The press release blares: “Mailboxes in the 27th Senate District were flooded this week with attacks on Democrat Jeff Clemens.”
So what’s the scoop on this direct mail deluge?
According to Clemens’ campaign manager, Cesar Fernandez, one of the mailings attacking Clemens was funded by the Florida Federation for Children, a group that supports school vouchers. Another mailing was from the Committee for Effective Representation, an electioneering communication organization chaired by Associated Industries’s Tom Feeney.
Here is the mailer from the Florida Federation for Children:
and
“It’s not surprising that Rick Scott and his Republican friends are doing whatever it takes to make sure that Mack Bernard wins this election,” said Clemens’ Campaign Manager Cesar Fernandez. “These are the same people that have fired teachers, raised homeowners insurance rates, and sped up foreclosures. Mack Bernard ought to be ashamed of himself.”
Bernard, of course, is Clemens’s opponent in the Democratic primary for SD 27.
In addition to receiving support from groups, Bernard has turned his campaign over to Republican political operatives, Clemens claims.
Annette Nightengale James, a conservative Republican campaign consultant whose former job was to unseat Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings, was hired by Bernard to run his campaign.
“Mack Bernard has outsourced his campaign to the Republican Party of Florida,” said Fernandez.
Here is one of the pro-Mack Bernard mailers from the ECO controlled by AIF:
and
There was also a second mailer
and
