Porn, donors, and political hypocrisy

This blog posted recently on how political donors can become toxic for a candidate. This week the Republicans attacked Senate candidate Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) for accepting a $1,000 donation from Hugh Hefner's daughter Christie. Yet, some have criticized the Republicans of hypocrisy since the Playboy executive has also given donations to the Republican National Committee.

Christian evangelical leaders called for an explanation last year when the pornstar Mary Carey and her boss, adult film producer Mark Kulkis, helped raise money for the GOP. According to CBS, the only one they got, at least in public, was from a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, who said: "We'll take that money and use it to elect more Republicans."

In 2004, the Washington Post outlined a connection between GOP corporate donors that cash in on smut:

In this world of irony, corporate leaders at companies as diverse as News Corp., Marriott International and Time Warner can profit by selling red state consumers the very material that red state culture is supposed to despise. Those elites then funnel the proceeds to the GOP, which in turn has used the money to successfully convince red state voters that the other political party is solely responsible for the decline of the civilization.

The same porn connection to the GOP was questioned last year in regard to large donations from Adelphia, the country's fifth-largest cable television provider, and the first to offer hard-core adult films on pay-per-view to its subscribers. Adelphia has given $166,000 to Republican committees, $17,000 to conservative Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., and $12,000 to Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

The newest link was reported by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. He shows that the RNC receives regular donations from Nicholas T. Boyias. He is owner and CEO of Marina Pacific Distributors, one of the largest producers and distributors of gay porn in the United States.