Americans for Prosperity is seeing some partial success in its efforts to get retractions of claims that the group financially backed the winning Wake County school board candidates in 2009.
The Huffington Post posted a correction today to the statement it made in an online Monday article about the school board candidates having been "bankrolled" by AFP. To try to beef up the story, it posts additional info today on AFP, such as the group's support of the Wake CARES lawsuit and a story earlier this year in Newsweek.
But Robert Greenwald, the director of the new film that came out Monday, isn't issuing a retraction. Neither is Sue Sturgis of the liberal Institute for Southern Studies.
In a blog post today, Sturgis essentially throws Bob Geary of the liberal Independent weekly under the bus, saying it's him who said that AFP gave money directly to school board candidates. (Sturgis declined a request for an interview today.)
"As to whether I found campaign finance reports with AFP's name on them -- no, I didn't," Sturgis writes. "But then, I didn't claim that I did. Nor did I claim that AFP-NC bought any ads related to the race.
Neither does the Brave New Foundation video say that the money flowing from AFP to the school board election was in the form of direct campaign contributions or ad buys, though perhaps it could have made that point more clearly."
Sturgis defends her statements in the video about following the money.
"AFP-NC's investment in organizing around the Wake County school board can be traced back at least to the 2006 mid-term election, when there was a $970 million local school bond issue on the ballot," Sturgis writes. "AFP-NC took the lead in organizing opposition to the bond, using the controversy over student assignment as one of its rallying points. The group also worked closely with a number of local organizations that would later play an important role in the 2009 election.
Though AFP-NC lost and the bond issue passed, the group continued to organize against the school board and its assignment policy leading up to the last election.
AFP-NC did not do this work for free, hence there is indeed money to be followed."
Dallas Woodhouse, state director of AFP, said this evening that Sturgis and Greenwald were trying to back away from the claims that AFP bankrolled the candidates.
UPDATE
Sue Sturgis has added a clarification to a blog post she wrote Monday about the video.
Comments
A couple of days ago there
Sat, 08/20/2011 - 02:59 — eddie2A couple of days ago there was a wakeed blog about the notable event of the Huffington Post sending a reporter here on the algebra issue. I just now searched for "Raleigh" on Huffington Post, and didn't see any articles on that issue. Did I miss it, or did Huffington Post investigate and find that the school board is actually not irresponsible wackos, and this is not worthy of mention?
...
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 08:34 — SideburnsCan't wait to hear the next version of the story.
LOL So, Sue Sturgis is
Wed, 08/17/2011 - 22:12 — woodstockLOL So, Sue Sturgis is apparently bound and determined to prove herself to be the wackyest left-wing nutjob of them all. What a hoot!
What is it about politics that brings all the crazies out? The Institute for Southern Studies website is like reading The Onion... only they actually take themselves seriously. Very strange. I actually had never heard of that organization before, but I am glad I know about it now; it just provides more insight into the cluelessness and downright weirdness of the far left.
What a Bunch of Crap!
Wed, 08/17/2011 - 22:00 — VillageMentalityThese POS's are just evil. They got a lot of nerve talking about the repubs bad behavior....
So Dallas Woodhouse....
Wed, 08/17/2011 - 21:47 — bpuli9999is not denying anything - just a question of semantics now, I suppose.
What they in Minnesota is bound to happen in NC also. Let's see what they do come election time.
We can only hope...
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 08:58 — shearertwWe can only hope...