Monday, November 1, 2010

Mystery mailers sent out supporting Peg Dunmire

Last week, I received two mailers at my house, attacking Republican District 8 Congressional candidate Daniel Webster and supporting Peg Dunmire.  Neither of them had a return address or any political advertising disclaimer.

Here is one of the mailers (the other is substantially similar, slightly different text and graphics, but same message and again no return address or disclaimer):

(click to enlarge image)

(click to enlarge image)
Federal law requires disclaimers for political advertisement mailers, regardless of whether they are sent by a candidate, a political party, or a independent PAC or "527" organization.  These mailers have no disclaimer whatsoever, no return addresses, no way to identify who sent them.

The only identification is the mail house's bulk mail ID and the print shop's union label, the logo on the bottom left of the first page of the mailer above that says "16 Typographical Union Label Casselberry, FL."


This union label can be traced to Lawton Printers in Casselberry.  Here is a screenshot of their website page that shows the same union label:

 

Interestingly, last week the Florida Democratic Party sent out a similar mailer in Congressional District 2, with similar fonts and message, and again attacking the Republican candidate and promoting the third party candidate:


See Practical State's great discussion of this mailer here:
Practical State | Florida #2: Allen Boyd's Last Dirty Trick

So who paid for the Dunmire mailers?  Was it the Florida Democratic Party?  The voters of District 8 have the right to know who is trying to influence this very important election.

UPDATE: Here is Local 6 WKMG's story on this mailer:
Local 6 Click Orlando | Lawyer: Pro-Grayson Mailer Breaks Law
...and yes, the "Lawyer" is yours truly :)

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