After the Floridians for Truth Now political action committee made Rep. Jim Mooney one of their pet projects in the 2022 midterm election cycle, the Florida House Republican Committee punched back at Mooney’s Republican primary opponent, Rhonda Rebman-Lopez.
Floridian’s for Truth Now, which is run by a former Andrew Gillum for governor operative, paid for two video ads against Rep. Mooney that took aim at his past criminal record for drug dealing and alleging that he was a tax cheat.
Rebman-Lopez is not affiliated with the PAC, but it doesn’t matter, House Republicans are now going after Rebman-Lopez.
In a counter ad against the two Floridians for Truth Now ads against Mooney, Republicans assert that Democrats are paying for Rebman-Lopez’s ads.
“Her ads don’t say that they are paid for by Democrats, but they are,” states the ad.
Again, the ads in question were paid for by Floridians for Truth Now, not the Rebman-Lopez campaign.
In addition, the GOP ad states that the FTN ads were “pulled off the air,” but that claim has not been verified. Actually, according to the daily Comcast ad placement reports, there are three ads being aired.
The ad also claims that Rebman-Lopez is tied to Dictator Nicolas Maduro because she took money from a company that received money from the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
That claim has been debunked.
“Complainant did not provide evidence-based upon personal information or information other than hearsay to support his allegation that the contribution did not come from Interamerican as reported by Respondent…“The quote attributed to Respondent in the article is hearsay. Regardless, the quotation is open to interpretation and does not state unequivocally that the $1,000 at issue was a personal contribution from an individual.” —Florida Election Commission
The Republican committee ad cites the alleged pay-for-play progressive Florida Politics blog as its only source.
In digging deep into House Republican Committee cash disbursements, SIMWINS, a corporation owned by operative Anthony Pedocini, has been paid thousands of dollars in fees this election cycle alone.
Interestingly enough, Pedocini is the godfather to the daughter of the progressive Florida Politics blog publisher, Peter Schorsch.
Schorsch and Pedocini appear to have been tied at the hip for years, and it is alleged that Pedocini sends a considerable amount of advertising business to Schorsch.
When diving into the financial statements of SIMWINS or Pedocini’s list of clients, it's hard not to notice that many of his clients are also advertisers on the Florida Politics blog.
This is the second time Rebman-Lopez and Mooney face off.
Mooney edged out Rebman-Lopez by 148 votes in the 2020 Republican primary race.
