Probably. But we love Jack Richardson. (email us sometime, Jack!) And now you know why Greg Fischer’s two supporters were out in full force yesterday.

In an article about Greg Fischer’s campaign activity before announcing and filing his candidacy for U.S. Senate (you should have just announced a couple weeks ago, Greg), the C-J’s Joe Gerth examines a complaint by GOP Chairman Jack Richardson of Jefferson County. Richardson is claiming, as we have questioned and discussed on Page One, that Fischer has violated campaign finance law by making corporate contributions to his campaign.

For the purposes of full disclosure: this website was mentioned in the article.

From the C-J:

Fischer, in an e-mail, directed those wanting jobs with the campaign to apply to someone other than his address at a Dant Clayton e-mail address.

That a Dant Clayton employee is the contact person listed for those applying for campaign jobs.

And, that a Fischer business is listed as the owner of several Internet domain names that deal with a Fischer Senate bid, including gregfischer.com, which is Fischer’s campaign Web site.

Richardson claims that all those things violate a federal ban on corporations making contributions to or expenditures on behalf of candidates.

See the following stories for more on this:

• Greg Fischer Already Breaking Campaign Law?
• Fischer Reminder. AKA Slow News Day.
• More of Fischer Breaking the Rules?

We’d like to again point out as we have in the past that making corporate contributions is illegal and any corporate contribution and use of manpower from a corporation must be reimbursed by a campaign. It’s the first rule of campaign law and even political novices understand that corporate contributions aren’t allowed. And no, being able to reimburse those contributions doesn’t justify them. They should not occur to begin with because there are campaign finance regulations put in place to stop them.

Much more after the jump…

While the Fischer camp argues that his behavior was legal and that he’d planned to reimburse his corporation from day one, there’s something you should remember: if Fischer had planned on doing so from the start, he would have said so from the start. Fact of the matter is Fischer got caught and only now is discussing reimbursement via his spokesperson.

With the complaint filed by Richardson, Fischer’s campaign is left to prove his spending totaled less than $5,000 (the magic point at which one must declare a candidacy). Spending that includes: time used registering domain names, negotiating hosting contracts, working with web developers, recruiting staff, receiving and managing email. All activities which take a lot of time and would require quite a bit of reimbursement for employee wages on top of equipment usage. Also included in that $5,000 mark would be all travel expenses for Fischer’s trips to Washington, D.C. and around the state of Kentucky, as he’s apt to mention.

The complaint, no matter how insignificant (because the FEC is basically dead at this point, thanks in part to Mitch McConnell), now opens up a door for greater transparency. It’ll be interesting to watch the length of time Fischer’s corporate employee remains responsible for his website, recruitment and domain names and whether his corporation is reimbursed for all of that activity for its full duration.

Speaking of his spokesperson: Kim Geveden is the key advisor we mentioned on the 11th who was afraid to go public about his support for Fischer, as many of his friends, clients and colleagues are supporters of Andrew Horne. Geveden is from Lexington, the former campaign manager of now-Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo’s failed U.S. Senate race and former political director of the Kentucky Democratic Party. He worked for Andrew Horne in 2006.

Finally, this little campaign finance snafu is merely the beginning of the race against Mitch McConnell. It’s evidence that no mistakes can be made by any candidate without being 100% up front and honest about making them. It’s a message to all candidates– including Andrew Horne– that their campaign’s actions are now part of public discourse. All campaign activity is the sole responsibility of the candidate and no matter how small or insignificant something may seem? It’s still a reflection of you and the way you do business.

Guess it also means little blogs like ours really do get read.