I am not anxious to tar any liberal PACs, but (via OW)….
Accountability Now collected $113,695 in donations during 2009, as it reported to the FEC, and spent $169,992 that year on nine consultants. Six of those people managed the committee: The PAC paid Hamsher $24,000, another $24,000 to PAC cofounder Glenn Greenwald of Salon.Com, $65,710 to two executive directors and $38,047 to two management consultants.
The PAC also paid $4,000 to Firedoglake for “rent,” according to its FEC filings. This expenditure is difficult to understand. Hamsher has operated her web site out of post office boxes at UPS Stores in Los Angeles and Falls Church, Va., and the Accountability Now web site states that “we have purposely avoided hiring a large staff or incurring the type of unnecessary expenses typically incurred by PACs (including even office rentals) in order to make our donors’ contributions last as long as possible.”
Out of the $234,920 raised by FDL Action PAC in 2009, $44,192 was paid to Firedoglake and other business entities affiliated with Hamsher, according to FEC filings. The PAC paid $16,411 to Firedoglake for “shared general administrative expenses,” $14,111 to the site for “list purchase,” $9,920 to CommonSense Media for “online advertising” and $3,750 to KMP Research for “strategic consulting.”
No one’s getting rich or chartering private planes here. But, at the very least, this PAC (EDIT: I mean Accountability Now) is a big financial failure did not bank or disburse money to candidates last year.