Team Obama launches offensive against Charlotte mayoral candidate’s military charity

Team Obama launched political attacks critics say are baseless against a military charity in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The new revelations come after The Daily Caller reported Republican mayoral candidate Scott Stone was asking incumbent Mayor Anthony Foxx, a Democrat known locally as “Obama-Lite,” to sign a pledge saying he’d keep all Democratic National Convention jobs next year in the state instead of granting them to out-of-state unions. Foxx wouldn’t sign the pledge and Stone has since told TheDC that Foxx personally and directly told him he won’t sign it ever.

So, in an apparent attempt to turn the tide against political damage from the fallout, Foxx has resorted to using a public relations firm – founded by David Axelrod and connected directly to President Barack Obama – to smear Stone.

Stone launched his charity, Capital Heroes Fund, in 2007 to raise money to help military veterans. Its most recent public tax filings show Stone’s charity donated about 53 percent of its raised funds to military families – lower than the target range of 65 percent experts say charities should aim for.

For his part, Stone said he’s appalled by the attacks, and sickened by the Democratic political tactics. “North Carolina’s military families should never be used as a political pawn,” he told TheDC.

Local news media, including the Charlotte Observer, the city’s newspaper of record, have reported that there don’t appear to be improprieties in Stone’s charity and that economic hurdles are routine in the present economy. Regardless, neither local Democrats nor Foxx have back down from or apologized for their attacks.

“The attack on my charity is being done purely for political gain because I am running for mayor,” Stone told TheDC on Wednesday. “North Carolina’s military families should never be used as a political pawn. This story was planted by the Foxx Campaign and it backfired on them.”

Even so, the local Democratic Party has driven the story into the news and tried to keep it alive, accusing Stone of at least the appearance of malfeasance.

“The issues surrounding Scott Stone’s charity raise some troubling questions about his ability to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars,” Walton Robinson, the state Democratic Party spokesman, said in a statement. “When (most) of the money…goes to expenses other than the stated purpose of helping military families, there is something seriously wrong.”

When TheDC reached out to Robinson to see if he’ll be issuing an apology, he did not immediately respond.

Foxx’s political machine is tied into President Barack Obama’s – in many cases, they’re one and the same.

For instance, Foxx paid David Axelrod’s AKPD Message and Media firm $273,156.75 in the 2009 election cycle and has paid the firm $8,000 this year. Foxx has also hired Obama’s pollster, Anzalone Liszt – he paid Liszt $31,500 in 2009 and another $22,500 in 2011.

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