September 23, 2010 07:15 PM UTC

Um, That's ILLEGAL

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• by: Colorado Pols

You might remember Republican Kathleen Conti, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Joe Rice in HD-38. We first mentioned Conti a few months ago when we noticed her rather bizarre claims that there were terrorist training camps in operation in Colorado.

Those comments were indicative of a candidate who was perhaps a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but they were otherwise fairly harmless. That’s not the case with a letter, dated September 20, that Conti sent out to supporters. You can see an image of the letter here, which is problematic for a number of reasons. The letter contains numerous references to direction she has received from unnamed Republican officials, starting with the opening paragraph:

The campaign is in full swing and going very well. I had a recent meeting with a GOP representative and they are saying that I currently have a slight lead–somewhere between 4-8 percentage points! [Pols emphasis]

Why is this a problem? Because Conti isn’t supposed to be coordinating with outside groups on her campaign. This is illegal.

Conti is talking about a specific poll done in her race that was not funded by her campaign, which is information that she is legally not supposed to know about. Sure, state legislative candidates hear whispers about polling numbers all the time, but none of them — until now, anyway — are dumb enough to put it in writing.

We would expect to be hearing much more about this story in the coming days, and no doubt so will Conti. Attorneys are probably dialing her number already.