During Thursday's broadcast of Mobile radio's FM Talk 106.5's "The Jeff Poor Show," State Sen. Chris Elliott (R-Josephine) voiced his frustration with the American Conservative Fund (ACF) PAC for sending mailers across the state supporting some legislative candidates and attacking others without the candidates' approval.
The ACF is a political action committee backed by out-of-state sports betting interests. It has been flooding parts of the state with campaign mailers, and TV and digital ads.
According to Elliott, who had mailers sent on his behalf without his approval, it was "very frustrating" to have an "outside interest group hijack your message." He pointed to his own voting record as proof that his views didn't align with ACF.
“I mean, it's very frustrating as a candidate to have some outside interest group hijack your message and overwhelm the message that you're trying to put out, right?" he outlined. "If you see the mailers, I think it's four of them that we've sent out total are all about, you know, what we've accomplished, specifics on, you know, legislative priorities and what we've been able to accomplish in our time in office."
Elliott continued, "And then you see these other mailers, sometimes two or three in the, I got four the other day in my mailbox that obviously I've never seen before, never approved, had no approval process over. But it just seems gratuitous and wasteful. And it's certainly not the type of message that I want to portray."
The Baldwin County Republican went on to suggest the ACF was trying to flex its spending ability for the next quadrennium to influence future votes.
"But Jeff, you know, when I take a step back and say, why is this happening? Why are people that I may not necessarily be aligned with? And I think my voting record speaks for that. Why are they spending this money in my race or another race?" Elliott explained. "And honestly, when I take a step back, Jeff, I think this is that particular special interest group trying to flex for the next quadrennium and show members just how much money they have and how much they're willing to spend in a legislative race to try to influence future votes as opposed to try to say, thank you or whatever for some particular vote, because that's not consistent with how I voted in the past. And so I think that's what's happening now.”
“This is messaging to the other members of the legislature that may or may not have opposition to try to show them just how much money they have and how much money they will spend, whether it's sufficient or not. And it's very frustrating to those of us who are candidates who are trying to closely craft and market our message," he added.
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