports this morning.
 
You’ll remember that I did the same to Juneau a few days ago.
 
I found some really strange things in the 12 pages of Ryan Zinke committee contributions.
 
First of all, I feel the FEC website was a bit jumpy today as I was getting the exact same PAC contributions for both candidates.
 
What the hell is going on?
 
Zinke has 12 pages of PAC contributions.
 
For instance, why is Ryan Zinke accepting $2,000 from the Nancy Pelosi for Congress PAC?
 
I couldn’t find a single thing on that PAC, or whether it was actually affiliated with Pelosi or just a silly-sounding name that GOPers thought would be fun to use on their own fundraising PAC.
 
I then realized that the FEC site was fucked up today and I had to close out Juneau’s page if I wanted to view Zinke’s properly.
 
Weird.
 
Anyways, it was pretty clear to me that going through Zinke’s fundraising would be a huge headache.

No wonder you're not reading about this shit.
 
Besides the 12 pages he has for himself, there’s also the following groups raising and spending money on his behalf:
 

• Zinke Daines Victory Fund 2016: Raised $35,000
• Zinke for Congres: Raised $2.9 million
• Zinke Victory Fund: Raised $55,900
• Daines-Zinke Victory Committee: Raised $89,402

 
That second one for $2.9 million is actually Zinke’s main fundraising, candidate account, but it’s listed on the main page twice for some reason.
 
Anyways, he’s got tons of money and it continuously raising more.
 

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​Zinke's PAC Fundraising

Zinke’s report runs from January 1 to May 18.
 
Zinke’s getting $1.4 million from individuals and he’s getting $349,456 from PACs.
 
It’s the PAC income we’ll focus on for now. Here are some highlights:
 

• American Bankers Assoc PAC (D.C.): $4,000
• American Petroleum Institute PAC (D.C.): $1,000
• Anheuser-Bush (Missouri): $7,500
• Arch & Arch PAC (Missouri): $5,000
• BNSF RailPAC (Texas): $9,000
• Chevron Employees PAC (California): $1,500
• CHS Inc. PAC (Minnesota): $3,000
• Citigroup Inc. PAC (D.C.): $3,000
• Cloud Peak Energy Employee PAC (Colorado): $12,500
• CoalPAC (D.C.): $1,500
• CornPAC (D.C.): $1,000
• Employees of Northrop Grumman Corp PAC (Virginia): $8,500
• Eye of the Tiger PAC (Virginia): $5,500
• Florida Sugar Cane League PAC (D.C.): $1,000
• General Electric PAC (D.C.): $7,000
• Greg for Montana (Helena): $56
• Halliburton Co. PAC (Texas): $5,000
• Honeywell International PAC (D.C.): $9,999
• Independent Community Bankers PAC (D.C.): $3,000
• Key Energy Services Inc. PAC (Texas): $1,000
• Lockheed Martin Employee PAC (Virginia): $6,500
• Marathon Oil Co. Employees PAC (Texas): $2,500
• Michigan Sugar Company Growers PAC (Michigan): $2,000
• Minerals Technologies (New York): $3,000
• Montana Gas & Oil (Helena): $250
• Montana Oil & Gas PAC (Helena): $250
• MT MED PAC (Helena): $500
• National Air Traffic Controllers Association PAC (D.C.): $3,000
• National Rifle Assn of America (Virginia): $3,000
• NSSGA RockPAC (Virginia): $4,500
• Peabody PAC (Missouri): $2,000
• Phillips 66 PAC (Oklahoma): $3,000
• Plum Creek PAC (Washington): $2,000
• Raytheon PAC (Virginia): $5,000
• Republican Main Street PAC (D.C.): $3,000
• Safari Club International (Arizona): $5,000
• The Boeing Co. PAC (Virginia): $6,000
• Time Warner Cable Fed PAC (D.C.): $1,000
• US Cuba Democracy PAC (Florida): $2,000

 
Wow, lots to go into, huh?
 
I thought that Cuba PAC was interesting, considering that Zinke bashed Obama in May 2015 for opening up trade with Cuba.
 
Taking a closer look, however, you see that U.S. Cuba Democracy PAC is all about opposing trade with Cuba.
 
Many of these PACs have very tricky names, and that’s the idea. They want you to think they’re doing the exact opposite of what they’re actually doing.
 
In this case, Obama’s trade with Cuba will open that country up and make it just like America – a consumer-driven shithole. Zinke opposes that, because he’d rather it remain a shithole that American corporations can’t exploit.
 
Confused?
 
Yeah, politics can be that way.
 

Let's dig into these reports a bit more, shall we?

For instance, what is the American Bankers Association PAC?

Zinke got $4,000 from them and you’ll notice that 45 of their 83 lobbyists have been government workers.
 
These assholes lobby on banking, finance, taxes, and insurance…among other things.
 
They gave Steve Daines $10,000 in 2014.
 
Also in 2014 they gave $30,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that Tester heads up, and that same year they gave $35,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and another $30,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
 
They’re playing both sides with their revolving door politics.
 
It makes me sick.
 
Honeywell PAC is just like them, taking money from rich executives in the aerospace industry and funneling it to candidates so they do what the rich people want.
 
It’s legalized corruption.
 
It’s destroying this country.
 
BNSF RailPAC is another that gives to Zinke, to the tune of $9,000.
 
They’re based in Texas and gave more than $900,000 to federal candidates.
 
They also shuffled a bunch around to other PACs.
 
Yes, it’s a tricky little game we have here where PACs give to each other, shuffling money around so everyone can get a little piece.
 
That way there are few left with clean hands to complain about the corruption.
 
What a sick system.
 
Cloud Peak Energy PAC of Colorado gave $12,500 to Zinke this year.
 
A lot more rich people giving to Zinke to protect their interests over yours. Yes, these assholes in Colorado are more important to Zinke than you and your family, a lot more.
 

​Zinke's Spending

When it comes to the $2.3 million that Zinke spent so far this year, this is what stands out to me:
 

• Lots of money spent with 360 Office Solutions in Billings, lots in Missoula with Alpha Graphics.

 

• Alpine Research LLC of St. Ignatius is getting tons of money (more than $50,000) for campaign consulting work.

 

• More than $10,000 is going to Aristotle International Inc. for computer programming work.

 

• Boston’s Bowditch & Dewey is getting tens of thousands of dollars for legal services.

 

• Campaign Solutions of Virginia is making tens of thousands in web maintenance for Zinke.

 
And that takes us halfway through page 6.
 
There are 44 pages of Zinke’s campaign spending. I will not be looking through anymore.
 
Denise Juneau and her staff can do that. They have a website, and I encourage them to use it.
 
Currently they have a post from May 26 and May 25, but before that they didn’t have anything since May 13.
 
So they’re not using the main platform they have, the one that comes up #1 in a Google search.

Folks, people are typing in names into Google to figure out who these people on their absentee ballots are. That's why my Mark Sweeney article has more than 300 views this month and my Melissa Romano article has about 250.

​But I digress. Back to the incompetence of Juneau's campaign.
 
Personally, if I was making more than $2,000 every two weeks like Juneau’s campaign manager is, I’d be putting up detailed analysis of this fundraising and spending and pointing out how it hurts your life.
 
But that’s me.
 
I have a hunger to win, and to see my guys win. I don’t think Denise Juneau has that hunger, I don’t think she has it at all.
 
I fully expect Ryan Zinke to win this race and seeing him rubbing hands with the 6,000 at the Trump rally in Billings yesterday affirms that opinion.
 
Where was Juneau?
 
She could have been somewhere but she wasn't. I guess she’s got the same problem Melissa Romano has – the 9 to 5 job.
 
Romano will be quitting hers in the fall and with summer and no school anyways, she’ll be out there shaking hands.
 
She has to be – Arntzen is killing it by making appearances with Gianforte, and Montana voters will notice that.

I still don't think it'll be enough. I don't feel Romano has the hunger, the drive. 
 
For Juneau, gosh…there is no break from the job, and frankly, I don’t think she has the money to quit.
 
So I’m not confident that Juneau will win at all, and the Montana Democratic Party’s insistence to support Hillary over Bernie will only alienate possible Juneau voters.
 
I don’t know what she’ll do come January when her OPI job ends. Probably head off to D.C. for some lobbying, maybe a gig with a local Montana PAC, perhaps Emily’s List.
 
I fully expect Zinke will be getting a second term.
 
Hey, what do you want me to do…lie to you?
 
That’s not why you come here.
 
You come here to get opinions and analysis that you won’t get anywhere else.
 
I hoped you liked this bit on Zinke today. Thanks.