Are GOP Christian Conservatives Engaging In Blago Pay-To-Play Tactics?

Thankfully, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is pretty much a passing memory, though his name will forever be connected with “pay-to-play” tactics. We all remember his infamous comment, via an FBI wiretap: “I’ve got this thing, and it’s fucking golden. I’m just not giving it up for fucking nothing.” The “fucking golden” thing, of course, was naming a replacement to sit in Barack Obama’s Senate seat, once he had resigned because he was elected president, and Blagojevich (yes, he was a Democrat) was looking for compensation in exchange for the appointment.

Now we have reports that Rick Santorum was asked by Bob Vander Plaats — the uber-homophobic head of a top Iowa anti-gay, anti-Islam, Christian “family values” organization — to pay for “promoting” his endorsement.

Igor Volsky at Think Progress boils it down succinctly:

Anti-gay Iowa leader Bob Vander Plaats of the FAMiLY Leader “told Rick Santorum that ‘he needed money to promote’ an eventual endorsement,” the Des Moines Register and CNN are reporting. Vander Plaats personally endorsed Santorum earlier this week. “He didn’t say, ‘Well I need X dollars from you‘ or anything like that. No,” Santorum clarified to CNN. “What he talked about was he needed money to promote the endorsement and that that would be important to do that.”

The Des Moines Register adds:

Vander Plaats has told various Republicans that he’d like to have the money to do television advertisements to promote his personal endorsement.

He told the Register Tuesday that helping saturate Iowa with news of the endorsement by himself and fellow activist Chuck Hurley was “part of our ethical responsibility.”

…

As he munched a cinnamon roll that morning, Santorum told the Register he had heard the endorsement would go to rival candidate Rick Perry. Perry’s campaign is more financially flush, and therefore potentially more viable, some Republicans think.

“Part of our ethical responsibility”?

Let’s ponder this, shall we?

Because, of course, whenever someone receives a political endorsement, it’s the endorser who is responsible for publicizing it. makes sense, right? Or, maybe not.

Let’s remember that it was rather strange that at the zero-hour, the endorsement came not from the Family Leader, which Bob Vander Plaats (image, top) heads, but rather from Vander Plaats, personally. Which, as the media has extensively reported, at the last minute decided to remain “neutral.” Neutral? Or just smelled something fishy?

And, of course, Vander Plaats — surely a nascent entrant in Iowa politics — has no ground crew, no contacts, no email list, no reporters’ phone numbers… Except, of course, for the fact that he lauds himself for being able to wage war on Iowa’s Supreme Court, accomplishing for the first time in history the no small feat of getting three of the justices kicked off the court because they chose to follow the Iowa Constitution and recognize that a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

As The New Civil Rights Movement reported today, Vander Plaats over the weekend — before handing his endorsement to Santorum on Tuesday — called the Bachmann campaign and asked her to quit the GOP race. Was that really how the conversation went? Was it “quit”? Or was it something else? Was there an “or else”?

Regardless, who the hell does Vander Plaats think he is? And what other conversations has he had with other GOP candidates and/or campaigns? And is the FEC looking into this?

To be clear, Santorum isn’t the one who smells here.

Who knows. Maybe it’s de rigueur in GOP politics to pay someone to publicize their endorsement of you. Or, maybe it stinks.