Soon homes in Evansville’s 5th Ward will receive a very negative mailer depicting Brent Grafton the Republican candidate for Evansville City Council as a former “political boss”. The mailer basically was a series of quotes by Republicans regarding the 2006 election controversy when Mr. Grafton was the chairman of the Republican Party.
The mailer according to its disclosure statement was “Paid for and authorized by Vanderburgh County Democrat Central Committee”. Just yesterday the City County Observer discovered that the Democrat Central Committee was being sued on behalf of the Bauerhaus for not paying the $3,500 tab for the awards banquet held last summer and that the Democrat Party also owed a debt to taxpayers of Venderburgh County for an unpaid debt to SMG for use of The Centre.
When contacted regarding the negative nature of the ad Councilman John Friend on whose behalf the mailer was sent out stated that “Mark Owen and the Democrat Central Committee are causing me nothing but heartburn lately”. Friend went on to state that he had never seen the mailer and did not authorize it.
In response to allegations that he was the Finance Chair of the Democrat Party when the unpaid debts were incurred and when the false campaign finance report was filed Mr. Friend responded by saying that he “told Mr. Owen a year ago that he could not continue to serve in the capacity of Finance Chairman”. Yesterday Mr. Friend’s image was still on the Vanderburgh County Democrat Party website as the Finance Chair but as of 4:00 today his title and picture had been removed?
Councilman Friend was adamant that he does not engage in negative campaigning and expressed that he had considered paying part of the Democrat Party’s debt to the Bauerhaus as the City County Observer took the lead on yesterday. It is to be learned at a later date if the printer of these mailers will be paid by the Democrat Party.
“Friend went on to state that he had never seen the mailer and did not authorize it.” (CCO)
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Sure John, whatever you say.
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Not plausible.
Friend is a machine sock puppet. He’s starting to realize (too late) that it is going to cost him his office and quite possibly his personal reputation.
The rouge Democratic Central Committee leadership is simply out of control. First openly opposing their own primary winning candidate for Mayor, and now sending unauthorized negative ads that appear intended to backfire and damage Mr. Friend’s candidacy. Is their goal to try to take out any of their Democratic candidates that has refused to follow every order of their corrupt rule? Mr. Friend has every reason to be furious at this political back-stabbing by his own party leadership. Mr. Friend is nice man, well respected and with a good reputation. Shame on the Democratic Central Committee for these dirty tricks on such a good man.
I don’t know John Friend, but he certainly was content to do whatever Mark Owen and Jonathan Weinzapfel told him to do these last four years…heck, he even switched parties to join with them.
Sorry, I’m not buying it. He made his bed. Now he’ll lie in it with the rest of them.
CCO whats the subject matter of the mailer?
Mailergate……has a nice ring to it don’t cha think?
JMHO
What I am scared of is ShrinerGate which might happen about 3 hrs after polls close next Tuesday. Danger Will Robinson!
Based on dellas post above, it sounds like the fix is in
Rick-I hope you have a plan to deal with tampering and fraud.
We’re really gonna’ miss Della/jarvis/owen/weenie-whiney after the election, things might get kinda’ boring…naw, there will always be trolls and sock-puppets to deal with.
JMHO
Speak for yourself. I ain’t gonna miss ’em one little bit. I hope they’ve started packing.
John Friend needs to put out a press release to the newspapers and TV stations to confirm that the Central Committee sent this out without his knowledge. Next, he needs to declare himself an Independent, and do his work on the Council unencumbered by all this pettiness and bullshit. This election, more than any I’ve ever seen, should cause each and every candidate to take stock of what they are getting from their party affiliation. The distinction between D’s and R’s is now an extinction. Give me an Independent who listens to the people and actually gets things done any day.
He’s had his chance. If he did it now, it would be purely self-serving.
He cast his lot with the Machine 4 years ago. There is no going back.
Put the Machine in ‘R’ (Reverse) ?
I live in the 5th Ward and received two mailers today.
One from the Grafton campaign accusing Friend of ineptitude or worse regarding the nonpayment of bills by the Democratic Central Committee.
The postcard mailer states “As Finance Chairman of the Vanderburgh County Democratic Party your Councilman has responsiblity to see that the bills get paid. As Chairman of the Finance Committee of the City Council he has responsibility to see that the bills get paid”.
There is just one gigantic problem, Mr. Grafton. On a campaign committee or party committee the Finance committee person does NOT have check signing authority or responsibility to pay the bills. The Finance chair is your chief beggar and fundraiser. The Treasurer and Chairman have bill paying responsibility. Of course most voters will not understand this distinction and Mr. Grafton knows this, and therefore is being misleading at best and sleazy at worst.
I would also like to add that I am concerned about Mr. Grafton’s POSSBILE conflict of interest with his desire to deregulate the issuance of City Permits and his connections with plastics businesses.
The second mailer was the above referenced sleazy mailer about Mr. Grafton. However, nowhere on the mailer does it say it was authorized by the Friend campaign so there is some credibility in what Mr. Friend has stated.
As an additional comment on Mr. Friend I too have been disappointed in his willingness to rubber stamp some of the Dem machine’s policies and decisions. Only this spring did Mr. Friend begin to show some independence, at least he hasn’t broke ranks like Councilwomen Robinson. Also I’m disappointed in Mr. Friends position on on the smoking ban. Why does run and ask smokey bar ownere their opinion on the ban? What does he think he’ll hear? Dems are supposed to be the party of labor and ordinary people, not smokey bar owners.
Anywho, I’m disappointed in both men, they know better.
If there is one thing that comes bout of this years election mess, I hope it is an awareness that party labels are utterly meaningless.
You are either ethical or not.
You are either transparent or not.
Yor are either a decent human being or not.
The R or D after the name means nothing.
I live in Ward 5 and received this mailing today. It is on 8.5 x 11 card stock and states that it was “Paid for and authorized by Vanderburgh Democrat Central Committee, Mark R. Owen, Chairman.” It contains very negative statements about Brent Grafton with Mr. Grafton’s picture on both sides of this folded document.
Today I also received a 4 x 6 post card which states ” Paid for by the Grafton for City Council Committee, Steve Reffet, Treasurer”. This post card does not mention Mr Friend by name by talks about the failure of the Democratic Finance Chairman to pay bills for the Democratic party and specifically names Bauers Grove Bauerhaus Inc and small claims court.
It was very interesting receiving both of these mailers in the same day. I was surprised to say the least.
Diff is the things about Grafton are true and reported on by legitimate media. Grafton’s piece is not true. Friend is not an officer for the Democrats and has no voice On their finances
How do you know what is on the mailer regarding “legitimate media?” This was not mentioned here. Were you the sender of the smear Grafton mailer that Mr. Friend denies knowing about? Who are you really?
This was the third or fourth negative mailing I received as a 5th ward resident against Mr. Friend. The messages in these ads have been weak, at best. One indicated that Mr. Friend supported a budget that “only a professional can understand.” I thought that is why we wanted someone with the knowledge and experience that Mr. Friend possesses?
I haven’t seen anything negative coming from Mr. Friend, so I am inclined to think if anyone is being negative, it is the Grafton campaign. Besides, Grafton’s suspect past is well known…if Mr. Friend wanted to be negative, he wouldn’t be short of material!
I agree. John Friend has a very good reputation and runs a million dollar a year business and does not have anything in his past like Brent Grafton does.
Brent Grafton got in trouble for letting people get on the State Party database who subsequently changed information without proper authorization and subsequently resigned his position as Vanderburgh County Republican Party Chaiman. To say that is not negative; it is the truth. The citizens of the 5th Ward who are voting have a right to know that about their candidate for 5th Ward City Council Man.
It is also very odd that the City County Observor tallks up transparency and open government. But when the Vanderburgh County Democratic Party sends out a mailer which from everything I have seen is truthful it becomes a negative mailer.
Does the City County Observor feel that the people of the 5th Ward do not have the right to the information that is on the mailer and the right to make up their own mind what they are going to with this information? Shouldn’t the City County Observor be reporting this as a mailer instead of a negative mailer. That the only reason to call it a negative mailer is to influence people’s opinions.
We have been dogging everyone all week for going negative. This particular example used a picture that was screenscraped here and used without authorization. Be pleased that we were as kind as we have been thus far.
IS IT TRUE that another mailer was aborted yesterday after we brought up the screenscraping incident?
If you want namby-pamby reporting, I’m sure the Courier will do the job for you.
The CCO reports the truth.
Friend is a liar and a weasel. He has been a Machine lackey for 4 years, and now he wants us to believe he’s sprouted an “independence” gene. Heck, he was such a FAN of the Machine, he switched parties to join them.
Grafton, on the other hand, is an extremely ethical person. Some of us were there when the whole “database scandal” broke. We know who was really responsible for changing information in the database, and it wasn’t Brent.
It should not matter whether he personally changed the information or not (and I believe he did not). However, as Chairman of the party he was entrusted with total access to the database. Any candidate can be provided access but with very limited restrictions and the passwords they are given allow them to only “look and not touch”. Grafton knew that his password allowed the user more uses of the database than just viewing it. Understand that I do not think Mr. Grafton did anything with malicious intent. I know that he is a man of character and honesty. But the simple fact is that he made a dumb mistake. It happens.
Inddem:
There were many, many people in the party hierarchy that had access to that database. Only a few of them stood to gain from that bit of political theater. Since you seem to have good recall of that time period, I’ll let you figure out who they were.
Brent was a fall guy. Brent’s temperament is fundamentally non-violent. He could have fought the party establishment to salvage his position and ego, but he realized that it wasn’t worth the effort.
The GOP establishment in Evansville is no better(and no worse) than the Machine Dems.
I have got to say that there are some government offices that are up to be filled by the Nov. 8 election that I will leave blank on my ballot. I could not in good conscience vote for either of the candidates.
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