Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Ethics Reports, Pt. 1: Sanford, Floyd take plastic

Thankfully, even though SC boasts a 43rd national ranking in wages, that doesn’t mean our companies are too strapped to make high-dollar political donations in lieu of Christmas bonuses. Take Dispoz-O Products of Fountain Inn, which sent gubernatorial candidate Mark Sanford a fat $2500 check towards his re-election campaign, according to today's Ethics Commission reports.

Never heard of “Dispoz-o” before?

Of course you have. Dispoz-o is the synthetic cutlery company that (Sanford appointee to the EOC) Karen Iacovelli calls home when she’s not pledging, “I proclaim publicly that I favor ending government involvement in education.

Dispoz-o made the contribution just a couple weeks before meddlesome bloggers revealed Iacovelli’s ties with the Alliance for Separation of School & State. Her stint on the EOC only lasted a few days longer. (Health reasons.)

I know, I know…a public school hater donates to Sanford – yawn. Not exactly “man bites dog” as far as news goes. Like Sunny Philips says: “No real surprises in Sanford’s filings.”

Sunny's name, I couldn't help but notice, shows up a few times on Sanford’s filing. She's eager to point out that a "whopping" 30% of Republican Oscar Lovelace’s donations come from “doctors, spouses of doctors, medical suppliers, pharmacies, and other medical related services,” but inadvertently omits the fact that nearly 40% of Sanford’s 1Q contributions are from out-of-state. Honest mistake.

But I digress. On the off-chance that Sunny would leave this stone unturned in her "comprehensive review" of the filings, I decided to see if Dispoz-avelli had donated to anyone else this election cycle.

What I found out surprised me a little. Iaco-spozo also donated $2500 to Supt. of Education candidate Karen Floyd last quarter. Gervais says, when an avowed opponent of public schools pledges her support to a candidate who wants to lead our public schools, that makes me a little nervous.

Of course, I'll be the first to admit it is possible that Floyd got $2500 from Iacovelli because her views on education are so closely aligned with those of the plastic utensil industry.

And maybe Sanford got $2000 from Iacovelli because of the super job he's doing with the economy.


Update: Crunchy Republican's filings review now says, "As usual, [Sanford] does have some out-of-state support, but not enough to be eye-popping" instead of "no real surprises." Thanks for the update, Sunny!

Update 2: In the comments, Sunny questions Gervais's public-school figgerin' of Sanford's nearly 40% out-of-state contributions, claiming it's actually 16%. Let me illustrate my complex methodology:

1. Geography-in': Identify those contributions that came from somewhere besides "SC," which I believe is the postal abbreviation for the Palmetto State.

2. Readin': Peruse the filing for the information.

Itemized Out-of-State Contributions: $276,000
Total Contributions: $781,400
Minus 'Contributions' from Bank Interest: -$75,000

3. Mathin': Divide $276,000 by $706,400:
39%
Of course, this assumes none of Sanford's unitemized contributions are from out-of-state, and has nothing to do with the point of my post: candidates for Governor and Education Superintendant have the financial backing of an outspoken opponent of public schools.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ross-

You left out the fact Oscar the Grouch is paying himself to be a candidate, to the tune of almost $14,000 last quarter, and over $20,000 the previous quarter.

Anonymous said...

Mrs. Iacovelli donated to Karen Floyd's cause? Read this article from Floyd: http://scpie.org/FeatureArticle.asp?ArticleID=17

I believe they are on the same team... and it seems Floyd is setup to get the nod. I mean, Sanford supports her, right? 3 mosquitos in a mud puddle if you ask me...

Anonymous said...

Anonymous says that Oscar is paying himself. Is that bad? At least that money doesn't have strings - unlike the contribution to Floyd's campaign.

Anonymous said...

Funny how your figures were left off of FITS. It seems they were more worried about Molly Spearman giving a little donation to Bob Staton. It also seems that FITS was too busy to notice that Mrs. Spearman has voted in every Republican primary since 1994 and has given money to other Republican candidates. It also seems that FITS failed to notice longtime Republicans like Paula Harper Bethea (on Campbell's advisory team) have given money to Bob Staton.

Anonymous said...

And Ross - did you disclose that your daddy is making money from Oscar?

Anonymous said...

Hahah sounds like FITS is pretty worried about Bob Staton whippin' his opponents in fundraising and is trying to discredit the fact he's obviously garnering a lot more support than Sanford's pick.

The Cackalacky Candidate said...

In an election bid for No Office in the Great State of South Carolina, The Cackalacky Candidate (The Voter's Choice for No Office) has received No Contributions from supporters.

Anonymous said...

Gervais,

When you come at them with the facts, all they can do is revert to making comments like "your daddy is making money from Oscar".

When you prove that they're distorting the numbers, they change the subject.

How pathetic!

Anonymous said...

Uhhh...my head hurts.

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