I abhor the dark money in politics ever since the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision to allow unlimited amounts of money to ooze into politics from secret PACS and corporate donors. I dislike it in any form, Democrat or Republican. Do we think this is what the founders and writers of the Constitution had in mind?

I was disappointed and discouraged to see a dark money fear-mongering advertisement for the Addison County Republicans in the Addison Independent Election Guide last week. The ad is paid for by Misty Mtn Resources. Who are they, and where does their money come from? 

I don’t believe in a one-party system, so while I am a Democrat, I support and plan to vote for Phil Scott and possibly for Joe Benning. I always read and look at what the Republican candidates have to say, in case they align more with my views than the Democrats. 

This time I was aghast to see this type of ad in our local politics. While I know that some of our Republican candidates are election deniers (Please move on!, 60 courts, including many conservative judges, all over our great country said the election was fair and square), others sound reasonable and sane in their concerns and positions on matters that concern our county and our state. But when I see that most of the local Republicans have signed on to an ad that lists “medical experiments on children,” Halloween candy being laced with fentanyl as things they are “against” you lost me. Really? Republicans are against those things? Wow! How amazing! 

Of course no proof is offered that these things are really happening. But the inference that somehow Democrats are “for” this kind of nonsense is just plain silly. How do you expect to convince reasonable people that your ideas and plans for Addison County are worth supporting with our vote, when you take dark money, and sign on to an ad like this?

Gardner Merriam

New Haven