Two days before the election, the man behind the ‘Who Is Stacey Lawson’ website has come forward.
In a coming-out post on his site late Saturday night, “long-time politico” Paul Andersen says he deliberately remained anonymous because he knew it would mean the site would attract more attention.
‘Who Is Stacey Lawson‘ uncovered details about Lawson’s upbringing, her history in Silicon Valley, her move to Marin, her spiritual guru Dattreya Siva Baba, her large campaign donations, her writings on Huffington Post and more. In his words:
This whole endeavor started because I was interested in how someone who’s a complete unknown could raise so much money — which in today’s day and age makes her an instant contender among a group of candidates that actually have significant governmental experience.
Stacey Lawson has barely lived in this district for three years. She has no public service experience in our community. She doesn’t even own a house, instead renting a mansion in her current location of San Rafael. Who had even heard of Stacey Lawson before last fall?
With a strong political research background I took it upon myself to do some digging. This is actually the type of research journalists used to do, but unfortunately there aren’t any journalists that do this at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat (unless you’re declared an enemy of the editorial board, like Michael Allen).
Andersen insists the whole project has only cost $205, circumventing the requirement for an FEC filing, and says the site has been “purely voluntary.” However, expect feathers to be ruffled by the fact that Andersen was Susan Adams’ campaign manager from August 2011 to the beginning of April 2012. “I left for a variety of personal and political reasons,” he says in the post. “I want to state clearly that the Adams campaign had no knowledge of my activities with the ‘Who Is Stacey Lawson?’ website.”
Adams, a Lawson opponent, is not considered a frontrunner.
Andersen previously ran a site called RiggsWatch in the mid-’90s to monitor Frank Riggs’ actions in Congress. Over the years, he has worked for Dan Hamburg, the SEIU and served as councilmember in Ukiah.
It was Lawson’s status as a wealthy, well-connected newcomer that caused Anderson to start digging:
As it turned out, Stacey Lawson has her own personal fortune from her well-timed sale of a failing company during the heyday of Silicon Valley in the late 1990′s when a company losing money was actually considered a winning proposition. This also allowed her to ingratiate herself with wealthy benefactors such as investment bankers and venture capitalists. She also has significant ties to the well-funded new-age community through her guru.
This is all reflected in the fact that fully 80% of her money comes from outside the 2nd Congressional District and nearly half from out of state. 70% of her money comes from people who have contributed the maximum $2500 to her primary election. Nearly 60 people have actually contributed the maximum of $5000 for her primary and potential general election campaigns.
Because she is such an unknown, we really don’t know what to expect from her which makes her funding sources so important. We don’t know what she has pledged to the high-tech and investment banking industries that are funding her campaign. The Stacey Lawson campaign is unfortunately a prime example of the power of money in politics, which I think most people would agree is one of the prime reasons we’re in the mess we’re in.
Read the whole thing here.
