The hits keep coming for the man challenging against Chris Murphy as Matt over at My Left Nutmeg questions why David Cappiello has such a fondness for New Jersey?

Can someone get Mary Saracino on the line?

It feels a little gratuitous to be roughing up "the b-team," as I'm doing today with Cappiello and Sullivan. They're having a hard time getting their campaigns up to speed, and it's a bad year for the GOP as a whole anyway, and Cappiello will have a primary to fight to boot.

But still, I am compelled. The other thing that sprung to my attention when I first saw Cappiello's filing yesterday (apart from the $6900 from Scott Frantz -- who, as a State Senate hopeful, we will certainly be returning to in short order), was that he appeared to have staff working for him in New Jersey. That was silly (Congressional campaign staffers normally come to the campaign), but it's not illegal, so I let it be.

But there seems to be a little more New Jersey going on in the Cappiello campaign than I'd originally thought.

• First, one Alexandra Almour started working for the campaign in January, and has received 5 paychecks of $2000 each along with about $5,000 in reimbursed expenses. Cappiello has two staffers, and it appears that Almour took over from Stamford resident Ryan Wolfe that month. She also worked recently for the NJ Republican Party (see their online contribution form).
  
  



• On March 14th, with two weeks left in the fundraising quarter (and a Q1 total of $63,231 raised so far, which included the Rell fundraiser on 3/10), the committee "Cappiello-Connecticut Victory 08" was created, based out of PO Box 225, Colonia, NJ. That's a fun address to look up, because there are all sorts of crazy Republican campaigns being run from there, including the campaign of running joke candidate Andrew Unanue, who's looking to unseat Senator Lautenberg.
  
  



• The Cappiello-Connecticut Victory 08 fund is a joint fundraising account -- contributors are giving money to both Cappiello and the Connecticut Republican Party at the same time when they donate. The treasurer is Jennifer D'Autrechy, a Rutgers student who "works full time as a treasurer to several Republican campaigns in New Jersey" -- though she hasn't been paid anything by the Cappiello campaign, the CT GOP, or the joint commitee.
  
  



• Going back to the filing, there are a couple more bits of contact information, including a fax number (732-248-4178) that belongs to former NJ Governor Christine Todd Whitman's "It's My Party Too" PAC (or IMP-PAC for short). IMP-PAC is a big fan of Chris Shays, and is now folded into the Republican Leadership Council.
  
  Now we're getting somewhere. IMP-PAC can't be found (much to my frustration) on the FEC website, but I found it in a ninja FEC data tool that I have here at home, and when they were in business, they also were found at that same P.O. Box -- #225, Colonia, New Jersey.
  
  So what's in Colonia, NJ? About twenty Federal committees going back to at least 1994 (including GOP Majority Fund 2006, Tom Kean For US Senate Inc, Friends Of Mike Ferguson, Whitman For US Senate, and the provocatively- and familiarly- titled Kean-NJ Victory 06. The common denominator here is one Ronald Gravino. I think we have our man.

Ronald Gravino: Member and one-time chairman of the New Jersey Highway Commission, financial and management consultant for over 15 years. He runs Christine Todd Whitman's PACs, along with work on a cornucopia of others, including the NJ Senate Republican Majority PAC, the NJ Republican State Committee, Mike Ferguson, the Monmouth County Republican Committee, and the Committee for Responsible Government.

For the sake of reference (and for the sake of me writing something else,since I've read a lot on New Jersey campaigns lo these last few hours), this seems to be the way they roll in the New Jersey GOP – check out this article from the '90s discussing the interlocking and incestuous committee structure of the Kean/Whitman NJGOP.

A couple of questions, though – apart from "why is Cappiello's campaign being run out of New Jersey?"

• How are Gravino or D'Autrechy being compensated for the work they're doing? Gravino doesn't give his work away, D'Autrechy is supposedly doing this as a full-time job for a number of candidates, and while volunteer treasurers are unusual on Congressional-level campaigns, I've never heard of one state's fundraising apparatus working pro-bono for another state's candidates – and in this case, not even a neighboring state.
  
  



• Why is Gravino concealing his involvement here? I figured it out, but I can't imagine anyone else that would. They presumably have P.O. Boxes near to Rutgers, so if D'Autrechy were doing the day-to-day collection of checks, I doubt she'd have picked a mailing address or bank so far away from school. (The committee's fax number is Gravino's. Gravino uses Commerce Bank for all his recent political committees. Gravino ran "Kean-New Jersey Victory 06." Cappiello-Connecticut Victory 08 is really, really, Gravino.)
  
  



• Third... how does this work? The checks are written by Cappiello's Connecticut donors on 3/31, sent to New Jersey, processed, and then a contribution is sent back to Connecticut.
  
  But – the committee-to-committee transfer was sent on the same day that the checks in Connecticut were written. Contributions are filed on the date written on the check itself. So, either...
  
  1) Gravino backdated a check written in April to give the appearance of a 200K+ quarter to Cappiello,
  
  2) Gravino put a $25,000 check in the mail which was drawn against an account with zero dollars in it (the contributions would have arrived a day or two later), or
  
  3) Someone in Connecticut (where we also have Commerce Banks) is handling, depositing, and writing checks on that account.

Trust me when I say that all three of these possibilities have rather exciting legal implications attached to them for our friends Gravino, Almour, D'Autrechy, and Cappiello. I understand that Gabe (a genuine lawyer) is planning to do a little legal update, and I need a break, but one way or another this is a story you'll be hearing more about in the very near future.

Remember, when it comes to politics, the details are in the campaign finance reports...DEVELOPING!