Phil Cothran is the Chairman of the SBGOP. When the establishment closed ranks to elect this guy Chair of the SBGOP at the expense of Robert Rego, he made my radar. However, as a critic of Cothran and the establishment, I am not sold on the concept of the corrupt developers and the “Team Fontana” stories. (Especially since the Colonies case was proven to be completely bogus)

What I am concerned about is the conflict of interest of a PAC that overlays the SBGOP that is controlled by the Chair of the SBGOP. I know that the paperwork lists someone else as the principal officer, but that person is basically an employee of Phil Cothran, and Phil Cothran started the PAC.

I will also note that Agnes Gibboney was a nominee for the GOP in a dem district, and she has been a combatant against Phil Cothran since his election.

Now that the table is set, the main issue I have is that Cothran was some sort of Pastor / Minister in a past life. Here he is lighting someone up for being pro-life. My understanding is the PAC has mostly Republican donors. I have a substantial personal problem with that sort of personal conflict of values.

I have talked to people who like Cetina and others who like Armendarez. I am not endorsing in that race – the focus is on a County Party Chair with a shadow PAC and the conflicts of interest. Did Cothran recuse himself from the endorsement process? Did he make calls on behalf of Armendarez to cent com members to whip votes? My understanding is that Cothran was heavily involved in the process of endorsing Armendarez. This is an ethical problem in the mind of your intrepid blogger.

Had it been me – I’d have recused myself from the endorsement process and trusted others to manage it to the conclusion I wanted. At least there would have been a veneer of separation.

So we have a county party chair involved in endorsing a candidate by the party, who then gets a PAC funded to support that endorsement. Was that PAC and Cothran’s intentions for it disclosed to the members of the County Party BEFORE the endorsement was rendered?

Note that the SBGOP overwhelmingly endorsed Armendarez. So disclosing the PAC, etc., would not have changed the outcome.

Now for ethical problem #2:

Read the “note” from Phil Cothran on this independent expenditure (aka IE) mailer. Because Cetina tried to make it look like he was endorsed by the SBGOP, this IE Mailer is now allowed to use a fake SBGOP logo to promote the SBGOP endorsement of Armendarez?

I looked for a copy of the SBGOP Logo as mailers frequently come out faking GOP logos. I’ve written about bogus mailers with a 2-star elephant, for example, in the past. Slate mail card vendors have been sued over trying to fake like they are official GOP communication, etc…

These are the two SBGOP logos I located out of about 250 items that came up in the search. None of the variations looked anything like the mailer – so one could say that Cothran used the same deception in the IE mailer he sent. Why? He did not need to. An IE Mailer can use any organization’s logo that has endorsed the candidate they are supporting!

I find the dishonesty to be unnerving – note the #conservative hashtag to describe Armendarez in this SBGOP post (who is a squish) while Mr. Cothran is attaching Luis Cetina for being Pro-Life in the IE mailer! It is enough to give someone whiplash.

Cothran made several very basic mistakes that made him look dirty. These could have been easily avoided. Given that Cothran and his crew can muster 2/3 of the vote at nearly every SBGOP meeting, he does not have to be that tactical about what he does.

I am really scratching my head over this one.