Coffman targets wrong weapon

The press release offered yesterday by the Coffman campaign asking all campaigns in the 6th congressional district race to “"disavow any and all negative 527 activities" shows several things.

Firstly it shows that our chief election officer for the state of Colorado has no idea how election laws regarding 527s work, says at least one 6th CD delegate.

Coffman’s previous contributions to the campaign through the decertifying/re-certifying spectacle have mostly served as a seminar on how to not conduct elections. With this new venture into how campaign finance laws don’t work, he’s breaking new ground.   

“It confirms that Coffman just doesn’t understand how 527s work,” say the 6th CD delegate. “Campaign’s have no control over 527s. They can’t help it if their supporters run these ads.”

What’s more significant, and what candidates can control, is the activities of 501 (c4)s, so called, education committees.

And that’s because these committees happen to be the weapon of choice of Jon Hotaling, the campaign manager for Senator Ted Harvey, one of four candidates in the 6th CD race.

“What Coffman ought to be worried about, “says another delegate, “is the rain of mail that’s going to come from 501 (c4)s. The Colorado Christian Coalition, the Rocky Mountain Gun Owner, Gun Owner’s of America, these are all closely allied with the Hotaling brothers.”

The source went on to explain that contributions, often subsidized by wealthy individuals  and directed by the campaign, will then go to those organizations in order to perhaps pay for targeted mailings and other activities on behalf of Harvey.

It’s a kind of loophole in campaign finance laws that Jon Hotaling likes to exploit.

“What the mail is going to say,” continues the delegate, “is that ‘Coffman is no good on guns’ or ‘Coffman won’t answer our survey’ or “Ted Harvey is the only candidate who’s a pro-life champion.’ It won’t have to be true either. They’ll say whatever they have to say.”

The 4th CD’s Marilyn Musgrave used Hotaling and his tactical nuclear options and won. So did, the 6th CD’s Doug Lamborn. He won too. But in both cases, some say, the victory was achievable without the costly fallout that both Musgrave and Lamborn incurred.

Musgrave is just now, after tough reelection fights in 2004 and 2006 against Democrats, enjoying something of comfortable existence in a district that has a narrow but significant GOP advantage.

And Lamborn could very well lose because of lingering fallout from his campaign in 2006.

“Look if the GOP tears itself apart in contests where Jeff Crank, Bentley Rayburn, Mike Coffman and Wil Armstrong lose because they aren’t conservative enough, they got problems,” concluded one strategist.