Danny Thompson Gets Hammered by Rhino on Campaign Transparency

Tucked away in a article this week in the Rhino Times titled "Mayoral Candidates Gang Up on Mayor" CLICKHERE , we have a interesting report from John Hammer on the campaign of sitting at large Greensboro City Council member Danny Thompson. In the report the rhino has this to say,

"Thompson had big problems with his campaign finance reporting two years ago because he paid many of his campaign expenses out of his pocket instead of from the campaign account. It took a number of telephone conferences with election officials to get his amended, amended campaign finance reports in a fashion that was acceptable to the Guilford County Board of Elections.

By paying for advertising with personal checks and then reimbursing himself from the campaign account, there was no record of how the money was actually spent. Campaign finance reports are supposed to track both where the campaign money came from and how it was spent.

Tuesday night Thompson said he filed the same nondisclosure report two years ago and it helped him run a campaign under the radar. He said he planned to do the same this year."

 then at end of article John Hammer had this to say:

"The very reason the campaign finance laws exist is an attempt to keep the playing field level and keep campaign spending out in the open. Two years ago Thompson pulled all kinds of stunts to keep his campaign report murky and said that much of the problem was caused by inexperience. This year Thompson has experience and appears to be doing the same type of thing."

This is the type of stuff that makes people like me and others want to report issues like the one that Danny Thompson is trying to pull to the Board of Elections. Sometimes you just shake your head and wonder what Danny Thompson is thinking on these campaign finance laws and why he is doing this again 2 years later. He should have learned from the last time but it seems that he hasn't changed one bit.

On 2-18-2010 Rhino had this post titled "Thompson's Campaign Finances Don't Add Up" CLICKHERE to look at a little history to this story.