File this in the category of things we already know, but were waiting to have acknowledged.

Just after the 2004 after the ostensibly Republican organization he headed quite publicly acknowledged its refusal to endorse the Republican nominee for president, Patrick Guerriero refused to tell a Washington Blade reporter which candidate he picked in the general election matchup.  You think that a Republican, even one unhappy with George W. Bush, would have a lot of trouble backing the then-Democratic nominee, a Mr. John Kerry.  

He might have said he pinched his nose and voted Republican, given the alternative.

But, not the man who would soon go to work for Tim Gill!

Now, he admits what we already know.  In traveling to his native Bay State to “endorse Democrat Katherine Clark for State Senate“, our Patrick fesses up and says he’s left the GOP, changing his registration to Independent.

Does that make him an IINO?  Independent in Name Only.  Seems his real allegiance lies with the party of Tim Gill.  

Will be interesting to see how the current leadership of Log Cabin responds.

Earlier today when flying from Florida (where I was vacationing with the PatriotFamilyWest) to Cincinnati (to visit the ol’ Homestead), I was reading the dead tree copy of the Wall Street Journal.  I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading a newspaper.  It’s an experience you just don’t get reading articles online.  I didn’t seem as hurried as I do when surfing the web.  

As I reading Peggy Noonan’s reflection on the past ten years, I wondered if the explanation she offered for the failure (and/or disappointing performance) of many institutions in that era could also apply to one whose decline accelerated in the “aughts,” all but collapsing in the year just concluded:

Maybe the most worrying trend the past 10 years can be found in this phrase: “They forgot the mission.” So many great American institutions—institutions that every day help hold us together—acted as if they had forgotten their mission, forgotten what they were about, what their role and purpose was, what they existed to do. You, as you read, can probably think of an institution that has forgotten its reason for being. Maybe it’s the one you’re part of.

The problem with Log Cabin, however, was that its leaders never really seemed to develop a mission beyond their own advancement.  Or so it often seemed to those of us Republicans who happen to be gay.  If they had a mission, they didn’t do the greatest job of communicating it.

As did many institutions about which Peggy writes in her essay.  Their leaders, like those of the Catholic Church, “forgot they were servants of a great institution, and came to think the great church existed to meet their needs.”

One leader of Log Cabin departed to take a job with a left-wing group which had generously supported the organization during his tenure, causing one to wonder if he adopted its agenda while at the helm of the supposedly Republican organization not merely because of their financial support but also in order to further his own career.

Food for thought.  And perhaps future blog posts.

Does anybody have any news about this shindig?  The Log Cabin Convention is taking place in our nation’s capital this weekend.

I have a sense turnout is way down.  The only news I’ve been able to find on the web is the report that former McCain consultant Steve Schmidt gave a speech there saying he backed gay marriage.

At the San Diego convention last year, a presidential election year (when interest in politics tend to peak), turnout was down from the convention I had attended ten years previously in Dallas.  The organization didn’t seem to be growing, but contracting.

With the report in February that Log Cabin got most of the funds it used for ads slamming fellow Republicans from left-wing fund-raiser Tim Gill, the ostensibly Republican organization lost any credibility among gay conservatives and within Republican circles it had gained during the tenure of immediate past president Patrick Sammon.

Now with the launch of GOProud, Log Cabin is not longer the only group for gay Republicans around.  We have an alternative.

If you have any news from the convention, let me know and I’ll post it here.

Big kudos to Chris Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia for this outstanding coverage of the formation of our new gay conservative organization, GOProud.

William McGurn writes in his WSJ column today:

Some of these issues are explored at GayPatriot.org, whose founder, Bruce Carroll, is also on the board of GOProud. From the disastrous economic policies of Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Barney Frank to the outing of gay Republicans to the importance of male sexual monogamy, this conservative site offers a perspective you just won’t see anywhere else. Even on hot-button social issues, it can make for some strange bedfellows.

Take abortion. Christopher Barron, GOProud’s chairman of the board, points to an example from a few years back, when a Maine state legislator introduced a bill that would have outlawed abortion for a child thought to be gay, in the event genetic testing ever reached that point. That politician, Mr. Barron says, received virtually no support from gay groups. Though he himself is pro-choice, he says, “I want pro-life gays to know they have a home here.”

Whatever else it is, these are not your father’s gay Republicans. To the contrary, GOProud springs from a growing dissatisfaction among some gay Republicans that the Log Cabin Republicans, the traditional gay advocacy group within the party, has drifted to the point where its positions are indistinguishable from those of the left. It didn’t help when the Washington Blade chimed in with a report that Log Cabin’s biggest contributor, Tim Gill, is a Democrat.

Messrs. LaSalvia and Barron are themselves former officers for the Log Cabin Republicans. They know they belong to a defeated party that has no clear leaders but is now making decisions that will determine that party’s future in the years to come. They say they have formed GOProud in part to participate in that conversation — as conservatives who want to contribute to the team.

The ironies are legion. Since the loss of Congress and Mr. McCain’s defeat in November, any number of people have come forward to suggest that if the party ever wants to win again, it has to abandon its conservative principles. What does it say about the Beltway’s established ideological boxes that it is the gay wing of the Republican Party which is now advocating for a return to the party’s Reaganite roots?

We are now the “gay wing” of the Republican Party.  Awesome.  Thanks for the recognition of our new group, Mr. McGurn.

I hear a lot of gay liberals heads exploding today.  Andrew Sullivan’s brain matter is probably on the floor, too.

*pop*  *pop*  *pop*

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

***GAYPATRIOT EXCLUSIVE***

Former Log Cabin Republicans President and founder of the National office, Rich Tafel, responded over the weekend to my request for a comment on last week’s news.  I asked Rich his thoughts on the Washington Blade article that suggested a close financial relationship between Log Cabin Republicans and left-wing gay activist Tim Gill.

Here is Rich’s response, unedited:

1. It’s not journalism when the whole story is built on anonymous quotes.
2. If you are on the board of an organization and you feel a need to say that stuff have the courage and integrity to say it publicly, don’t hide behind anonymity.
3. If you don’t like Tim Gill writing checks, write one or raise it.

As you can tell, I’m more disappointed at the cowardly behavior of the person who spoke to the Blade if they even did it.

Only when they go on the record could I respond, because I have no idea what was true.

GP Ed. Note: I believe it is fair to also apply Rich’s criticism to my original reporting last Friday which further detailed the financial connections between Gill and Log Cabin. I fully accept the criticism of my use of an anonymous sources, and understand the frustration with it.  I believe the information was too important to report and I was confident in my source based on a long association I have had with him.  But I take the criticism and I have to accept it for now.

That being said, I do not have the resources of the Washington Blade –  nor the time as blogging is a part-time “hobby”.  So I would share Rich’s frustration that a professional journalism organization bases its entire story on anonymous sourcing.  The New York Times, in fact, has been doing that a lot lately too.  I think professional news organizations should be held to a higher standard if they truly are “reporting”.   That may sound hypocritical, but so be it.  It is how I feel.

I will continue to follow the Tim Gill-Log Cabin connection and will report relevant updates that are important and backed up to my satisfaction.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

***GAYPATRIOT EXCLUSIVE***

In the wake of the Washington Blade story yesterday suggesting strong ties between Log Cabin Republicans and left-wing liberal activist Tim Gill, I was contacted by a long-time Log Cabin insider.  He is aware of my long-time hunt to connect the money trail between Gill & the “gay Republican” organization. 

This individual has been a source for many of my Log Cabin-related postings since 2004 and continues to have unprecedented access to the affairs, both past and present, of the national gay Republican organization.  I shall refer to my source as “Lance”, in order to protect his identity.

Lance confirmed the Log Cabin financial dependency on Tim Gill raised in the Washington Blade story.  He personally witnessed money being exchanged between Log Cabin’s National Office and Tim Gill’s political organization in Colorado:

I can tell you that [in early 2004],  I personally saw transfers and checks for $350,000 from Gill Action to LCR.  

Lance also confirms suspicions that I have made repeatedly here at GP.org, that the anti-Bush TV ads in 2004 run by Log Cabin were significantly financed by Tim Gill’s money.

Some was sent in and went directly out to the TV stations the other money went to pay the bills and staff. 

(Yeah, I feel like saying “I told you so”… but I won’t.)  Sometimes you do live long enough to see yourself vindicated!

Lance also raises questions about the past financial dealings at Log Cabin in 2004-05:

Bill Davenport [another donor] was in for about another $100k (now he won’t give anything) but other monies were sent to a “new” account opened in Virginia — there was at least one of those.  Craig Engle, the counsel for Log Cabin at the time, was determined to hide the flow and never knew I had been aware [of the other account]. 

I am sure well over HALF the LCR budget came from Gill that year (2004) and the next.  Including many, many more funds that went to Liberty Education Forum [a Log Cabin affiliated group]. 

The troubles at Log Cabin have only just begun, according to Lance.  And they involve former LCR President Patrick Guerriero’s expenses, which I questioned last year:

The melt down over the board is another hurricane brewing.  Someone, not sure who, finally looked at the Patrick Guerriero expense logs and it is a real goat f**k.  Including billing Log Cabin for a trip to Iowa that he (PG) submitted identical billing to the school that invited him to speak!

WHEW.  I appreciate Lance’s candor and courage.  Shouldn’t someone — besides those trying to cover each other’s asses on the Log Cabin board – investigate these allegations since LCR is a membership-driven organization.

Oh, did I mention that Log Cabin Republicans and the Gill Action Fund are both 501(c)(4), non-profit, tax-exempt organizations under the IRS code?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Imagine that a small newspaper uncovered this scoop: a rich conservative philanthropist, say Richard Mellon Scaife, directly and through his Foundation, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Democratic group to run ads targeting leading Democratic politicians.  Reporters from all the leading dailies, the three major networks as well as CNN, MSNBC and even FoxNews would be beating down the paper’s doors, trying to get access to their sources.

The story would lead their web-pages and dominate evening newscasts.

Scaife has already taken enough grief just for funding major conservative think tanks and periodicals, but here he’d have been caught playing the kind of dirty tricks that helped Richard Nixon earn the enmity of the news media.

So, what did my google news search yield when I typed in the name of a liberal philanthropist, Tim Gill and Log Cabin, an ostensibly Republican organization, to which said philanthropist had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars, in large part, to run ads targeting leading Republicans?

I got two hits–and only one to an article referencing the matter–and here’s all it said, “TIm Gill rules the world, and, apparently, the Log Cabin Republicans.“  To be sure, Politico’s blogger Ben Smith also picked up the story, but rather than highlight that Democrat’s dirty tricks suggested the philanthropist’s largesse was a sign the GOP was unwelcoming to gays.

The Washington Blade today wonders if Log Cabin is under Democratic control:

The amount of money that the Gill Action Fund has contributed to the Log Cabin Republicans — about one-third of its total budget in some years — is raising questions about Democratic influence over the GOP organization and its search for a new president.

Tim Gill, founder and chair of Gill Action, is widely known for funding the campaigns of pro-gay politicians, many of them Democrats. He’s a wealthy entrepreneur and founder of Quark who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to various Democratic causes and candidates, including to the campaigns of Sens. John Kerry, John Edwards and Chris Dodd, as well as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Gill is viewed as publicity shy, but made a rare public appearance at last year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver where he lives.

Now we’ve taken our hits for criticizing the organization.  But, our criticism has been largely muted since Patrick Sammon has taken over.  That outgoing Log Cabin President has shown an understanding for conservatives ideas, a commitment to Republican candidates and respect for right-of-center gay bloggers.

Now, we’ve got what is quite possibly the most responsible gay news source in the country looking into Log Cabin’s Democratic ties.

More on this as we learn more.

UPDATE:  If this following is true, it is truly damning:

The sources also said a controversial TV commercial that Log Cabin aired targeting anti-gay former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2007 before the Iowa caucuses was written and funded by Gill Action, but executed through Log Cabin to ensure the GOP organization’s name was attached to it.

That would mean an organization run by Democrats used an ostensibly Republican organization to attack a Republican presidential candidate. Talk about political dirty tricks!

As you may remember, I took Log Cabin to task for running those ads:

Log Cabin Launches Another TV Ad Campaign Attacking a Republican

Log Cabin & Romney: Media Success, but Political Failure

Romney’s Withdrawal/Log Cabin’s Absence of Class

UP-UPDATE: Ben Smith at Politico has an interesting take on this story saying it’s a “sign of how hard it is for gay Republicans to survive in the” GOP. I disagree. If Patrick Guerriero’s Log Cabin had not so readily trashed the party during the Bush era, the organization might more readily have found funding forthcoming from gay and other Republicans.

Smith needs to recall how before Sammon took over, Log Cabin bent over backwards to please the left-leaning gay groups, often at the cost of alienating even their own rank-and-file.

As Dan reported a few days ago, Log Cabin Republican President Patrick Sammon has announced he is leaving his post at the national gay Republican organization after two years.

It seems there is more going on behind the scenes as well.  One of my very reliable LCR Board insiders tells me a shocking fact:  “Log Cabin is over $150,000 in debt.” 

And nearly the only source of income to Log Cabin lately is from none other than the Gay Left’s version of George Soros:  the infamous Tim Gill.   We have tracked Gill’s ties to Soros and Log Cabin extensively over the years here at GayPatriot.

So with Log Cabin leaderless and in serious debt…. is Tim Gill poised to take over the organization for good and move the “Gay Republican” organization permanently to the Gay Radical Left?

Only time will tell.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)