More on Obama fund raising
By mw | Related entries in Barack, MoneyFollowing up on yesterday’s money posts from Alan and me – A couple of stories shedding more light on the Axelrod/Obama Greatest Political Money Machine In The History Of The Known Universe.
Mathew Mosk – Washington Post
Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations:
“Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed. Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.”
Mike Allen – The Politico
Obama donors get access to top advisers:
“Aides to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) scheduled pricey luncheons, roundtables, readings, VIP receptions and policy dinners with campaign officials and advisers, offering donors a taste of his potential administration. Supporters could eat dinner in Los Angeles with Warren Buffett, an Obama adviser and one of history’s shrewdest investors, for $28,500, the federal limit for donations by an individual to a national party committee… his campaign also has an elaborate machine for courting big check-writers. Obama kept the checks flowing this month with a gold-plated schedule of headliners who would have new prominence in a Democratic Washington.”
Finally, Campbell Brown of CNN reminds us why Obama can afford thirty minutes of primetime on five networks:
Selling access… big donors… big money… sloppy controls… broken promises.
Change we can believe in?
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October 29th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Funny, the McCain crowd likes to make such a big deal out of the shadow of a suggestion that something might have happened. The fact is, McCain is a known philanderer, hothead, and helped deregulate the US into two financial crises in 20 years. He doesn’t have to sell access to anything because he handed his entire campaign over to corporate lobbyists (I’ve lost count of how many are on his staff). McCain is sleazy and everyone knows it. Obama has played it straight and there is no evidence to the contrary. To paraphrase, with respect to this latest distraction on behalf of McCain, there doesn’t seem to be any there there.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
This stuff may be dismaying to the Obamaniacs out there, but it’s neither here nor there to those of us who are voting for Obama not because he’s the Messiah or because of slogans of change (are you voting for McCain because he puts Country First, mw? Because if so, you’re as sappy as the libs you’re baiting) but rather because we consider him the better politician and leader and suspect. Personally speaking, I want someone who takes advantage of opportunities like not having to vet contributions up front and knocking their mentor off the ballot to secure a senatorial seat. I do thank you for the great work in covering this. I’ve sent your post of yesterday on AT&T to friends of both political persuasions; I’m a firm moderate who suffers the outrage of both sides. It educates the gushy dems and makes the stricken cons feel better.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
MW: Heretic
Ian: Would a vat of boiling oil be too good for them?
October 29th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Look,
Anyone who thinks you can run a presidential campaign without bending rules is incredibly naive.
There is no perfect candidate. There is no perfect man. Perfection cannot be obtained politically or anywhere else.
That leaves imperfections I can live with. I can live with Senator Obama’s imperfections–I’m willing to take that chance that he is most of what he says he is.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I said it on the last fundraising post, but it seems as though this is the post to be at right now. These sorts of debates seem useless to me. If this were the other way around it would be the left whining and mw and company finding ways to defend their candidate. The point? No one really cares about this except to attack the other or defend his or her candidate.
I grant that maybe some do care, but I doubt they see it as anything more than an unfortunate reality of the political process.
October 29th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
If he had taken public financing i’d question whether he was experienced enough to be president, i’d rather him take the smart move even if it means going back on his word
October 29th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The reason why people care, or should care, is because Obama set himself up to be something different than your run of the mill money grubbing politician. He has revealed himself to be exactly that. I think it is important for the Obama “true believers” to understand that their “light bringer” -”transformational figure” – “agent of change” – isn’t. He is just a really smart Chicago pol with feet of clay and a great sales pitch.
That said, to a large degree, I concur with the sentiment expressed by Avinash and blackoutyears. Obama supporters seem to be break into three categories – partisans, practical skeptics, and true believers (there can be overlap of course). I’m guessing Blackoutyears is primarily in the practical skeptic category and is voting against the Republicans as much as he is voting for Obama. I understand that. I could have voted that way myself if the Republicans had managed to hold on to either house of congress. But to hand any politician a blank check with no practical opposition in Congress and virtually no constraint on political power is insane. Unless, of course, you are a partisan like Avinash and believe there there should be no opposition to the brave new world of cultural change in which he fervently believes.
To answer your question blockoutyears – No , I am not voting for a slogan. When confronting a discrepancy between what a politician says and what he does, I go with what he does.
McCain’s track record is bipartisanship, bucking his own party (remember the gang of 14?), and moderation. In light of that I can discount what he had to say to the right to get the nomination.
Obama’s track record is pure liberal Democratic partisanship. I have to discount what what he says about “change in Washington” in light of his track record, his propensity to flip flop on core issues, and his campaign fund raising policies.
In both cases, I am looking at what they do, not what they say.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
“Anyone who thinks you can run a presidential campaign without bending rules is incredibly naive.”
I know…why did everyone get their nose all bent out of shape about that Nixon fellow? Everybody does it.
{/sarcasm}
October 29th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
“Obama’s track record is pure liberal Democratic partisanship. I have to discount what what he says about “change in Washington†in light of his track record, his propensity to flip flop on core issues, and his campaign fund raising policies.” mw
I’d buy that except that I think the voting record is consistently overstated; was McCain all mavericky in his first two years in the Senate, or was he pragmatic and respectful to his party’s seniors? As for bipartisanship, I’ve seen Obama work with Lugar on non-proliferation and the American Fuels Act as well as with Brownback on Darfur and divestment from companies doing business with Iran in his short tenure. Lugar’s not a stretch, but the relationship with Brownback is underreported and impressive imo. I’ll leave Obama’s claims of bipartisanship in the Illinois senate to your own research but do they count?
While I respect your argument –we’re all rationalizing to some degree so it would be churlish not to — I’d maintain that the difference between what McCain has said and done is worth its own examination. And it strikes me as disingenuous to say that McCain is selling himself any differently than Obama, especially as he shamelessly/craftily picked up the change mantra himself. He’s running as a maverick while aping eight years of b.s. campaign tactics, tactics which he denounced when they were used against him. Let’s just say in the promise-breakers sweepstakes that Obama’s pledge to use public financing and McCain’s to run a clean and honorable campaign effectively nullify each other.
Per L’s post, why undermine an otherwise informative and compelling post on Obama’s fundraising with partisan handwringing? It seems counterproductive. And I have to agree with your Obama supporter breakdown and my place in it. I share your reservations about the potential for a liberal tsunami. As you’ve said before, my choice may prove to be hope over reason. Obviously I propose it as more of an educated guess, based on what can only be an irrational faith in my own judgment.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Say what you want, he’s run one of the most disciplined campaigns ever. He’s raised the most money, and did it without PAC’s and lobbyists. For every dollar he got from big corporations, he probably got 5 from regular folk.
If this is 80% of how he would run his White House, then we could actually see a politician try to get something done rather than rattle political sabers, or get sexual favors in the Oval Office.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
That’s exactly what was said about GWB’s campaign. Turned out it wasn’t George. It was Karl.
What we are seeing now is Axelrod’s campaign.
He is even craftier and more effective than Rove.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Actually, I was just hypothesizing that this was partisan handwringing.
Say Obama were the Republican and McCain the Democrat, would I be complaining about flip-flops in public finance and the amount of wealth McCain has been generating? Probably. Would mw be defending McCain in similar ways seen here? Probably.
It is only my opinion that the fact that we could just as easily be on other sides of this issue made this post irrelevant, partisan handwringing. I actually wasn’t trying to go for the partisan talking point there.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
@mw, totally agree on Axelrod. IMO he’s the clean version of Rove, depending on your definition of clean. A lot depends on what comes out after the campaign of course. I’m probably showing my true colors in that I couldn’t possible limit my adjectives to crafty and effective re Rove. TMI about the campaigns he ran for TX and AL judges, much less his impact on the GWB campaigns and administration. It’s a timely reminder to give Axelrod less of a pass and explore his career. Double standards and all that.
@L, to clarify, I didn’t figure your post for a talking point. Perhaps I’ve misread you in an attempt to link thoughts. I’d propose that whichever side you’re on, the questions which mw raises about Obama’s fundraising are serious enough that partisan jabs should be irrelevant. Honest Obama supporters should be concerned (or at least intrigued) and reasonable conservatives like mw and Alan probably don’t need to undermine the seriousness of their posts with swipes at, by mw’s own reckoning, one corner of the Obamanation triangle. Lord knows I wouldn’t waste a keystroke in a vain attempt to persuade/castigate a Palinite. It’s been nice to find this site and I especially enjoy the sort of reasoned conservative discourse mw and Alan trade in. I suppose it’s too much to expect them to completely eschew rhetoric.
October 29th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I don’t remember Obama promising to accept public financing. I remember him saying he would pursue it with who ever was the Republican nominee.
I do remember McCain saying he would disavow all attacks from 527’s, that doesn’t seem to be happening.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Yeah… Sorry dude. Bummer. Selective memory loss is a well known side effect of Kool-Aid poisoning. Fortunately, there is a cure. Try to taper off on the dosage, peel off the blinders, after about six weeks your memory should start to recover. This might help.
On that 527 business… More confusion on your part. It was the
ObamaAxelrod campaign that got some fawning coverage with a big splashy PR initiative about reigning in the 527’s but then a few months later quietly encouraged them to go on the attack. Its the Chicago way.November 3rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
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