PORTLAND, Me. - In one of its largest efforts of its kind, CUNA has spent almost $113,000 over the past week on independent mailings on behalf of Democrat Adam Cote, an Iraq war hero running in next week’s Democratic Primary for the state 1st District House seat.
Cote, a life-long member of York County FCU, has the endorsement of the Maine CU League, which has been bringing him around to meet and greet at credit unions throughout the state. He has also endorsed the credit union tax exemption.
The Maine league, which is not involved in the independent campaign launched by CUNA, has only endorsed one other candidate in a House primary ever, Democrat Mike Michaud, a long-time credit union director who won election to the House in 2002.
Cote is a staff judge advocate for the Maine Army National Guard and served in Bosnia and Iraq with the National Guard and Reserves, most recently from 2004-2005 in Mosul as a platoon leader. He prepared troops and led more than 100 convoys, and he also started the Adopt an Iraqi Village Program. The program, for which he received two Army Commendation Medals, collects and distributes school supplies and toys to Iraqi children.
CUNA has used independent expenditures like this one successfully before, most prominently on behalf of Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, when he lost the Democratic primary, only to win his third term running as an independent. CUNA spent almost $250,000 on mailings for Lieberman in the days before the Democratic primary and again before the general election.
Lieberman, who by law was not aware of the CUNA effort at the time, has reciprocated by introducing CURIA–the CU Regulatory Improvements Act–in the Senate.
CUNA has had a mixed record with its independent expenditures. They helped get Republican Jon Porter of Nevada elected to the House in 2000, and Democrat Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania elected to the House in 2004, but couldn’t save long-time Congressman Republican Phil Crane of Illinois retain his seat in 2004 after 19 terms. They also backed Republican Jeff Crank in his losing effort in the Colorado primary in 2006.
Richard Gose, political director for CUNA, insisted that independent expenditures like these are not–and by law, cannot be– coordinated with the candidate, so there are no deals involved. Still, after the elections, Lieberman cited CUNA’s final days support with his unprecedented reelection, as no Senator in modern times had ever been elected after losing his party’s primary.
But the Cote initiative differs from all of CUNA’s other independent expenditures which were made on behalf of candidates who had tangible records of credit union support in the state legislature or in Congress.
Gose was reluctant to discuss the independent expenditures because under law neither the candidate or his campaign can know about them. He acknowledged that the expenditures paid for mailings to thousands of Maine voters on behalf of Cote in the days before Tuesday’s primary.
Federal Election Commission rules require that entities financing independent expenditures make them public within 24 hours before the fact.
