Eric Crafton Has Something to Hide

P.J. Tobia continues to chip away at the foundations of Eric Crafton's single-minded intention of being a catalyst of conservative get-out-the-vote in the fall on the issue of the English language immigration. Despite CM Crafton's political purposes in starting a website and a petition, he is not being transparent about who the movers and shakers with the money are behind his initiative.

Crafton has been robocalling in advance of the ballot, just like any other political campaigner. However, he's found a loop hole in the law that allows a private citizen who just happens to be an elected official to finance a ballot campaign based on legislation he has sponsored without having to report donors until he gets enough signatures to put it on a ballot. The "Nashville English First" website oozes partisan politics beneath the mascara of patriotism. Lipstick on a pig.

For someone who seems to strut at council meetings--pronouncing with attitude, like he is entitled to explanations from every party with whom he takes issue--he has a troubling knack for coy evasion about who is funding his revived, retooled English Only bill. There must be a goodly number of eye-brow-raisers on that list.


UPDATE: Southern Beale upbraids the media, which seems more satisfied with editorializing against Eric Crafton at the expense of hard-hitting investigative journalism that might show that the emperor has no clothes:

I’d really be interested in knowing who’s behind this. Surely it can’t be too hard to track? Isn’t there someone–anyone in our local media–who can find this out? No? Then y’all are useless as far as I’m concerned.

Wouldn't it be awesome if reporters actually competed to see who could dig up the most dirt behind English Only? Stop wasting time on publicizing Crafton's moves and on paper-posturing editorials and get the public news it cannot get on its own, like a list of donors to this political campaign.


UPDATE: Chris Sanders says Crafton should probably be disclosing according to TN Registry of Election Finance.