Suzi Parker raises some interesting questions in her most recent Talk Business article. It seems there are some strange overlaps and filing entries in the FEC reports of Marion Berry and Chad Causey.
One curious payment on Berry’s April FEC report occured on March 23. “Marion Berry for Congress” paid $33,000 to Global Strategy Group, LLC for polling. Why would a candidate poll nearly two months after he decided not to run again for office? The Berry camp says he didn’t.
“The poll was actually conducted in Fall 2009, before Congressman Berry decided not to run for re-election,” Chudy wrote in the email. “The payment for the poll was made March 23, 2010 after receiving the invoice on January 22, 2010.”
A poll that costs $33,000 would be lengthy and include at least 18-20 minutes of questions, polling experts say.
Reynolds said that the Causey campaign paid $26,000 for a poll on April 12 and the disbursement will be disclosed on the 12-day pre-election report to the FEC.
On March 11, Berry paid $2,500.00 to DSC Campaign, LLC for website design. On March 12, Causey paid $2,750.00 to the same firm.
“The payment for web design falls in the same category as the poll – the web design work was started in November of 2009, before Congressman Berry decided against running for re-election,” says Chudy. “We then received an invoice February 9, 2010 for the work done prior, thus it is reflected on this quarter’s filing.”
There are a couple other curious nuggets in the article as well.
At this point, much like with the alleged flaws in Robbie Wills’ filing that were mentioned by David Boling last week, I would imagine that there’s little to this story. Still, unlike the Wills’ story, this one actually deserves a little scrutiny simply because of the ties between Causey and Berry.