[MAGI]

We The People will NEVER get on board unless we truely understand "What's it all about" and DEMAND Campaign Finance Reform, like yesterday................

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/05/11/money-honey/#comments

Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Money, Honey
By: Jane Hamsher
Clay Risen has an interesting article in the Joe Lieberman Weekly about Barak Obama and the fact that in the first quarter of this year, he raised more money from investment banks ($479,209) than any candidate in either party (Rudy G was second with $437,442). He also nearly doubled Hillary Clinton's take of $47,900 with $85,350 from private equity firms.

Risen then goes on to note with irony that at the same time as he's pulling in these high dollar donors, Obama is also the "grassroots candidate," which I think is a bit unfair. Nobody ever criticizes Republicans for appealing to LCD lizard brains with one hand and raking in corporate cash with the other. His speculation as to why Obama outstrips Clinton, however, I thought was interesting. Why are these young hedge fund managers flocking to Obama? What is the upside? Risen works his way through the usual tropes — baby boomers vs. Gen x-ers, establishment Democrat Clinton vs. international "hyper-wired" Obama — before getting to what I think is the heart of it:

There is also a more Machiavellian element to these young turks' support. Precisely because the Clinton dynasty has been around so long, the door to her innermost fundraising circles–and thus influence and possible White House posts–is largely closed. The top jobs in a hypothetical Hillary Clinton White House aren't exactly taken, but they're not available to newcomers, either. Obama's door, on the other hand, is wide open. So it's no surprise that while Wall Street stalwart Rattner is a big-time Hillary backer, his right-hand man at Quadrangle, Steiner, is going with Obama. The same is the case with Jamie Rubin, the son of Clinton's economic consigliore Robert. "If we all lined up for Hillary, we wouldn't have even gotten into the anteroom, let alone seats at the table," one of Obama's young fundraisers told New York. "But that's not how it is with Barack. We're already at the table."

To think that someone can win a Presidential race without courting big money is naive and criticizing a serious candidate for doing so is unrealistic. There probably is no room at the Clinton inn and it's quite natural that young, ambitious money would seek Obama out as their candidate. It's actually of more concern that at the same time Obama is courting hedge fund managers he blew off the firefighters union. It may be nothing, there may just have truly been a scheduling conflict and some may be jumping the gun to conclude that he is not going to court labor based on this one incident.

Still, the firefighters will (or at least could) play a big part in cracking Guiliani's reputation as "America's Mayor" and I have to say I'm not sure that a Democratic presidential candidate who isn't actively trying to win their support is making the absolute smartest political move. And as someone who thinks that the future of progressive politics is going to depend on working closely with labor to push workers' rights, it's something that certainly bears watching.

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[MAGI]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/?pid=211337
BLOG | Posted 07/06/2007 @ 2:51pm
Killing the Money Primary


July 4th's Washington Post featured a front-page story about how campaign contributors heavily favored Democrats in the three-month period that ended last weekend, giving three dollars to the party's leading contenders for every two dollars they gave to the top Republican candidates.

Barack Obama was the big money primary winner--with 285,000 total contributors since January, exceeding the combined number of donors to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain ☼.

While I think it's fascinating that Obama has had such success in raising money from small donors on the Internet--and see glimmers of democratization in how those small-$ donors are challenging the primacy of political finance's big guns of politics--I still question why the mainstream media seems to privilege the money primary at the expense of the ideas primary.

So what is to be done? On the money front, the New York Times counsels resuscitating matching public funds --"the once-popular tax assisted alternative that has been allowed to wither in recent years because of Congress's fixation on the power of private campaign money." But there is another alternative. Clean Money, Clean Elections--with legislation supporting this major and viable reform advancing now in both the Senate and the House. In the Senate, the Durbin-Specter Fair Elections Now Act (S 1285) and in the House, the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act of 2007 (HR 1614) both have impressive co-sponsors. On the House side, of the 40 co-sponsors, many are in significant leadership positions.

But it's not only inside the beltway. According to Public Campaign, which has been working for ten years to change the way America funds elections, the movement, outside of Washington, continues to grow. As Nick Nyhart, Public Campaign's longtime and tenacious President puts it, there's a vibrant and growing citizen-centered movement out there that reflects America's diverse communities. From the AFL-CIO, to the National Council of Churches, the Sierra Club, the Dolores Huerta Foundation and the NAACP --all have joined forces in support of Clean Money, Clean Elections and the legislation advancing it. MoveOn.org is also wholeheartedly behind the effort to enact reforms that have worked well in Arizona and Maine to the Congress.

What's hopeful, though not reflected in the breathless coverage of the candidates' fundraising totals, is that seven daily mainstream newspapers--including the Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, and the St.-Louis Post Dispatch--have specifically endorsed congressional public financing legislation. Moreover, the race at the local and state level to take out private money in favor of clean money is moving full force ahead.

Next time you read about the money primary, take a breath and go to publicampaign.org and find an alternative which will give ordinary people and voters a chance to have their voices and ideas listened to.


Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!

[Michael DeM]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/22/AR2007072201095.html?nav=rss_politics

Loophole Lets Candidates Skirt Donation Limit

By John Solomon and Sarah Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 23, 2007; Page A02

Real estate executive Jack Rosen has given Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton $8,800 since last November, nearly double the amount individuals can donate to any single presidential candidate this election.

He is able to do so because of a loophole in political fundraising laws -- one that is allowing several presidential candidates to simultaneously collect donations for their presidential bid and other political entities connected to them.

One contender, Democrat Bill Richardson, has even collected corporate contributions, forbidden at the federal level, by using his New Mexico gubernatorial campaign account, which faces no such prohibition.

In all, 2008 presidential candidates have already raised more than $2 million outside of their official presidential campaigns since the Nov. 7 election, using congressional or state campaign committees, political action committees or IRS Section 527 political groups to do so, a Washington Post computer analysis found.

None of the money raised for that second committee or group can be spent in pursuit of the presidency, but a former elections official says the extra dollars nonetheless benefit presidential candidates.

Kent Cooper, the Federal Election Commission's former chief of public disclosure who now runs a Web site that studies political money, said presidential candidates may want to collect money simultaneously for one of their political groups so they can spend that money sowing goodwill in key primary states. Often, they will give donations to state or local candidates who can help organize local supporters in the presidential race, he said.

As for donors, the extra contributions give them a chance to stand out in a crowd of supporters.

"I've been a longtime supporter of the Clintons, and when they asked me to help again, I responded," Rosen said. He gave $4,200 in late November toward Clinton's Democratic Senate campaign in New York and then turned around in January and gave the maximum $4,600 to her presidential race.

"It is a new phenomenon. I don't remember ever seeing so many candidates raising money for so many different committees," said Ellen Miller, who has studied political donations for three decades and runs a Web site examining the connections between political money and government action.

"These additional donations are investments by individuals who could seek a favor from the candidate. There are now numerous pockets for political contributors to put their cash into," she said.

Clinton quietly filed papers with the Federal Election Commission over the Thanksgiving holiday that declared her to be a candidate for Senate reelection in 2012, even as she runs for president. That allowed her to raise money for both campaign accounts.

Scores of donors took advantage late last year and early this year, allowing Clinton to collect a quarter-million dollars from people who gave to both her 2012 Senate and 2008 presidential committees, the Post analysis found.

[Michael DeM]

(Continued)

Those who did so by writing $4,200 and $4,600 checks include mail catalogue mogul Lillian Vernon, movie producer Judith Zarin and New York banker Jeffrey Volk, FEC records show.

In addition, Clinton transferred $10 million in unspent donations from her 2006 Senate reelection campaign to her presidential bid. Donors who gave to her Senate campaign before Nov. 7 can legally donate again, creating what fundraising insiders call a "double-dipping" opportunity.

Vernon E. Jordan Jr., an investment banker whose father advised former president Bill Clinton, gave $1,000 to Clinton's 2006 Senate campaign on Oct. 27, when her reelection was all but assured, adding to the lump sum she transferred to start her presidential campaign a couple of months later.

This spring, Jordan gave the maximum $4,600 to her presidential campaign. He's still free to donate another $4,200 to her 2012 Senate fund.

"Our staunchest supporters are staunch, and we're grateful for that," Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said.

Clinton has not actively sought Senate donations since she formally filed her presidential candidate papers in late January, although she will continue accepting checks that arrive unsolicited, aides said. The campaign also makes sure no Senate money collected since last November's election gets used for her presidential bid, the aides added.

Still, records show that Clinton's Senate committee has spent money since January on some of the same people and companies that are involved in her presidential campaign.

For instance, communications aide Nina Blackwell has simultaneously collected a salary from both Clinton's Senate and presidential campaigns, FEC records show. Unpaid presidential adviser Ann Lewis had a small amount of travel expenses paid for by the Senate campaign. And both campaigns paid the travel vendor Aircraft Services Group large sums of money.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose name graces the 2002 campaign reform bill that placed strict limits on donation sizes, has kept open his Straight Talk Express political action committee as he runs for president, collecting more than $100,000 since last November's election.

Like Clinton contributors, many givers to McCain's PAC this year have also maxed out contributions to his presidential campaign. San Francisco equity fund executive J. Gary Shansby gave $5,000 to McCain's Straight Talk in March on top of his $4,600 to McCain's presidential bid.

"John's supporters are passionate about him and his experience, and they are looking for any way they can legally support him, and they and I try to do so," Shansby said.

Richardson has already collected more than $600,000 through his state gubernatorial committee since December, including money from corporations legally forbidden from donating at the federal level.

Among the companies to support Richardson's gubernatorial fund since the presidential race started are Hewlett-Packard ($10,000) and utility company PNMR Services ($25,000), according to Richardson's latest campaign report.

Former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) has kept open his One America political action committee, collecting more than $73,000 through that group since the election. Two of those donations recently caught the eye of campaign watchdogs because they came through the arm of One America that is exempt from federal donation size limits.

Houston trial attorney Richard Warren Mithoff gave $10,000 to Edwards's political group in January plus $4,600 to the presidential campaign in March, while New York businessman Leo Hindery gave $15,000 to Edwards's political group in June.

"Those are amounts way above the federal hard-dollar contribution limits and, while they are going to nonfederal accounts, more than likely they benefit this presidential candidate," said Cooper, the former FEC official.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) raised $190,000 in late November and December for his political action committee, collecting money from many, including hotel executive Richard Marriott, who donated to his presidential campaign again after the first of the year.

In addition to Clinton and McCain, eight other sitting members of Congress are running for president, and most are simultaneously raising money for their congressional campaign committees.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) has raised the most: $77,000 for his Senate bid in the early part of this year, plus $400,000 late last year for his PAC.

[MAGI]

Put Down The Shovel
By: Jane Hamsher
I think people were split as to who won the debate, Obama or Edwards. Everyone pretty much agreed, however, that Hillary lost. Once Edwards opened up the challenge to her to refuse to take money from lobbyists, Hillary grabbed a shovel and just kept digging. After Edwards had her down Obama hit her, challenging her assertion that lobbyists had no undue influence on policy.

Dodd had a good moment when he called for public financing of elections. Also, during his blogger klatch he implicitly criticized the strategy of the Senate leadership for not forcing the Republicans to filibuster.

Edwards was funny and relaxed and had the crowd but I think Obama made a lot of people more comfortable about him with his willingness to challenge the existing power structure, especially the foreign policy establishment.


http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/08/04/put-down-the-shovel/#comments

[FDRfollower]

I forgot where I posted this earlier, (much earlier), but here it is made public:

Ask the man who owns one (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071202/pl_afp/usfinancepoliticshedgefunds) is the old car slogan. Now which hedge fund owns your candidate?