FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS: Mitt Romney has shifted many of his government friends to his campaign payroll
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In the recent controversy over Mitt Romney’s alleged attempt to shake down Mormon business leaders for campaign money, Don Stirling’s name popped up. Stirling, whom the Globe placed in the thick of Mitt’s supposed Latter-Day Saints conspiracy, was identified only as “a paid consultant for the Commonwealth PAC, Romney’s political action committee.”
Funny, that’s not what Stirling said he’d be doing when he bolted his position as CEO of the Massachusetts Sports & Entertainment Commission (MSEC), the quasi-public agency (read: your tax dollars) that tries to lure big sporting events and movie shoots to the state.
Announcing his resignation on June 28, 2006 — two years after coming to Massachusetts to take the job — Stirling said in a press release that he was “relocating to Salt Lake City, Utah, to assume the role of Managing Partner of a newly formed sports/entertainment marketing and fundraising company, Rainmaker Sports & Entertainment.”
As it turns out, Romney wanted to use Stirling’s talents to boost his presidential prospects, rather than to bring business to the Bay State. Sterling’s last day on the job at MSEC was July 21; on August 8, Commonwealth PAC paid him a $20,000 retainer for consulting services.
Stirling, who worked with Romney in 2002 on the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, was even working on the campaign while still at MSEC: the PAC reimbursed him for travel expenses in May and June.
Stirling is not the only person who’s been shifted by Romney from government business to the Commonwealth PAC payroll. Spencer Zwick, Beth Myers, and Julie Teer all made the move this year.
A recent Salt Lake City newspaper article, looking into the Globe allegations, had a tough time locating the new company supposedly headed by Stirling, along with Blake M. Roney and Larry H. Miller, according to the June press release. Roney and Miller have, however, given more than $100,000 so far to Romney’s PAC.
