The Season of our Discontent
by Jeff Ward, KCRR President
The sight of multi-millionaire propagandist Michael Moore communing with the hippies at Occupy Wall Street conjures up a single word. Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy of the highest order. For Mr. Disingenuous to egg on the scions of the eastern wealth to rail against the corporations that provided them with their smart phones, iPads and designer stocking caps would be laughable, if the liberal media wasn’t eating it up and designating the astro-turfed socialist slackers as a leftist equivalent to Tea Party.
Hypocrisy is not only at home among the “99%” but here in the wilderness of North Idaho. Yesterday on a local political blog, Coeur d’Alene’s own liberal Democrat “Yosemite Sam”, City Councilman Mike Kennedy, launched this election’s attack on the Reagan Republicans, Ron Lahr and myself. Like elections past, Kennedy could not argue with the Reagan Republican-endorsed candidates Dan Gookin and Steve Adams because they are on the right side of the issues and Kennedy is on the wrong side, denying the citizens of Coeur d’Alene the right to vote on McEuen Field, supporting ridiculous pay increases for over-paid bureaucrats and refusing oversight on the LCDC. No Mr. Kennedy was true to form and attacked the messengers not the message.
In the 2009 election, Kennedy and his allies on the City Council and the City Administrator attacked KCRR by threatening to use the city to sue us for exercising our right to free speech in supporting Jim Brannon. This May, with the aid of his cohort, city police spokeswoman Kristy Wood and their nattering anonymous henchmen at HBO blog, he launched a scurrilous attack, on Tom Hamilton, Terri Seymour, Citizens for Better Education and the Reagan Republicans slandering us by attempting to link us with Aryan Nazis. Thank God the people of the Coeur d’Alene School District refused to buy Kennedy’s garbage and Tom and Terri handily beat the Kennedy-backed candidates.
This election, with the prospects of his candidates looking quite dim, Landslide Mike has lashed out at the Reagan Republicans and the conservative public relations firm, The Strategery Group. The Strategery Group is a small company started in March by Ron Lahr’s Pandamic Inc. to assist other companies and Republican candidates with public relations, fundraising and political campaigns. I signed on as chief consultant but like most start-ups, almost all of the revenues go to just staying afloat. During this campaign season I am pretty much a volunteer since I do not receive any pay. In fact, no employee of Strategery or Pandamic, Inc. has received any pay at all for working on any city council race. None. Yet Mr. Kennedy has attacked this little business, KCRR and our Victory Fund for helping his political enemies to get elected. Despite that fact only three of seven KCRR endorsed candidates are clients to the group and every endorsed candidate received the maximum donation from the Victory Fund, Kennedy is attempting paint a false picture of a cabal of evil Republicans using the Reagan Republicans for extravagant personal gain. Bunk. (Note: my wife made me write “bunk” – I wanted to use another word.)
Here the lies the grand hypocrisy. Before Mr. Kennedy found a political sugar-daddy to install him in a well-paid position, he was a “consultant to . . . political entities and individuals” (or so says his biography on his website “the Idaho Kennedys”.) While the Strategery Groups has charged consulting fees from $100 per month (for school board candidates) to a few hundred for other candidates, back in 2002 Mr. Kennedy was in a whole other league. Democrat Senate Candidate Alan Blinken paid “consultant” Mike Kennedy over $40,000 between May and October 2002 including a monthly “housing” allowance. And what did Mr. Blinken get for his money. 32.5%; losing 2 to 1 on election night.
The people of Kootenai County and Coeur d’Alene do not need any more of Mr. Kennedy’s and his minion’s hypocritical innuendo and defamatory attacks. They need new leadership like Dan Gookin and Steve Adams on the Coeur d’Alene City Council. Please vote and work for the conservative Reagan Republican-endorsed candidates on November 8.
NOTE from OpenCdA: Here’s the letter that Jeff Ward just sent to City Clerk Susan Weathers. She gave the Reagan Republicans instructions about how to file their papers, and they followed her directions, but now she’s going to the Sec. of State because Kennedy is telling her to! Don’t miss reading this letter!
Great newsletter from Jeff! I am a member of Reagan Republicans and until a couple weeks ago, was a board member with them also. I resigned my seat, voluntarily, because my time constraints kept me from attending many of the board meetings. That’s not my style. If I commit to an obligation, I want to fulfill my responsibilities. So I resigned with my stated reason being “to let someone able to be more active and involved take over my position.”
I will continue my membership with the group because I admire what the RRs stand for and their support of good candidates in our area elections.
Comment by mary — November 2, 2011 @ 12:02 pm
Now onto Mr. Kennedy and his laughable hypocrisy. In addition to all the information about Kennedy’s past jobs as a paid political consultant, please don’t forget these two:
1. Mike Kennedy was part of CdA City Attorney Mike Gridley’s campaign to run for State Representative against Marge Chadderdon. Gridley lost.
2. Mike Kennedy was paid by the Library Foundation to run the Library Bond campaign back in 2004-05. The Foundation raised $3,000,000 in private donations for the new library, but ended up donating only $2 million. What happened to the other million? Expenses? Campaign costs, including Kennedy’s fee? We’ll never know because the Library Foundation is a private organization. They don’t have to list their donors or their detailed expenses.
And now Kennedy is slamming Reagan Republicans? Hypocrisy and desperation at its finest.
Comment by mary — November 2, 2011 @ 12:16 pm
The rabble rousers over on Huckleberries had been wondering when the last minute smear campaign would begin. Looks like they launched it themselves with Councilman Kennedy’s smear against the Reagan Republicans with blessings from the host of the blog joining in.
Dan Gookin, to his credit, has been the inspiration for all the candidates to conduct a very civil campaign. Too bad the election scene had to be sullied by the likes of Kennedy and his minions.
Comment by Gary Ingram — November 2, 2011 @ 12:17 pm
“likes of Kennedy and his minions”? Hmm. I would suggest that it should be the likes of ??? and their minion, Kennedy.
Comment by Joe Six-Pack — November 2, 2011 @ 12:34 pm
I smell flop sweat. Fear. Raw fear.
Comment by Pariah — November 2, 2011 @ 1:30 pm
Mary,
Readers need to be reminded yet again that it was Coeur d’Alene City Attorney Mike Gridley and Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane who threatened to pursue legal action against several people who in Februrary 2010 sought to raise money to defray former candidate Jim Brannon’s legal fees in the election contest lawsuit. That threat was described, with links to various documents signed by Gridley and Kane, in my post titled Follow Your Money.
Then there was the frivolous and ultimately dismissed contempt motion filed against me by Kennedy during the election contest lawsuit. It was a SLAPP action, and he knew the motion would fail, but the intent was to use the Court’s contempt power to discourage any further lawful disclosure of public information about how the 2009 City election had been mismanaged by both the City Clerk and the County Clerk. In spite of Kennedy’s tactics, the public learned much though not all of the truth.
Comment by Bill — November 2, 2011 @ 1:47 pm
Yes, Bill, and the way they went after Kathy Sims during the last election, threatening to fine her $25,000. She ended up settling for a $2500. fine and her attorney’s fees, which cost her, in total, $3600. Yet, this week, when the Washington State Public Employees Union made the same mistake Kathy Sims did, the city said it was Ok. No problem. No fine.
Please, Readers, check out the “NOTE” I just put at the end of the article above. It’s a link to the Letter Jeff Ward wrote to City Clerk Susan Weathers about this. You won’t want to miss it!
(Thanks, Bill, for helping me with the link.)
Comment by mary — November 2, 2011 @ 1:54 pm
At some point what the City Clerk is doing becomes a Federal Voting Rights Act violation. She should be worried about a US Attorney inquiry and her Grand Jury Testimony prep.
Comment by Pariah — November 2, 2011 @ 1:58 pm
I just thought of something as I re-read Jeff Ward’s letter to the City Clerk: Kathy Sims told me that, during the last election, she was never notified by the city that there was any problem. She read it in the newspaper! Now Jeff Ward reads on a Spokane-based internet blog that the City Clerk is asking the Sec. of State to investigate Reagan Republicans?
Something smells very fishy and very unprofessional.
Comment by mary — November 2, 2011 @ 2:09 pm
“Something smells very fishy and very unprofessional.”
And potentially illegal. Remember Susan, EMAIL IS FOREVER. You can’t shred EMAIL.
Comment by Pariah — November 2, 2011 @ 2:12 pm
Mary,
I don’t think I have ever seen a list of the officers of the Library foundation. Can you Post them? It has to be filed with the Sec.of State or can a private organization raise $3,000,000, contribute $2,000,000 and gather donations without oversite?
Comment by Ancientemplar — November 3, 2011 @ 9:54 am
I thought MikeK when he was running for re-election in the 2009 CDA City Council race, was following Edinger’s lead concerning McEuen Field: to prevent the complete renovation of McEuen Field.But, he voted for the McEuen Park proposal.
Did he change sides after the election?
Comment by kageman — November 3, 2011 @ 11:07 am
Ancient, I don’t have the list from 2004. I do know that Mike Kennedy was on the Library Foundation, at that time, but then resigned when they hired him to run the Library Bond campaign. The bond election was in Feb. 2005. In November of ’05 Kennedy was elected to the city council.
I also know that Ruth Pratt has been the only paid person on the Foundation Board, other than people like Kennedy who were hired for a certain reason. Ruth Pratt made $61,000 in 2008, according to the online IRS reports. But they don’t have to detail all their other expenses.
I also recall seeing Ron Edinger speak about the $1 million dollar difference between the money raised and the actual donation, and he was frustrated that the Foundation was not donating the full amount to the library.
Comment by mary — November 3, 2011 @ 2:25 pm
Kageman, are you surprised that a politician like Kennedy would change his stripes after an election?
Comment by mary — November 3, 2011 @ 2:26 pm