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PoliticoRick Perry’s campaign for Texas governor last year criticized his GOP primary opponent’s ties to a lobbyist caught on film apparently suggesting he could secure meetings for a deposed Central Asian politician with top Bush administration officials in exchange for a $200,000 donation to the Bush library.
But this summer, as Perry’s allies scrambled to build a fundraising network ahead of his late entry into the presidential race, they accepted help from the very same lobbyist, Stephen Payne. He not only attended one of the first Austin get-togethers of Perry backers who have committed to raising — or “bundling” — as much as $500,000 apiece for Perry’s presidential campaign, but Payne also boasted that he helped arrange meetings with former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis to burnish the Texas governor’s foreign policy credentials.
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Adding to the problem, these allies say, is that Perry has never had to raise money under the intense national media scrutiny of a presidential campaign or the more restrictive federal rules — and they question whether some of his early fundraising efforts were fully vetted for compliance with those rules, let alone perceptions.
“They haven’t paid attention to appearances here because the appearances don’t hurt him here. We’re the wild west of campaign money,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog group that publishes detailed studies on state campaign funding. A report released last month chronicled Perry’s reliance on 200 super-rich mega-donors during his fundraising juggernaut gubernatorial campaigns, while earlier analyses made the case that Perry’s administration has done favors for major donors. “All his
opponents have accused Perry of being a pay-to-play governor, but that seems to roll off his back here in Texas.”
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Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61451.html
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