It’s Not about the DNC–It’s about the GOP
You’ve heard, by now, that Obama just threw the lobbyists out of the, er, fundraising pool.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and the Obama for America Campaign today announced that the DNC will no longer accept Washington lobbyist donations, making the same commitment as Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
As Phoenix Woman pointed out to me via email, that’s no big deal for the DNC. The big lobbyist money comes in through the DCCC and DSCC, which is one of the reasons those organizations are kicking their Republican counterparts’ behinds, whereas the DNC fundraising lags the RNC.
Which is the whole point, isn’t it?
McCain, you’ll remember, can’t match Obama’s personal fund-raising ability. Rather, he’s already sucking at the GOP teat.
Mr. McCain is likely to depend upon the party, which finished April with an impressive $40 million in the bank and has significantly higher contribution limits, to an unprecedented degree to power his campaign, Republican officials said.
[snip]
Mr. McCain, who abandoned public financing in the primary but has indicated he would employ it in the general election, is aggressively building a joint fund-raising operation with the Republican National Committee and state party committees in four battleground states. These committees can raise money far in excess of the $2,300 limit imposed on individuals giving to Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign. Donors can write a single check of almost $70,000 to the committees that is divvied up to various entities.
But whole bunch of that money comes from lobbyists. To be fair, McCain’s already pretty happy to take money for lobbyists (he’s getting everything else for them). But if Obama can taint the GOP money that will be funding McCain’s campaign, it’s going to strike another blow at the McMaverick.
The money goes to the winner. And clearly Obama is raising more money than McCain. McCain, however, has two big backers, the military industrial complex and the oil companies. They’ll saturate the market, even if we don’t see it happening through campaign contributions.
In the “EW isn’t OT” Category-
Here are a couple of links to the National Conference for Media Reform starting today in Minneapolis. First link is EW’s info/panel page, 2nd lists the various web & other forms of coverage of the NCMR:
http://www.freepress.net/node/39306
http://www.freepress.net/conference/tune_in
Marie, Si Se Puede Cambiar is all the rage with my fifth graders, so thanks for that link as well as these.
Since we study US History, I made them watch Obama’s speech from Tuesday night. Since it’s what it is in the school year, they get free time on the computers. 3/4 of them are memorizing Si Se Puede.
Good morning, LooHoo. What a great idea. Here’s hoping they sing it @ home, too.
Re: links to NCMR- I know JH & Cliff Schecter are also on panels there. Do you know of any other FDL front pagers that are speaking/on panels this wknd?
No, I don’t.
So Obama is banning lobbist money where the dems aren’t getting it anyway and quietly ignoring the DCCC and DSCC where it all is. I had hoped for better from him.
Boxturtle (This smells like a GOP kind of trick. Hrrumph)
Yeh, I hope this is an over sight by Obama and not political fund raising as usual. Right.
This is just a test of the Republican Blogs. Will someone as analytically good as EW rise to the challenge? Hopefully they will get 8 years to hone their skills….
But seriously, I bet Obama is ready to give up the DSCC and DCCC money, and this is just a first shot across the bow of McCain’s anemic funraising.
Without Lobbyist money (if we take this ethic to the logical extreme), Obama likely, and as evidenced so far, has a much more robust source of funds- individual donors.
Ah, but while Obama is flush with money the DCCC & DSCC are for the house and senate elections. Those folks may not be at all eager to give up all that money. I suspect that he intentionally ignored those. And I bet, if asked, he’ll say something on the order of “It’s inappropriate for me to interfere in LEGISLATIVE elections”.
We’ll see. I’d love to be wrong.
Boxturtle (Still, it’s more than anyone else has done)
Obama is not the messianic figure the press has built him up to be. He’s just a regular Chicago pol. But he has seriously good strategic political instincts. Like this.
It allows him to build a narrative about McCain and lobbyists and to even start poo flinging about the Keating 5. He really seems to “get” the art of political war.
Agreed.
I know you feel this with great conviction, but it’s not the first time you’ve felt something with great conviction and had reason to change your mind. You’ll be watching the general and his first year, where you can re-evaluate your first impression. You weren’t following him closely at all when he hit the Senate. Hardly anyone was in all honesty. And you had someone competing for your evaluations in the niche where he now is.
Let’s see what you honestly think after you get a better chance to evaluate him during the general and after his first year or two in office. You owe yourself that much, and at that time your evaluation is going to be more solid whichever way it leans.
There is no evidence or indication whatsoever he would take Lobbyist money from any source at all including DCCC and DSCC money.
You would be forcing him to proove a negative at this point. He is not taking Lobbyist money period and has a team as sophisticated as any to vet the sources.
any opinion as to whether the ban will apply to AIPAC as well?
From the wiki:
AIPAC is not a political action committee, and does not directly donate to campaign contributions.
Nevertheless,…”money is an important part of the equation.”
Between the 2000 and the 2004 elections, the 50 members of AIPAC’s board donated an average of $72,000 each to campaigns and political action committees.”
On balance, I’m thinking that Obama’s announcement cut off the AIPAC money/influence peddling, but I could easily be wrong.
I’m thinking that Obama will do NOTHING to offend AIPAC. The speech he gave to them was everything they wanted to hear and then some. The Arab press is already saying there’s no hope for peace under Obama.
*sigh* Would it have hurt to use the phrase “Territorial compromise”? Or to use the word “occupation”? Or even mention the fence?
Boxturtle (After the next mideast war, there will only be two living survivors. And they will hate each other)
Col. Pat Lang posted yesterday on the Obama AIPAC speech. Also, several interesting comments in the thread that follows:
Obama as Mitzvah
I went over to the DNC site last evening and threw them some money. I won’t donate to the DCCC or DSCC.
Me too.
Off topic, but California is turning to our old friend Gerald Parsky to solve the state pension crisis:
http://www.latimes.com/busines…..665.column
This quote from him does not inspire confidence:
“I learned firsthand at UC that if you want to attract quality people, you’ve got to be able to compensate them fairly.” And in the public sector, Parsky says, that often means offering comfortable retirements because “governments can’t match the compensation levels of many companies.”
And yet, no thoughts on whether we can actually afford the benefits. Like Iraq, cost doesn’t even seem to be part of the equation.
The GOP blocked the global warming bill. That’s how to win votes!
OT: re ew’s tomorrow landline tapping seminar in MN, check out Katyal’s latest anachronistic effort at compromise with the old paradigm of privacy.
Variously somewhat more onTopic, it is interesting the thread quickly linked to foreign policy. This administration has left a predictable jumble of businessCentric Republican impacts. I think contextualizing US foreign engagement will be central to a surprising proportion of new policy directions we need to develop soon, and, though a separate sort of entity than lobbying outfits, some domestic specialInterest organizations are making significant advances addressing internationalization of business models, like this readable expose on grandparent Sears’ impact on clearcutting Canadian caribou forest habitat in Ontario province. The symbiotic interaction between business and government is a difficult issue. Consider this south Oregon area, which like the problem in Ontario, is infrastructurally connected to revenue streams, another classic source of modern Republican party tradeoffs: in the OR document linked the schools feel obligated to clearcut 22,000 acres of forest, meanwhile biologists attempt to tweak EIRs to excuse consequent pressure upon species diversity.
When is precedent anything but a downhill slope? Does no one ever take as precedent an instance in which someone in power decided NOT to push beyond the accepted limits?
And I feel gut-shot at the clearcutting articles. Exactly what do they think is going to make the oxygen they so much like to breathe and burn if not trees? (Hint: parking lots don’t make much. Neither does grassland. Neither do tree stumps.)
I’m hoping that Obama and Dean can shame their colleagues into giving up their places at the lobbyist trough in the long run. However, in the near term, I am particularly hoping that they can shame them to drop this compromise bs on FISA. The only compromise I see is a bunch of Dem and Rep congresscritters compromising their so-called principles and the Constitution for the sake of telco corporate cash. Obama and Dean can get a lot of mileage out of this if they play it right. I’m hoping hoping hoping…
Masaccio Alert! – Man, they really want to get this guy dead while incarcerated don’t they? Unbelievable.
the gop doesn’t have a donor base
they just got shoppers buying their votes
just so you know, we had a slow day tuesday. Only 65 voters total in my precinct here in Cali
of the 65, only 5 were repuglitards
and two repuglitards quietly told us they ain’t voting for repuglitards this year
how BAD is it for the repuglitards ???
we had more third party voters (Peace and Freedom, Green, and American Independents got 6 voters) than repuglitards
watch out for that bob barr jugernaut
(wink)
off topic rant (had to be said)
can anybody splain to me how the dow jones drop is BREAKING NEWS an hour after the market closed ???
wolfie needs to learn that just because it’s on the card you’re reading now DOESN’T make it breaking news
technically, it’s only “breaking news” the first time you report it
I’ve heard wolfie say the words “breaking news” in front of that promo THREE TIMES NOW
anybody wanna bet that this is a “BREAKING STORY” at 3:00 pm pdt too
chicken noodle network has got no clue …
Idunno if this belongs here or not but AGAG’s found a temporary job. Whether he’s actually qualified for this job, I also dunno.
He is most certainly not qualified, at least as to the subject matter, for that job. The former judge overseeing the matter is the real deal it looks like. Layn R. Phillips. I find it next to impossible that he sought out Gonzales for the job. This is a welfare deal, and it shows how pitiful Gonzales is that this was the best he could get. Yikes.
Where the fuck is the OPR report on Gonzo… that was due
ourt in the spring.
Gonzo, like Clemens is a lying sack of shit.
Okay, so I had a few white zins…
I heard this on the radio returning from dealing with an out-of-town case. The Judge says he considered the guy’s physical condition (he’s pretty much confined to a wheelchair) and a conviction years ago for some sex crime. We’re real lawnorder folk around here.
When can I find a gallon of gas that flatters my pocketbook?
Never.
Change your life style, lower your standard of living, and stay close to home, we are in for the ride of our lives…
Supply and demand does not work when you have an OIL CARTEL.
We are fucked… and Kudlow is an arshole.
The Celtics are our last hope…
Tom Friedman recently wrote a column suggesting that if any candidate had real honesty, they would advocate a $4 minimum so that there would be incentive to really change oil habits.
It did not seem encouraging when the US President was again seen walking hand in hand with the Saudi Prince and the caption could have read “You Want What???? When???”
There are a lot of columns debating what the cost of gas has to be before it does behavior mod. One adjunct to buying gas Mr. Friedman has is that his wife’s father sports a muti-billion dollar shopping center development fortune and a few billion will fill your tank, and get Mr. Friedman’s daughter through college, but he has worked hard all his life going all over the world to win his Pulitzer and to write his best selling books covering the middle east, and most recently India and China with The World is Flat.
I noticed this morning that 4 GM plants are being closed, and there are serious evaluations of Hummers and other SUVs and reduction of manufacture of SUVs and emphasis on smaller cars.
Toyato, whose Prius is the Yuppie Starbucks of cars has spent a large amount of money behind the scenes pushing their large gas hog trucks.
The House and Senate have done next to nothing to remedy the oil crisis, and many European cars get double the gas milage ours do which is a good thing since their prices are double ours.
lhp, agreed re precedent as surrogate for originality, though Kevin Martin at fcc probably appreciates the boost. There is historical context that is inapposite in Katyal’s lemma. The environmental links I put were to highlight the Republican character of this particular inertia. I think Dean will see the merits of arm’s length in the difficult issue of the freedom to lobby, and fundraise. I have yet to hear how the shakeout happened with FEC nominee McGahn’s hassles and the FEC requorumization.
Siegelman’s 3 attorneys have filed their first brief in the Eleventh Circuit and from TChris @ Jeralyn’s blog here’s a link to the brief and an analysis of it from White Collar Crime Prof Blog:
Catching Up on Siegelman
OT and pimping but I think they aim to hang 5 brown men before the elections:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…..933/530960
I wonder whether they split al Qahtani off from the other 5 because he was the one with a lawyer (who might slow down the capital punishment train).
Read and appreciated, drational. Thanks for the link to Rosenberg. It is sometimes hard to believe that we are living through this, and at the very end of a generally reviled lame-duck administration. And McCain is happy to run an election campaign quite literally on blood and death? This is beyond bizarre.
A reckoning will come. I wish I could figure out how.
sorry petepierce
after your little performance a few threads back, I ain’t readin your stuff anymore
and I didn’t really read any of your rants there either
you’re kinda persona non gratis as far as I’m concerned
you will be ignored until someone here who continues to bother reading your posts grants you a pardon and says that you have offered a BRILLIANT contribution to the conversationbut we can’t know when that will happen, if it ever does
think of it as an unknowable act of pentence
when BMAZ tells you to drop it, you should drop it, on pain of becoming irrelevant
see how that works