I like Joel Connelly, but in his coverage this back and forth between the Association of Washington Business and the Inslee campaign, he misses the larger point.
“As you can imagine, accepting $100,000 from a major oil company openly supporting Mr. McKenna leaves the impression that the money is intended for eventual use on behalf of Mr. McKenna against Jay Inslee,” Shimomura wrote to the AWB.
“This raises serious concerns for us, and we imagine it will raise concerns for many viewers and voters as well.” Shimomura urged the Association of Washington Business to “return Tesoro’s contribution.”
One problem: Tesoro and Equilon (Shell) were using the AWB PAC not to support McKenna, but to pass through money to Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1185. Seattlepi.com and Northwest Progressive Institute both posted stories May 11 on the pass-through. Eyman, too, explained the arrangement in a letter to his followers.
Four big oil companies, BP ($100,000), ConocoPhillips ($100,000) Tesoro ($100,000) and Equilon ($50,000) are underwriting the I-1185 signature campaign while Eyman delivers populist sound bites. BP and ConocoPhillips gave directly to the campaign.
Maybe. But I think the larger point is still holy shit, the global warming industry is throwing around how much money, again? The fact that these companies — and they are anti-Inslee companies — freely spend this much money is a huge problem. For huge companies to spend more than what most people make in a year like it’s Monopoly money is a disgrace. I realize Joel covered it before, but for that to be an aside is taking your eye off the ball.