Understanding tainted congressional campaign reports by Thomas Scherer

As the most experienced congressional candidate here in Florida's 14th District Congressional race, it seems warranted to explain how to read and interpret campaign finance reports from several perspectives.

Generally, the GOP candidate with the most money is the most corrupt and tainted politican in the pack. The GOP top candidate is funded and gets big bucks based on being greased by several pro-business big corporate evil rich entities.

The leading Dem candidate typically has less funds from Democrats because most Democrats are not rich tycoons; although noting there are usually a few rich democrats in America. Usually, the dem candidate gets lots of small contributions and few from corporate or industry groups. The dem candidate typically gets special interest money from unions provided the dem candidate can and is expected to win the election.

The media,both TV and in newsprint frequently believe the candidate with the most money should be the most qualified. This is a myth perpetuated by mass media. A wise voter must remember the media is a special interest group with a built-in bias for their own self-interest.

So, read carefully the mass media crap with justifiable skeptism. Further, the media tend to be very human-like and far too lazy to waste too much time assigning a reporter than does an in-depth unbiased writing about a field of congressional candidates.

I have spent a lot of time since 2004 analyzing at length campaign finance reports. For example in the Kansas 3rd District race, the congressman only invested 14 dollars in his own campaign.

He was tainted and greased with a lot of special interest corruption money. The dude won the election and now the voters have to deal with this elected person doling back huge chunks of federal tax dollars post-election, leading to voter regret after the fact.

Then, there are candidates like myself that typically do not want to be corrupted or feel an obligation to any special interest group. Most poli sci people and elected state I am being naive in not soliciting funding for my own congressional campaign. Maybe I am naive, but at least I am not corrupt or wanting to be elected to return huge amount of federal tax dollars to some special interest group-favors in return for campaign contributions.

Finally, when doing an analysis of a candidate's funds, I try to group together which special interest group inclduing industry groups that typiocally are trying to buy favorable legislation via the contribution scheme. I find it a bit ironic that congressional candidates is one of the few jobs in America where a prospective public servant, asks his next employer for money so he/she can get paid again, after the election.

In summary, there may be, or will be around eight types of candidates in the 14th Congressional District race:

1. The GOP candidate with the most money will be tainted and the most likely to be corrupt with that campaign financed by for profit, special interest and/or industry groups.

2. The Democratic candidate will have some party funds, and a limited amoumt of special interest money.

3. The uncorrupt,but usually self-funded, under-funded candidates.

4. The smaller political party candidates like the Libertarian and Reform party candidates. Most of the time, these groups have no qualified or well-funded candidate-instead, they just get anyone to run as a candidate to advance their party status as a minority party. Typcially, their candidates have few qualifications and typically invest hardly any money in their campaigns at all.

5. The super-rich candidate that is typcially wanting power and to feed an egomanical narcissism; or to make even more money from getting way too much media exposure. Think Donald Trump type.

6. The candidate that is married to a super-rich woman. Think Connie Mack IV, John McCain or John Kerry type of politican.

7. The Great Speech Giver-great at spinning campaign slogans and popular but meaningless ambigous campaign rhetoric before the election (Hope and Change) painting an unrealistic but overly optimistic fantasy spin and vision of the future, but being a horrible leader post-election. Think Obama.

8. The corrupt industry group backed candidate. The worst and most tainted candidate of all. If I find one of these yahoos, I will report that kind of candidate here going forward. There is usually one of these evil people running a campaign in every congressional candidate race. A bought candidate that is running for the wrong reasons contrary to the best interests of our nation, often secretly.

In regard to my own campaign for United States Congress, I am in Category 3 again this election cycle. I am not selling my soul; nor asking others to give me money so I can get more money after being elected.

This is an important post, so I may be doing some editing as time progresses. My goal is to help the public including voters to assist them in understanding campaign finance reports, as honestly as I can.

Choose wisely-it matters.