District 1 City Council candidate Tom Keen’s finance reports show connections to George Soros, and oil tycoon Herb Peyton of Jacksonville.
By Jacob Engels
Central Florida voters might be getting another visit from billionaire liberal moneyman George Soros in 2018.
Soros undoubtedly tipped the election in the favor of now State Attorney Aramis Ayala in her race against then State Attorney Jeff Ashton in 2016.
Groups funded exclusively by Soros spent millions on behalf of Ayala, sending racially charged mail-outs to voters, claiming Jeff Ashton was a rabid racist.
Soros’ contact on the ground for the mail-outs and TV ad buys was Democratic consultant Dave Plotkin, who made a killing from the PAC spending… while also serving as Aramis Ayala’s campaign advisor.
Ayala has claimed time and again that nobody on her campaign, herself included, was in contact with Soros. However, after she won last August, Plotkin told the Orlando Sentinel that he served as the go-between for the Soros/Ayala communiques.
Federal laws strictly prohibit communication between candidates and PACs, but the rules on the state level are more fluid. While Plotkin’s contact with Soros on behalf of Ayala might not explicitly violate the law, it most certainly violates the spirit of the law.
Now, Orlando City Council candidate Tom Keen is presumably counting on the Soros/Plotkin partnership to take out popular City Councilman Jim Gray.
According to campaign finance reports, Keen has raised just over $16,000, with $10,000 of that being a loan the candidate made to himself earlier this year.
Nearly a third of the total raised, $5,612 to be exact, has been paid to You Should Run, Plotkin’s campaign consulting firm. In total, Keen has spent $7,923.38.
Much like we saw during Ayala’s campaign for State Attorney, Keen is posting relatively modest fundraising numbers and most high dollar expenditures have gone to Plotkin’s firm for “consulting.”
This strategy allowed Ayala’s campaign to be seemingly ineffective or cash starved, until Soros plucked Plotkin to manage his millions, attacking incumbent Jeff Ashton.
All according to plan…
Ayala claimed ignorance, while participating in photo shoots and the production of television ads that would provide the content for Soros’ million-dollar blitzkrieg.
Is Tom Keen expecting the same windfall from Soros? Will Plotkin plead ignorance of the connection between the two until after the election like he did in 2016 for Ayala.
Not much is known about Mr. Keens political beliefs, but we do know that he ran unsuccessfully for the State Senate in Indiana a few years back before setting up shop in Central Florida.
Will he run to the far-left in return for Soros becoming his political sugar daddy? Will Plotkin net another sizeable payday thanks to Daddy Warbucks?
Maybe, or maybe not. We simply won’t know, until we know, which is often to late to do anything about it. Again… all according to the plan for people like Soros/Keen/Plotkin.
Furthermore, voters should wonder if Keen would be as woefully unprepared for elected office as other Soros puppets in Orange County?
Orange/Osceola County State Attorney Aramis Ayala and Orange County Commissioner Emily Bonilla received a boatload of cash from Soros.
Both Ayala and Bonilla have faced ethics violations, demonstrated an inability to understand reports from staff, and abused their power for personal gain.
Tom Keen could follow in their footsteps, another misguided Soros stooge who pimps the party line, instead of serving the electorate.
Interestingly enough, George Soros is not the only 1%’er that Keen has been linked to.
GOP mega-donor and oil tycoon Herb Peyton of Jacksonville has donated the maximum amount of $1,000.00 to Keen’s campaign. Peyton’s wife Marcy has also donated $1,000.00.
For now, Tom Keen and his campaign consultant should come clean about their connections to George Soros and Herb Peyton.
Will these elites look to influence the electorate against City Councilman Jim Gray, or is this all just a coincidence?
We will have to wait and see.
Jacob Engels is an Orlando based journalist whose work has been featured and republished in news outlets around the globe including Politico, InfoWars, MSNBC, Orlando Sentinel, New York Times, Daily Mail UK, Associated Press, People Magazine, ABC, and Fox News to name a few. Mr. Engels focuses on stories that other news outlets neglect or willingly hide to curry favor among the political and business special interests in the state of Florida.
