Locke Lipped With Hotze

I know this gets confusing - and, frankly, tiresome - but the Hotze saga continues, and this time there is a question of campaign coordination between the Locke campaign and Hotze's PAC. That would be illegal. A third party PAC can't, by law, coordinate campaign activities with the campaign.

Locke's finance chair, Ned Holmes, gave Hotze's PAC $20,000, specifically for the purpose of helping pay for Hotze's anti-gay mailer, endorsing Locke. Another person on Locke's finance committee, James Dannenbaum, gave Hotze $20,000 for the same purpose. Here's how it works in real life campaigning: Your campaign finance chair knows everything about the campaign - certainly all the strategy - because she or he is responsible for making it rain dollars on the campaign. It's usually someone very well connected and very saavy, because, well, those are the kinds of people who can make it rain. She or he is in high level meetings with senior level staff - and with the candidate - and sees internal campaign documents. So, the likelihood the campaign didn't know about the Hotze mailer ahead of time and approved of it  - and that finance committee members were paying for most of it - seems remote.

Locke's finance chair is the former chair of the Greater Houston Partnership, the former chair of the Port Commission, a former Texas Parks and Wildlife Commissioner, and a current Texas Transportation commissioner. He's a big real estate investor and developer. He's a stellar choice for campaign finance chair because of all of his connections.

I'm not saying there was campaign coordination. As a matter of fact, listening to Locke tell it (see that in Lee McGuire's story below), it sounds like Locke has lost control of his campaign.



Here's what we do know:

Locke sought the endorsement of GLBT groups, promising to be very visible in advocating for gay rights.

Locke sought Hotze's endorsement, knowing full well Hotze is virulently anti-gay.

Locke's finance chair and another campaign finance committee member give $40,000 to Hotze's PAC for the purpose of sending out a mailer endorsing Locke and attacking GLBT endorsed candidates. 

Hotze sent out an anti-gay mailer, endorsing Locke for Mayor.

Locke says he "hates hurts," and that he is hurt when people are hateful. Equal rights advocates roll their eyes.

Locke gets found out. Allen Blakemore says he "absolutely solicited the donations" from Dannenbaum and Holmes.

Locke tries to wave off his involvement in the anti-gay attacks, but it gets harder and harder to believe he's not either directly involved (and possibly illegally with a third party PAC), or he's lost control of his campaign.

Oh, and Nick Anderson provides a moment of humor - Locke and Hotze coming out of the closet:

Whatever is going on, Locke is certainly forecasting the type of mayor's office he will run, and it looks chaotic at best. Worst case? The return of back room deal making.