LG Runoff Race: Dark Money from Federal Swamp Spreading Lies About David Shafer

The following article is an editorialized opinion piece and reflects only the views of the author and not necessarily those of AllOnGeorgia.

For about the last two weeks, not a day went by that I didn’t get some postcard mailer slamming my friend David Shafer regarding some fabricated garbage.  The mailers were disclosed to have been paid for by an independent committee called “Hometown Freedom Action Network,” registered in Georgia.

The Chairman of that committee does not live in Georgia; he works out of Washington, D.C., and this is the information that can be seen on this link to the Georgia Ethics Disclosure website:

COMMITTEE INFORMATION
NC2017000039
Hometown Freedom Action Network
P.O. Box 75727
Washington , DC 20013

CHAIRPERSON INFORMATION
Joel Riter
P.O. Box 75727
Washington, DC 20013

TREASURER INFORMATION
Tom Norris
P.O. Box 75727
Washington, DC 20013

The real money to finance the anti-Shafer program did not come from Georgia. It came from another committee called Citizens for a Working America Super PAC, also located in Washington, D.C.

And, who controls Citizens for a Working America, et al.? Why, none other than Joel Riter, as you can read here.

All in, the CWA PAC poured-in about $2 million into this runoff to try to destroy Shafer in favor of Geoff Duncan.

Why is a Washington, D.C. swamp-dweller so interested in seeing Geoff Duncan win this LG position in Georgia?

This Super PAC, by the way, doesn’t bother to disclose where it gets its’ money. There was a letter I found on the FEC.gov site that warned Riter to fully disclose all finances, and to this date, they still haven’t (the Swamp protects its own, of course).

The influence from a D.C. swamp-dweller aside, the propaganda put out by both Duncan’s campaign and these mailers from Hometown Freedom point to such a consistency in their falsehoods that they have to be coordinating the lies.

The Shafer Campaign, to their credit, created a Website to address the multitude of lies from the Duncan-supported camp. That Website is: DeceptiveDuncan.com (and in case that site goes down, here is a link to a PDF version:  DeceptiveDuncan.pdf).

That website addresses the 3 biggest lies from Duncan and the Swamp-Dweller from Washington, D.C. It is an age-old formula for bad candidates like Geoff Duncan and his D.C. puppet master: When you have nothing good to say about your product, smear the other guy and hope something sticks.

In the primary, I wrote a PV newsletter discussing the following about Geoff Duncan, which I still stand by, and even more so now, for this Run-off election tomorrow:

Geoff Duncan: The 3-Time Quitter Who Wants to Become a Hitter

Benjamin Franklin once wrote “Half the Truth is often a great Lie…”

With Geoff Duncan for Lt. Governor, we are dealing with a great…big…liar. In all of his literature, as well as online Website, Duncan has sought to erase a significant part of his true past: His 5 years in the Georgia State Legislature.

And, of course, in erasing that 5-years, he’s hiding his track-record of being a quitter at least three times in his life. And, if you’re a quitter, well, of course you would seek to hide that truth with half of the truth about yourself, right?

His campaign website promotes the following summary about him: “He is a former professional pitcher and trailblazing entrepreneur who has thrived in the private sector. Team Duncan is ready to bring home another win for Georgia’s families and businesses.”

Yeah…umm, that’s not really quite accurate. You see, the first time Duncan quit was when he quit his undergraduate education to (attempt) to, become a professional baseball player.

The 2nd time he quit was in the supposed profession of baseball, but he never actually made it to the pros, as this excerpt from a 2017 article published in InsiderAdvantage.com discloses:

“Duncan quit the House having accomplished nothing of significance, just like he dropped out of Georgia Tech without earning a degree. He claims to have played Major League Baseball for the Florida Marlins, but check his record. He played for unknown minor league teams like the Kade County Cougars and Utica Blue Sox. He claims to be a serial entrepreneur. Nonetheless his business career has consisted of brief stints as a home builder and a salesman of promotional products. His current ‘job’ is running for office.”

The capper for Duncan is that, while he claims to be “an outsider, not beholden to the good ‘ole boys”, he has a track record of kissing the hind-quarters of the biggest good ‘ole Swamp-dweller in the State Legislature: Speaker David Ralston.

And, so, with his quitting of a do-nothing career in the Georgia State Legislature (and his deliberate hiding of that fact), he’s a 3-time quitter. Doesn’t sound like much of a “trailblazing leader” to me…does he to you?