Businessman Joe Ricketts has swiftly disavowed a plan to that would have used controversial preacher Jeremiah Wright to smear President Obama. Brian Baker, the president of the Ending Spending Action Fund PAC billionaire Ricketts helped establish, released the following statement:
Joe Ricketts is a registered independent, a fiscal conservative, and an outspoken critic of the Obama Administration, but he is neither the author nor the funder of the so-called “Ricketts Plan” to defeat Mr. Obama that The New York Times wrote about this morning.
Not only was this plan merely a proposal — one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors — but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take.
Mr. Ricketts intends to work hard to help elect a president this fall who shares his commitment to economic responsibility, but his efforts are and will continue to be focused entirely on questions of fiscal policy, not attacks that seek to divide us socially or culturally.
One has to wonder what other plans Ricketts is considering, and whether we'll hear about them before their hit their airwaves.