by Ed Naile
Opensecrets.com has done a lot of work regarding the Democrat dark money factory known as Hilltop Public Solutions. Here is a short article that shows how they hide from public view.
Shape-Shifting by Liberal Dark Money
New Hampshire voters are slowly becoming aware of how many professional campaign transients descend on our state every election cycle. They come to our state as part of a political campaign, often stay in the private homes of elected officials or activists in NH, and many steal a NH vote from you while they are here.
Recently, Granite Grok, Girard at Large Radio Show, and the Coalition of NH Taxpayers have been exposing Hilltop Public Solutions, who we stumbled onto after finding two of their principals voting in Manchester in 2012 while they were here doing in NH what Hilltop Public Solutions does everywhere else go.
If you go to the site mentioned above and try and follow the trail of cleverly named “public interest groups’ who spend millions in campaign ads out of two person offices without ever getting the credit they are due you may get lost.
That is about to change for the 2014 election cycle here in NH.
New Hampshire citizens are on to them.
Hilltop will come back to our state for the next election because they were so successful last time out.
We may have to dig to find out what names they are using this time and how much dark money will be spending, buying slick TV ads and sending glossies to your house.
Here is a sample:
Let’s take this David Kieve of Hilltop Public Solutions who seems to come and go and be everywhere at the same time.
Check out his bio from Hilltop:
Team David Kieve
You will notice that, according to their web site, David Kieve worked for the Edwards campaign in 2008 during that rough patch when it was discovered Edwards was using dark money to pay his mistress.
Kieve also worked for Paul Hodes in 2010 – so sayeth the Hilltop site:
– In 2007, David left Hilltop to serve as a National Regional Political Director for the John Edwards for President Campaign. He later moved to New Hampshire to serve as Edwards’ Political Director there.
– Following Edwards’ departure from the Presidential race, David returned to New Hampshire, managing Congressman Paul Hodes’ successful reelection campaign. Congressman Hodes was a member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Frontline” program, indicating that he was believed to be one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the 2008 election cycle. David helped guide the Congressman to a 15 point victory.
And at the same time Mr. Kieve was at Dovetail Solutions:
Dovetail Solutions eMailer
Heading up the D.C. office is Managing Director Nick Baldick, a peer to David Kieve, Managing Director of our San Francisco office. According to Dovetail Solutions™ CEO Andy Boian, Nick is “master of his craft — the craft being the conjoining of business and politics.” For over a decade, Nick has led presidential campaign efforts, managed multi-million dollar PACs and has developed strategies for several multinational corporations to invest in their communities. The position was sought after by a dozen well-qualified people, but according to Andy, Nick got the job because “I admired his work as my former boss at one time, but also — he’s a diehard Red Sox fan.”
Oh my, what a busy guy.
And this is just the beginning.
I am checking to see where Mr. Kieve may have voted from while he was staying in New Hampshire.
Later!