What is 'Trust Huckabee'?
Posted: Monday, December 03, 2007 6:04 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
2008, Brownback, Huckabee
From NBC’s Chuck Todd
In an interview with NBC, Patrick Davis, the executive director of Common Sense Issues outlined exactly what the group's about and up to.
It's a 501(c)4, qualified non-profit that is targeting quite a few races, including the Colorado Senate race where the group has already run a couple of paid ads against likely Democratic nominee Mark Udall. As for "TrustHuckabee," it is an indie expenditure in nature, something that's been reported to the FEC and they've filed with the IRS. They've endorsed Huckabee in Iowa and are "endeavoring to build an organization of like-minded Huckabee supporters; they are not coordinating at all."
As a 501(c)4, the group can raise unlimited sums of money from INDIVIDUALS but not from groups. That money has to be reported to the FEC within 48 hours of the money being spent.
So far, all of their communications have been all positive about Huckabee; they've made phone calls into Iowa and around the country; the calls are about Huckabee and the issues. The group is "not yet" in New Hampshire, but that could change if they get more resources. Most of their expenditures have been via paid phone calls but they aren't ruling out paid TV ads or paid mailers.
The chief phone vendor is C.C. Advertising out of Northern Virginia. Also, one of the vendors the group is using is Kensinger and Assoc., whose principle, David Kensinger, was the chief strategist for Sam Brownback's presidential campaign.
Davis, by the way, was the political director at the NRSC during the 2004 cycle when George Allen was running the Republican senate committee.
