Slate-master Ray Allen
I support statewide conventions over primaries for nominating our Republican candidates. One of the many reasons for this is that I abhor the fact that the consultants who make their money off of primaries have made a habit of using their money and influence to engineer the selection of primaries for their own benefit, thus corrupting the process of selecting our nominees.
The particular consultants I have in mind are Boyd Marcus and Ray Allen, former partners in the firm Marcus and Allen. For years, both of these men have inserted themselves deeply into intra-party contests to ensure primaries for their candidates. Bolling, for example, managed to get his nomination method selected nearly two years in advance, with a lot of help from Marcus and Allen. Bolling’s chief consultant was Boyd Marcus, who famously defected last year for his thirty pieces of silver to work for Terry McAuliffe.
That leaves just Ray Allen. Allen’s chief patron is Rep. Eric Cantor (VA-7). Because Cantor appears to be next in line to become Speaker of the House, lobbyists and interest groups are all but throwing money at him, allowing him to fill his campaign coffers to overflowing, with plenty left over to lavishly fund the 7th District Republican Committee and YG Network/YG Virginia, the 501(c)(4) organization that staffed the slating operations around Virginia this winter and early spring. Allen is capitalizing on this ready availability of cash to ensure that there are plenty of paid staff to turn out Democrats and otherwise to corrupt GOP delegate selection processes in favor of his chosen candidates, while disenfranchising anyone who disagrees.
Why Rep. Cantor thinks it is a good idea to needlessly antagonize half the party he wants to lead is beyond me. It seems to be something against his interests. One thing is certain, though: it’s not against Ray Allen’s interests. Ray Allen stands to make a mint if his pro-primary candidates win this year and in 2016, regardless if in doing so he irreparably fractures the party. Why? Because if primaries are chosen to nominate our candidates, the lucrative direct mail business that goes along with primary elections will be steered to Allen’s direct mail company, Creative Direct.
That’s right. Ray Allen is not a consultant who just happens to offer direct mail; he’s a direct mail magnate who consults in order to more efficiently redirect his clients’ money into his own pockets. An old saying goes, “When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” When you’re Ray Allen, direct mail is your hammer, and every election is your nail.
That’s why it is intensely interesting to look at the Republican Party of Virginia’s 2013 campaign finance disclosures, available on VPAP.org. The vendor with the single largest spend of RPV dollars (and RNC Victory funds channeled through RPV)? Yep, you guessed it: Ray Allen’s Creative Direct LLC, to the tune of $1.13 million. So far in 2014 we haven’t had any elections, but Creative Direct has been tapped to do fundraising direct mail pieces for RPV, fattening Ray Allen’s wallet by another $26,000 while Allen orchestrates destructive slating campaigns at various Republican units around the state.
I don’t know about you, that doesn’t sit right with me. I think that if Ray Allen has access to Rep. Cantor’s money, then let him have at it. But, the Republican Party of Virginia must stop subsidizing the corruption of its own processes—immediately. Not a single dime of RPV money should find its way into the unclean hands of this political thug ever again.
