Bobby Day is out of gas
In the Alabama Senate District 3 race the Democratic candidate, Bobby Day, has gone negative against his Republican opponent, Arthur Orr. Day’s ad makes a big deal out of Orr’s connection to a gas station that was a target in a “price gouging” lawsuit filed by Atty. Gen. Troy King in January of 2006 (AG news release archive). I’ll ignore the fact that “price gouging” laws are both stupid and counterproductive (never, ever try to fight supply and demand). Dumb as it may be it is a law in Alabama and must be followed.
The lawsuit King said his office filed in Morgan County Circuit Court names Petroleum Sales Inc. and R.W. Orr Jr., chief executive officer. Petroleum Sales owns Bud’s No. 13. R.W. Orr said he is retired as chief executive of the company and referred questions to his son, President Stratton Orr, who runs the company.
No mention of Arthur Orr, who works for Cooks Pest Control.
So how much did the evil gas station (that was not run by Arthur Orr) “steal” from the good citizens of Decatur? The four gas stations named in the original lawsuit settled with the state and the AG office issued a press release in May.
During the course of litigation and continued investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, the defendant companies demonstrated that their profits were modest on the limited dates for which they were alleged to have price gouged. For example, Stop-N-Go earned $65.72 in profits on the date it allegedly violated the Unconscionable Pricing Act.
…
The settlement of these cases requires the defendants to pay a total of $5,300—an amount greatly exceeding their actual profits during the time in question–to the Red Cross or the Salvation Army.
So the four stations made a combined profit that was much less than $5,300. Considering that the Madison County Commission is trying to take $21 million from the pockets of citizens without our input, I would consider $5,300 in profits made from people who bought gas there under their own free will meaningless.
Orr’s website also has a rebuttal to the claims made by Day.
Bobby Day is obviously desperate and is trying to impugn Orr’s character with a baseless and shameful attack.
Looking at campaign finance documents is one method of evaluating the allegiances of public officials. Orr’s reports show a substantial number of individual citizens contributing to his campaign. He does receive some money from PACs, but the lion’s share of them are from legitimate PACs that weren’t created to obfuscate the source of the funds. For example he gets contributions from PACs representing realtor and beef interests and a number of companies, such as NuCor. Nearly all of Day’s money has come from two PACs, the Tenn. Valley PAC and the Senate Majority PAC, both of which exist explicitly to conceal the source of the contributions. Which candidate would you trust to represent you?
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November 12th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
I think that it cost him the election to say the least. Most if not all the voter I talked to would have voted for Bobby before all of the mud slinging. Looking at the 70 something per cent in the primary tells you he was a head of the game before general election.