(The following was originally published by the Portland Press Herald.)
AUGUSTA – A Maine independent candidate won’t accept donations from political action committees in his bid for governor in 2014, his campaign staff said Tuesday.
That decision by Eliot Cutler will benefit Mainers because he won’t be bought by or beholden to special interest groups and political action committees, said a campaign spokeswoman, Crystal Canney.
“PAC money drives the agenda,” Canney said. “People in Maine deserve better than that.”
GPV is always trying to claim all kinds of people that are not in any way associated with or even in agreement with the Green Party should be Green Party candidates. His own Independent Greens – who are not associated with the national Green Party – ran Chuck Baldwin, he has tried to push the idea of Mayor Bloomberg as a Green Party candidate, and so on.
Cutler would be under no political party, unless he wants a party designation that wasn’t a Dem, GOP, or Green. That would have to be on his petitions, but when he ran 4 years ago, he didn’t.
He was part of that Americans Elect effort that got on several Presidential ballots, but never actually nominated anyone, due to a kludgy online voting system. So if he did chose a party designation, that probably would be it.
I doubt that.
Will Cutler be the Independent Green Party nominee for Governor in Maine?
I disagree. Before he even formally entered the race he had raised more money than the Democrat candidate, $115,000 more to be exact. He ran in 2010 and lost by 1% of the vote. I think he could get PAC money if he wanted it.
That is usually politic speak for “we won’t get any, we tried… so we will just make it look like we didn’t want it”