Earlier this week, in Cravaack goes public in Duluth, quake strikes East Coast, Republicans admit golf is boring, Bluestem posted about the Carver County GOP's email invitation to registered lobbyists to bid on a chance to do a round of sporting clays with select Republican lawmakers.
After Common Cause posted the invitation that its registered lobbyist received, along with telling screenshots, and Cucking Stool picked up the narrative, we were able to report Carver Co GOP pulls lawmaker auction; lobbyists will have to find other means to buy Republican.
This morning, MNPublius posted Carver County GOP tries to cover up auctioning its legislators.
Now the Carver County activist who organized the event tells it was so not what it appeared to be in Carver County Republican Party tries to auction off legislators, then denies it. New CP staff writer and human mongoose Gregory Pratt reports:
But something has changed since the party sent out that fundraising pitch Tuesday afternoon. The party took down the auction, and is distancing itself from the event. City Pages called O'Brien to ask about it and he denied that any online auction was ever going to take place, blaming the original setup on "configuration" issues.
"It's not an auction itself," he says. "It's an ecommerce site. There are many different ways to purchase tickets to the event. We don't have sophisticated tools to handle that so we're using the ecommerce capabilities of that website." . . .
Pratt observes that it certainly looked like an auction, and plays show and tell with screenshots that illustrate the point. Go over and take a look, and read more about what the organizer had to say for himself.
Meanwhile, one waggish lobbyist friend wonders when the apology to Republican golfers in Edina and Wayzata will be forthcoming.
Image: The invite.
Related posts: Carver Co GOP pulls lawmaker auction; lobbyists will have to find other means to buy Republicans
Cravaack goes public in Duluth, quake strikes East Coast, Republicans admit golf is boring
They were using a website called readysetauction.com to host the event, but it wasn't an auction. Honest!
Posted by: Sean_olsen | Aug 25, 2011 at 10:48 AM