Secrets of Mystery 527 Group Revealed

The PD blog’s Stephen Koff posted yesterday about a group called the Ohio Effective Government Project (OEGP) that was responsible for making robocalls for Deborah Pryce back in 2006.

Breaking with tradition, the PD blog actually gave another blogger credit for discovering the robocalls- namely ME! They even included a link. (welcome to the world of blog courtesy, guys)

At the time I posted audio of the robocall along with a link to OGEP’s finance reports which had yet to be filed.

The information is now there – though it’s much too late to really be useful.

Stephen makes a good point about 527 groups and the fact that they can file their finance reports after the election:

it means that an outside group, funded quietly by individuals with vast wealth — and with disclosure only after the fact — can indeed influence politics and elections

And it seems like this group and their calls may actually have helped Pryce win that really close election against Mary Jo Kilroy. (Pryce won by a little over a thousand votes).

To be honest, there isn’t too much in the finance reports that is surprising.

The big donors are Carl Lindner and John McConnell – always reliable financial supporters of Republican candidates and causes.

But there is one interesting expense:

$55,000 for Telephone Bank Services paid to … The Pullins Group

Thanks for the robocall, Scott.