by Dr. Louis Meyers
VTDigger is now reporting on the massive amount of dark money which Becca Balint received in the latter stages of the primary congressional campaign.
As we now know, a young cryptocurrency billionaire in California donated over one million dollars to Balint’s campaign under the auspices of a LGBQT Super-Pac. Ms. Balint used this gusher of money to flood Vermont’s television, radio, and newspapers with her political ads, and also blanketed the state with thousands of yard signs.
She turned what had been a close contest with Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray into a rout.
When Ms. Gray questioned during the campaign where all of this money was coming from, the Balint team insinuated that Gray was homophobic – which is absolutely false.
When the F.E.C. documents – after the primary had ended -revealed the true source of the money, Ms. Balint stated that she had not been aware of this; and that federal election laws clearly needed to be changed to open up fundraising to increased transparency.
What Ms. Balint did not mention is that her campaign staff had met with some of those PAC donors several months prior to the donation.
While it is admirable that VTDigger is now pursuing this story, where were they when it was actually taking place?
Why was there so little curiosity about how an LGBQT organization suddenly had all of this money to donate to one candidate?
Why were Becca Balint’s aspersions on Molly Gray not questioned?
We know that the big breaks in the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate investigation came from doggedly pursuing the money trail. As Deep Throat advised: “Follow the money.” VTDigger failed to do that when it really mattered.
This was not a Watergate moment for this news outlet.
The author was a Democratic candidate for Congress. He lives in South Burlington.