If you can't beat your opponent, buy him off. That is the secret of Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell, who is paying one of her primary opponents to get out of the race.

A vocal former opponent's silence is important enough to Sen. Maria Cantwell's re-election effort to pay him $8,000 a month -- nearly as much as her campaign manager -- to join her campaign staff.

The Cantwell campaign initially refused to say last week how much it would pay Mark Wilson to drop his Democratic primary challenge to the senator and his harsh criticism of her opposition to immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.

But campaign manager Matt Butler issued a statement Thursday disclosing Wilson's salary.

It isn't much lower than Butler's salary, which, according to Cantwell's quarterly Federal Election Commission report, was $26,192 for the first three months of 2006, or $8,731 a month.

I don't know about you, but if that isn't illegal it sure ought to be. It looks suspiciously like a bribe to me.

Oh, ">by the way -- go take a look at what he was saying about her until he took the bribe new job.

(H/T GOPBloggers)

Posted by: Greg at 06:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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