More On Carey’s Center Mess
Posted by Andy on April 21st, 2007
There’s a ton of more info in the Strib today about the lawsuit/investigation/mess revolving around Republican Party Chair Ron Carey.
I think it would be very prudent for everyone to read it, especially people who just think this is a Hatch smear.
Politics colored probe of autism center billing
Hatch said he didn’t pursue court action last year against the center because it would look bad.
“I looked at it and thought, ‘If I sued that out, I guarantee … you would have said, ‘That … Hatch is abusing the system.’ ”
Carey did not return calls Friday regarding Hatch’s account. But GOP spokesman Mark Drake said that Hatch did seek to politicize the case. “The evidence is clear that Mike Hatch turned this investigative report over to the U.S. attorney’s office in August 2006 (three months before the election) in the hopes of inflicting maximum political damage on” Carey, as head of the state GOP, Drake said.
Hatch’s office began investigating the Minnesota Autism Center in 2005 in response to calls from a judge and the legislative auditor. His office completed its report in August.
It was a time when Hatch was running for governor and Carey was regularly attacking his candidacy.
“He was outside the office … holding press conferences,” Hatch said. “He knew what we were doing, he knew about the investigation.”
Yes, Mike Hatch has a history of going after MNGOP Chairs, but this isn’t out of thin air this time. There is not a stolen cocktail napkin or memo as the evidence. This time, there’s $3.4 million dollars of taxpayers money out there that may or may not have been misappropriated.
I’m sorry folks, no matter who was Chairing the Center I would think Republicans would want to get to the bottom of a possible misuse of taxpayer money. Just because Hatch is a DFLer and Carey a GOPer shouldn’t stop us from getting to the facts of this one. It is the Republican party that is supposed to believe in not wasting taxpayer dollars.
But Doug Kelley, a lawyer for Carey and the Autism Center, said that his clients did nothing improper and that he hopes to negotiate a settlement with the U.S. attorney’s office.
Kelley also says Hatch will get political mileage from this week’s disclosure of the report at a time when Carey seeks re-election as party chairman.
What is Hatch running for? What mileage will he get? And is it that party staff are now dealing with an extracurricular mess that Carey (may have or may not have) been involved in. The Party did not have anything to do with the Center, why is Mark Drake now Carey’s personal spokesman for this matter?
This story seems to confirm Carey has hired Doug Kelley as his lawyer. That would mean Carey would be implicated I think. He would not need a lawyer if he was not involved in this case. (again, in my amateur opinion.)
Sure the timing sucks, but well, shouldn’t we get to the bottom of it now rather than later? Why ignore it and pretend it isn’t out there? Either Carey was involved and/or had no clue what his fellow board members and fiscal managers at the Center were doing under his nose, OR there was nothing to this.But I am sorry, I just don’t think we should ignore this.
The Center and Carey are trying to settle, that seems to me that there is something to this. Why settle if there is nothing here. I think we should have honest answers before we elect Carey this time, and not just ignore the story simply because it came from the Strib. The Republican Party would look awfully darn bad if elected Carey and he ends up having a negative result in the overbilling of taxpayers.
Those are the people we’re supposed to be looking out for.
I was considering ignoring this story today, but after I saw Carey at the 4th CD Convention spend nearly half of his speech saying this was a silly Strib and Hatch attack, and distribute a letter to match, I felt the need to at least present the information and my own personal opinion.
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April 21st, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Not to defend Carey but getting a lawyer indicates nothing.
Are you saying that anytime the DFL attorney general starts accusing of something, because you are innocent you should not do anything???
From the timing of this, it is obvious Carey is a target and the DFL often goes after people for no reason.
As for the settling, again companies often settle rather then risk a partisan witch hunt.
(For example, say you are a Sports player on a university team and you know some others are being accused of Rape, you would be foolish not to get an attorney).
As for Carey saying something, the letter I saw said that there is nothing too this - For him to say more would be legally stupid - since anything he says if it is slightly wrong could cause the Attorney General to go after him.
If Carey drops out of the race because of this, do you think that the DFL will not go after Repya.
My guess is they will accuse him of something for speaking on behalf of republicans while he was in the service as some campaign violation - a stupid charge - but not beyond them.
I would not let this change my vote either way.
There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Carey, but having a DFL paper charges against him should not be one of them.
June is a month away - instead of making unfounded speculations, I would wait a week or two and see what happens. And if you get a chance to see Carey, I would not waste time on this - there are more important questions he needs to answer.
April 21st, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Andy does not care where it is coming from, as long as it supports his vendetta against Ron. He was played by Hatch and MNPublius, yet he is still writing about it here. Why? Because he thinks it hurts Ron Carey.
AAA just does not know what to do, he is backing another destined to lose candidate, himself next weekend, and Repya on June 9th!!!
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:54 pm
this was brought forth by the AG, news agencies are just reporting, and it’s hardly JUST the Strib who are reporting on this, Andy just happened to link to their article. this isn’t just some Strib attack piece here, sorry to break it to you guys…
also, why on earth would the DFL want to smear Carey at this time? if anything they’d prefer to see him win re-election because he did SO GREAT last November…
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:47 am
Why does the DFL do anything? If they can’t advance their own cause, at least they can impede ours, and even that assumes they work logically through their strategies, which I am not ready to concede. Apparently they hate Ron Carey, whether as a symbol, or personally, or because he has been an effective opponent, or WILL be. It may be all of the above, and probably is, but any enemy of the DFL is a friend of mine. I don’t think the Strib is intent on doing us any favors.
Let me pose a simple question: Let us imagine for a moment that Ron Carey loses the chairmanship. Do you believe there will be any further stories on this “crime of the century”? Do you believe that there MIGHT be some “terrible crime” from years ago, that is suddenly “news” about whoever DOES chair the party? I swear… After the opposing team runs the same play– fake right and sweep left– 32 times in a row, you think we’d start lining up against it, rather than helping them.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Don’t forget it was 2 Republicans who first started this, I know Carey’s side really wants that fact swept under the rug, and this to be seen as a STrib/DFL hit, but it can’t be overlooked who started this in the first place. Two Republicans saw wrong doing and raised the issue, now the US Attorney is investigating, and Hatch himself may also be implicated…. thus the MN AG’s office run by Hatch’s hand picked Swanson, went for a clean and impartial set of eyes, the US Attorney.
I am sorry, but if there was absolutely nothing to this, it would have been over in 2005…
And if you want to bring up football analogies:
Dante Culpepper had to blow out his knee before the Vikes pulled him, despite his record on the field warranting the hook. He was, well, terrible before hand, and there was plenty of reasons to bench him, but the loyalty, blinded the coach.
Sorry Jerry, this isn’t a page out of the DFL playbook. They may be picking up on a fumble, but we had to have the ball before we could fumble.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:32 pm
So Repya supporters now need to get behind Carey just because he is part of an investigation? Something tells me the Carey supporters didn’t run to back up Eibensteiner when he had baseless charges thrown at him.
I don’t think this should be the one and only thing that people decide the MN GOP chair on, but I think it would be short sighted to not have a discussion on the subject and at least consider it when choosing the next chair. Especially since we already see the party getting pulled into this with stories about it in the paper and MN GOP officials responding to reporter questions on the subject.
In the end, I think you need to take a look at Carey’s record as chair as a whole (including this story…) and see if you are happy with that (BTW, didn’t we dump the last chair because he lost 11 or 12 seats?).