RATS!
During the 2000 Presidential race, Al Gore called out the Bush campaign for subliminally using the word “RATS” in a campaign ad.
But instead of making rats appear, Putnam uses his power to make rodents, or at least their droppings, disappear! Apparently, if you are a grocery giant with a great reputation but have big problems with food safety violations – like rat poop in your stores – Adam Putnam is a good friend to have. All you have to do to make your regulatory problems go away is to make massive campaign contributions to the Putnam political machine. In 24 hours of your problems garnering attention, all your food safety violations will disappear! Literally, completely removed from a state agency website. And we thought nothing ever disappeared on-line. If only Google could be so accommodating!
Laws are for Other People!
And then there are those pesky Campaign Finance laws – requiring disclosure of who gives campaign cash and where it is spent.
Florida Grown has spent over $2M since its inception, with 70% of the expenditures going to one vendor, a small LLC based in central Florida: Silloh Consulting, LLC. A company that is owned by Florida Grown’s Chairman, Justin Hollis. Why would a seasoned politician pay one vendor over $80,000 a month for the activities of a political committee? He isn’t, really, if one digs a little deeper. Given the names and purposes of certain expenses (some for reimbursements to vendors not on the Putnam payroll) that are also disclosed in the report – the only logical conclusion is that Putnam is paying a straw man so the straw man can pay all the vendors that are really doing the work. Who is creating Putnam’s, or Florida Grown’s very aggressive social media campaign, supporting Putnam’s fundraising efforts, updating his website, doing his catering, managing his travel? Can it be that Silloh Consulting is so good that it can do everything a candidate needs? We sincerely doubt it. Putnam is at best evading the law, he is at worst abjectly ignoring it, and daring citizens to file a complaint with the Florida Elections Commission.
