According to Wikipedia -- dictionary of the people -- alchemy is the ancient practice of trying to change base metals into gold. Europe's most famous one was a German fellow named Albertus Magnus, always trying to change lead into gold; he died in 1280, perhaps of lead poisoning. In fairy tales, old Rumpelstiltskin taught the king's (or the miller's) daughter how to spin straw into gold; that ended badly, with Rumpelstiltskin tearing himself in half in a fit of rage. Who knows but Harry Potter himself may be an alchemist, turning things into gold with a shake of his wand; but his franchise will end this year, too. In each of these cases, someone is interested in transmuting something false into something true, something fake into something real, something decidedly un-golden into gold itself.
In Oregon, that "someone" might be tobacco lobbyist and political consultant Mark Nelson -- though if Nelson laid claim to the title, he might be challenged by his cohort, Pat McCormick of Portland. After all, every mad scientist has his Igor.
Nelson isn't working with literal lead or straw, just a bad hand of cards. Fate has handed Oregon a serious economic crisis, and Oregon lawmakers have crafted a workable solution. The solution is now before Oregon voters in the form of two ballot measures, 66 and 67, each of which includes a slight tax increase -- nothing approaching the definition of "liberal," just a slight adjustment. Plenty of real-life, regular Oregonians have put their shoulders behind passage of these measures in order to protect lawmakers' fragile efforts to plug budget holes for the time being. All of which rubs Mark Nelson the wrong way.
Oregonians know Nelson as a high-powered lobbyist who ran R.J. Reynolds' opposition effort against a cigarette tax two years ago. This year, he's running the opposition effort against Measures 66 and 67. And he's practicing alchemy, it appears, as JayInPortland noticed a month ago at DailyKos. I'll let Jay tell what he discovered:
Sat Dec 05, 2009 at 07:50:29 AM PST
Along with hundreds of thousands of other Oregonians, I opened my mailbox the other day and found a letter from Carol Marie Leuthold. Do I know of the tax measures that will be on our ballots next month, she asks? Why, sure I do. But what I didn't know was - they'll kill my job! Oh, that's right. I don't have one at the moment. But still, this sounds really scary! Let's see, who is this person anyways? Maybe I owe her a debt of gratitude!
I went on to look up who she is, since she's apparently so sincerely concerned about my neighbors and I. Maybe she can be my friend, and we can meet up for a drink here in my SE Portland 'hood, probably at Hopworks down the street from my apartment one of these days! But hey, wait...
Something seemed off, just a little bit at first. The first thing about the letter I noticed was the return address. I says to myself, I says - "Self? Small Tillamook dairy farmers don't graze cows in industrial sections of the City of Salem. Let's see what this person is really about"...
...
Basic Rights Oregon gives us the answer -
This weekend, many Oregonians received a letter that claimed to be from an Oregon dairy farmer opposing Measures 66 & 67. This letter was both factually inaccurate and deeply misleading. The letter claims "Smaller businesses like ours will be forced to lay off workers," but the truth is that Carol Marie Leuthold’s business – like nearly every other farm in Oregon – will not be significantly affected by Measures 66 & 67. Leuthold’s dairy is an LLC, thus the entirety of Leuthold’s business tax burden under the new law will be $150 per year. Indeed, under Measure 67, 88% of businesses in the state will pay just $150.
There is little doubt Leuthold can afford $150 to preserve Oregon’s vital services. Her profile on the Tillamook Cheese Fan Club states, "Leuthold and her husband, Dan, have a serious case of the travel bug. The couple has roamed around the world, including stops in Brazil, Italy, Germany and Alaska. They touch down in Switzerland, Dan’s familial homeland, every four years or so. This past year ... Carol Marie flew to the South of France and Italy to take cooking classes."
Oh Carol, say it ain't so?!
So what does this have to do with Mark Nelson?
Alchemist Nelson was the source of the letter. Finding no businessperson who would actually suffer hardship under Measures 66 and 67, Nelson found instead Ms. Leuthold and presented her as a businessperson who would suffer hardship. Jay explains:
Many of you may have received a letter from Carol Marie Leuthold of Leuthold Dairy Farm on Saturday advising that you should vote No on Measures 66/67 to be on the January 26th ballot. It appears that the letter is a personal letter from her but if you read the bottom in very small print, it says, "I worked with Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes to share my thoughts with you in this letter." Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes is a front group for some of the largest business doing business in Oregon.
...
We'll let local attorney, former Love Canal lead counsel and all-around awesome Oregon political activist Steve Novick (and not to mention a fellow native Newarker!) have the last word on the actual facts and legal aspects of the measures. Which said piece also includes these interesting tidbits -
This letter came from tobacco lobbyist Mark Nelson and his sidekick Pat McCormick, who are running the opposition campaign. The return address is nowhere near the fields of Tillamook, but rather an abandoned mattress superstore in industrial Salem. The letters were hand-signed to look authentic, but all in different handwriting. (Good to see there are still job opportunities available for Sizemore’s old signature gathering team.)
Jay concludes:
As Chuck Sheketoff said the other day, Mark Nelson "can’t find the poster child" for his fight against raising the $10 corporate minimum. So he’s been reduced to trying to paint a wealthy globetrotter facing a $150 tax bill as a struggling farmer who will have to lay off employees. Nelson and his corporate backers know that they can’t have an honest conversation with voters about the facts on these measures. We knew that they couldn’t. But even we are a bit surprised at just how brazenly they will lie about the impact of these measures.
Maybe "lie" is too strong a word. I don't happen to think so, but maybe "misrepresent," "mislead," or "suggest something other than the truth" would be more agreeable. If it's noon and I say it's midnight, is that a "lie" or am I just offering a different perception of reality than the narrow, limited perception you may observe? If you look at a former mattress store in industrial Salem and I tell you it's a dairy farm in Tillamook, am I lying? And if I'm lying, should you believe me? Don't ponder that too long: When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. (I said that.)
But Alchemist Nelson has now given us another example to ponder; this one involves a seven-acre riverfront estate on the Deschutes in Terrebonne, with an outdoor kitchen, a bocce ball court, a theater room and a four-car garage. Tres chic, non?
Nigel Jaquiss, writing on a Willamette Week blog, posted this note Sunday. Just for fun, count the number of lies noted in the text of the letter Jaquiss quotes:
The latest letter from the group opposing two tax increases on the Jan. 26 ballot is now circulating. There are at least two notable aspects to the letter dealing with Measures 66 and 67: First, one of the primary assertions in the letter is misleading, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office, the non-partisan state agency that crunches the numbers on state expenditures.
"So why does state government say they need $733 million in new income taxes?" asks the letter from a woman who signs her name "Wendy Calkins, CPA." Calkins answers her own question. "They are also using the $733 million to help fund $259 million for state employee salary increases."
Tax opponents have repeated this implication during interviews and in their ads that in 2009, Oregon lawmakers granted public employees $259 million in raises. But is it true?
WW and other media have asked the Legislative Fiscal Office whether the 2009 Legislature did give public employees a $259 million raise. The answer in a Jan. 4 memo is "no." Actually, lawmakers reduced public employee compensation from previously agreed upon levels by instituting wage freezes and 10 to 14 furlough days. "The estimated 2009-11 biennium personal services cost savings relative to salaries as of June 2009 from these actions is $27.4 million [savings from the] General Fund," according to a Jan 4. LFO memo.
Okay, that's one lie, disproven by facts.
The second interesting aspect is the identity of the letter’s author, Wendy Calkins. Campaigns often try to line up regular people as spokespeople but tax opponents seem to have had a tough time finding an average Joe or Josephine to sign their letters. An earlier communication from the "no" side turned out to have been written by a well-heeled Tillamook dairywoman whose family’s exotic travels undercut her message. Similarly, Wendy Calkins does not appear to be one of those small business people who is just scraping by. Deschutes County property records show that Calkins owns a 7-acre Deschutes River front estate in Terrebonne that a current real estate listing describes this way:
Lodge Style Home on private 7+ acres on the Deschutes Riverfront. Majestic Mountain & River Views. Gourmet Kitchen w/Large Island/Granite slab top, double ovens, warming drawers & more. Plus Outdoor Kitchen & Bocce Ball Court. 4 Car Garage with Shop Area & Work Out Area. Excellent craftsmanship, 3BD, 3.5 BA. 5,628 sq. ft. home with built in Speakers throughout. Theater Room with 131" Screen. Lower Level has it’s own half kitchen, bathroom and living space. Excellent Fishing & Hiking right below home!
Voila, that's two lies disproven by facts. Ms. Calkins, whose skills at bocce ball strain to distract attention from her magnificent theater room, is hardly the sort who won't make ends meet if Measures 66 and 67 are approved by voters.
But wait, there's more!
The fact that Calkins lives in spectacular circumstances does not disqualify her from opining on Measures 66 and 67 but her using her C.P.A credentials to assess the measures would seem to require a level of accuracy when she makes assertions such as "I know that small businesses in Oregon will be forced to lay off workers, reduce wages and benefits or completely close these tax increases."
That is a wild claim, and not supported by the Legislative Revenue Office’s analysis of Measure 67’s impact. The measure would raise the corporate minimum tax from $10 to $150 and increase the income tax on companies with profits of more than $250,000 from 6.6 percent to 7.9 percent. Most small businesses in Oregon are either sole proprietorships, which don’t pay income taxes now and will not even if Measure 67 passes; partnerships, or S-Corps. all which will pay the $150 corporate minimum but no additional taxes if the measure passes.
Even among those employers organized as C-Corps, which are subject to income taxes, Legislative Revenue Analysis analysis shows the vast majority of small businesses (which it defines as have sales of $1 million or less annually) would pay the corporate minimum tax of $150.
That makes at least three lies, disproven by facts. I'm no expert at bocce ball, but in baseball, three strikes means you're out.
And that makes two examples of alchemy on the part of Mark Nelson: Taking someone who really won't be harmed by passage of Measures 66 and 67, and presenting them as wounded souls, victims of mob rule run rampant.
What strikes me as strange is this use of direct mail as an attempt at under-the-radar shenanigans. This is the Internet age. Who uses direct mail anymore, and why? Is there any truth to the rumor that Mark Nelson collects thirty cents for each letter mailed, and therefore IS an alchemist who can turn sheets of cheap paper into thousands of dollars? Who has evidence of that?
While not clearing up how Nelson turns letters into money, Jeff Mapes of The Orangeonian attempted to analyze Nelson's use of direct mail on December 1:
This type of letter is an arcane form of communication scoffed at by many political consultants (one guy who has done a lot of direct mail bent my ear explaining why he'd never do such a piece). But the "Plain Jane" letter, as Salem political consultant Mark Nelson once described it to me, has become almost a tradition in Oregon politics. Nelson and his frequent campaign partner, Portland consultant Pat McCormick, have been cranking out these letters for years on a variety of ballot measures.
Nelson is running the campaign against the tax measures and McCormick is his chief spokesman. The idea, as McCormick explained it, is that voters "treat these as personal letters." Everything is done to encourage that thought. The letters are individually addressed - the one that came to my house said, "Dear Jeff and Karen," - and signed in real ink that smudges if you wet it.
Of course, it's not really a personal letter. The dairy farmer, Carol Marie Leuthold, worked with Nelson and McCormick and their campaign team to draft the letter. It hits several of the poll-tested themes you can bet will crop up later in their more conventional advertising.
And Leuthold wasn't picked because she is particularly hard-hit by the tax increase. Nelson and McCormick like to choose voters who fit the profile of being a down-to-earth Oregonian, which frequently leads them to farmers. (For his 2007 campaign against the tobacco tax, however, Nelson chose to send out a letter from a teacher).
...
At the bottom of the letter, in smaller italic type, is the only hint of where the letter came from. It says: "I worked with Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes to share my thoughts with you in this letter."
That's what is known as a disclaimer, explaining who paid for the material. However, Oregon law no longer requires them at all. McCormick said the campaign wanted to let readers know they were involved with the letter.
One final oddity. Several readers have pointed out that when they Googled the return address, they got a Bedmart Mattress Superstore. McCormick said the campaign's warehouse is located in the building, which no longer houses the mattress store. Just another example of how things aren't always what they seem at first.
Or, just another example of lying when the facts don't support your position.