PAC backs Barnes with $450,000 in TV ads
Ask and you shall receive.
So Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes recently — gladly — learned.
Ask for help from an outside interest group, and help soon arrives.
Leading the pack of Democrats hoping to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, Barnes lacks the personal resources of his top two foes, multimillionaires Bucks executive Alex Lasry and state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski.
The winner faces off against Johnson in November.
So Barnes — who paid no income tax and was on BadgerCare Plus while running for statewide office in 2018 — put his wish in a so-called message box on his website on June 15.
Long a critic of money in politics, Barnes said he wanted someone to get his story to those in the Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay media markets in early July.
The message?
“Mandela Barnes is the son of a public school teacher and a third shift auto worker who was raised in a middle class family,” the box said. “Unlike the millionaires in this race, he’s the only candidate who understands firsthand what Wisconsin families are up against.”
Days later, a new super PAC out of Washington, D.C., called Courageous Leaders PAC began buying up air time in the Milwaukee and Madison markets for a TV spot called “Tired.” So far, the group has bought $448,675 of time on broadcast networks in Milwaukee and Madison, plus more on regular and satellite cable, and spent $24,691 to produce the ad, according to federal communications and election records.
One media buyer estimates the total air time purchased at more than $550,000 — with the figure growing almost daily.
The message?
“Tired of millionaires in the Senate like Ron Johnson, who only look out for the rich and powerful?” the ad said. “Mandela Barnes will be a voice for hard-working, middle-class families. As the son of a teacher and a thirdshift factory worker, he gets it.
“He’ll make the big corporations and the rich pay their fair share and lower middle class taxes to make things more affordable for us. Mandela Barnes knows it’s about the middle class, not the millionaires.” Sound familiar?
Very familiar?
Welcome to Politics 2022, where
candidates don’t coordinate with super PACs while definitely coordinating with them.
Want more? The video for the ad came from Team Mandela’s YouTube page. And the treasurer for Courageous Leaders, Taylor Hennings, previously worked to raise funds for two Virginia campaigns with Mary Tabaie, a Barnes fundraising consultant.
But Barnes’ team says this is the way the game is played these days, so the Milwaukee Democrat has to do the same.
“Until we get big money out of politics, we can’t fight with one arm tied behind our backs,” said Maddy McDaniel, a spokeswoman for Barnes. “Not when Ron Johnson is propped up by $30 million in outside money, and our top primary opponents are pouring millions of dollars of their own wealth into their campaigns.”
Indeed, it is true that other federal campaigns around the country are doing the same thing.
You can find message boxes on the campaign websites for Texas candidate Jessica Cisneros, Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb and former Iowa Rep. Abby Finkenauer, all Democrats who lost in primaries earlier this year. Republicans engage in similar practices.
Still, one of Barnes’ Democratic opponents is calling him out.
“It’s disappointing to see in the fight for Russ Feingold’s old seat Mandela Barnes blatantly take advantage of campaign finance loopholes to let out-of-state millionaires buy a Senate seat,” said Irene Lin, campaign manager for Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson.
(Nelson’s campaign did, incidentally, make available video footage of him on its website for use by outside groups when he ran for U.S. Congress in 2016.)
Lizzie Litzow, spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee,
said Barnes’ call for help from an outside interest group showed he is “just another typical phony politician saying one thing and doing the opposite.”
“Now, after saying he won’t accept (corporate) PAC money, he’s giving explicit instructions to super PACS,” said state GOP spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “What’s Barnes actually stand for beyond his own candidacy?”
The fact is, we don’t know who is funding Courageous Leaders and won’t until the group files its first full financial report next month.
McDaniel won’t even say if the campaign has asked anyone, including multimillionaires, to skip past the $2,900 donor limit for candidate committees and to give instead to the super PAC.
All she’ll say is that money in politics is bad.
“Mandela is committed to getting money out of politics,” McDaniel said. “That’s why he’s not taking any corporate PAC money and is the only candidate to be endorsed by End Citizens
United.”
Citizens United refers to U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2010 that lifted the caps on spending by corporations and other groups on elections.
Tiffany Miller, president of End Citizens United, said her group is backing Barnes because he “has refused corporate PAC money and has a record of working to crack down on the influence of corporate PACs and dark money.”
But even here, an opponent challenged one of the Democratic frontrunner’s moralizing assertions.
Sarah Abel, spokeswoman for Godlewski, noted that Barnes has accepted corporate PAC money in the past. In his state fund, Barnes received seven contributions from corporate PACs totaling $6,450 from 2014 to 2020.
“This is the blatant hypocrisy that voters despise and that Ron Johnson is salivating to pounce on,” Abel said, “if Barnes is the nominee.”