As a voucher supporter I have to agree with Jesse:
As a voucher supporter, I have gone from embarrassed with to disgusted by PCE. This event, going from unethical and sleazy to potentially illegal, is absolutely inexcusable and I would encourage every Utahn to immediately stop donating to them and every candidate to refuse their filthy money and return whatever campaign contributions they’ve been given. Utah businesses should refuse to do business with them and Utahns should refuse to work for them. Astroturfing, phishing, push polling… these are not acceptable. PERIOD.
If you truly support vouchers like I do, you will run as far away from PCE as possible and give them the stern and harsh punishment they now deserve. Starve them for dollars and make them wither and die in this state. They have done more to damage the concept of vouchers than any anti-voucher group could ever dream of. Their loud and visible bad example makes everyone else look bad by association. Thanks to PCE, anyone who supports vouchers, no matter how honest, sincere and open they are, will be tainted with the labels of dishonesty, trickery and ulterior motives.
Besides starving PCE of cash, voucher supporters should refrain from any further reference to PCE – they don’t deserve any further publicity for any of their arguments. Perhaps if the reaction against this is strong enough people will recognize that PCE is not representative of the entire voucher support base. As Jesse said, some of us are honest and sincere and staunchly opposed to gutter politics.
Where does PCE come from? Are they trying to get vouchers to pass, or is it a backhanded smokescreen to make well-meaning people come out against an otherwise great idea?
Affiliation with Mark Towner can possibly be forgiven (if it doesn’t happen again), but other tactics seem almost calculated to get people to vote against vouchers.
I’m seriously surprised at how poorly they are promoting vouchers. The only thing that I have seen from them that honestly seems to have any positive impact on the voucher debate is that they are distributing fliers with pro-voucher information. (I got one on my doorknob yesterday) That hardly offsets all the reputational damage they have inflicted on the pro-voucher cause.