Hutchison shown the money for gov run

It's no particular secret that U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, has been thinking about challenging Gov. Rick Perry in the 2006 primary. Polling consistently indicates that she is the most popular Texas political figure after President Bush.

But the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill threw a roadblock in the way of Hutchison's possible ambitions. According to Federal Elections Commission ruling, she would not be permitted to convert any of the $6.5 million raised in her senatorial account for a possible state campaign.

Starting with zero dollars would be daunting for any political figure. Perry has about $5 million on hand. Comptroller Carol Keeton Strayhorn has about $4 million.

At the moment, Perry is the odds on favorite among the really big Texas contributors, those that can write checks for $100,000 or more. As a lame duck senator focused on a state race, Hutchison would be at a decided fundraising disadvantage.

And the price of admission into a Republican gubernatorial primary is going to be at least $10 million.

But the world changed last week when it was discovered that a provision had been inserted into the massive federal spending bill working its way through Congress. The provision reversed McCain-Feingold and would allow dollars raised for federal campaigns to be used in state elections.

The bill has not yet reached the President's desk and, of course, anything can happen on its way to a signature.

But most observers believe the provision will survive, thus freeing up Hutchison's $6.5 million in contributions to be used in 2006 primary.

Even with the senator's popularity, it would be a mistake to underestimate Perry's strengths. Hutchison's last hard fought campaign was a decade ago whereas Perry fought tough campaigns against John Sharp in 1998 and Tony Sanchez in 2002. He has a campaign infrastructure on the ground and a turnout machine that has demonstrated its clout repeatedly since he has been governor.

There will be a lot of dynamics at play. But at least, today, it looks like Perry and Hutchison will probably have all the money they need.

Putin: Friend or Foe?
By Ariel Cohen
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 29, 2004

As George W. Bush is starting his second presidential term, relations with major powers will play an important role in defining his foreign policy. Russia is holding important cards on two top priorities of the second Bush Administration: Iran and North Korea.

At the meeting in Chile’s capital Santiago during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on November 21, Bush and his Russian counterpart presidents Vladimir Putin have reached an agreement to forgive 80 percent of Iraq’s debt to Moscow. Putin will forgo 7 out of $8 billion Saddam owed the Kremlin – not a small feat for Bush. The two presidents will meet for summit talks in the first months of 2005, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the press.

Putin informed Bush about measures “to strengthen the integrity of Russian executive authority and to develop the country's multi-party system,” Lavrov said. Russia is not claiming a monopoly role in the post- Soviet space, Lavrov noted, though, Russia has its interests and its relations with former Soviet republics must be based on “mutual respect and understanding of these interests.” He added that all conflicts in countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States will be settled either under the aegis of UN or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

 

George and Volodya

Bush’s relations with Russia have been surprisingly good after he struck close personal ties with an unlikely friend – former KGB operative Vladimir Putin at the summit in Slovenia in June 2001

U.S. military presence now encompasses Central Asia, where Russia cooperated in Operation Enduring Freedom to get rid of the Taliban, which threatened ex-Soviet Central Asia.

Putin explicitly recognizes that the jihadis are aiming to build a global Califate and are “wrapping their activities in Russia with slogans of Chechen independence.”

November 28, 2004 Ministers hit by sleaze row over ‘stars for Labour’ David Cracknell, Political Editor

MINISTERS were this weekend embroiled in a “stars for Labour” row after they were told to use their contacts with the rich and famous to get them to back the party. The disclosures, made in a series of e-mails, appear to be a breach of the code of conduct for ministers. This forbids politicians from using their government position for party purposes. E-mails from Labour’s “fundraising and endorsement taskforce” have revealed plans for ministers and their staff to supply the names of celebrities and business people who will publicly support the party and possibly fund it. It is clear that ministers are expected to supply names of people met during the course of government work, according to party sources. However, the office of John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, found the requests “totally unacceptable” and refused to co- operate. The e-mails suggest that Tony Blair and Alan Milburn, Labour’s election co-ordinator, have authorised the strategy, which could breach Whitehall’s strict anti-sleaze rules. A message from a Labour official within the past fortnight quotes the prime minister as wanting ministers and their advisers to “step up” their help in winning endorsements. It asks for a weekly diary of celebrities, business people and professionals they have met and asks for comments such as whether they are “hot — willing to assist the party” or “warm — indication onside”. An accompanying e-mail from a member of Milburn’s staff at the Cabinet Office says such work is “absolutely vital” to Labour’s campaign and encourages ministers and their advisers to comply. Labour party opinion polls and focus groups have shown that trust in ministers has plummeted and the public has more confidence in famous faces and professionals when they are talking about key policies. Last week a Labour party political broadcast contained half a dozen celebrities, mixing with teachers and nurses, extolling the virtues of its policies, under the slogan “Britain is working”. They included Simon Woodroffe, founder of the YO! Sushi! chain of restaurants; Michelle Mone, founder of the Ultimo bra; and Diarmuid Gavin, the television gardener. Neither Blair nor any Labour politicians appeared. A senior Labour source said the party uses a staged approach to fundraising. First get a celebrity or business person to endorse Blair or the party, then invite them to fundraising dinners. Finally it asks them to donate to the campaign war chest. “It’s like a ladder,” the source said. “People are first asked to endorse the party, then they get tapped up for a donation.” In recent years celebrities who have endorsed Labour and given the party money include Mick Hucknall, the leader singer in Simply Red; Patrick Stewart, the actor from Star Trek; and Richard Wilson from One Foot in the Grave. Liam Fox, the Tory party co-chairman, said he would be tabling parliamentary questions this week to establish whether Labour had broken the ministerial code of conduct. The code states: “Ministers must not use government resources for party political purposes.” “The political corrosiveness of Tony Blair’s government knows no bounds,” Fox said. “Even John Prescott now recoils at the corruption of the machinery of government by Blair’s cronies. We will be tabling questions to find out exactly how tainted Labour now is.”

In 1998 a memorandum from a party official suggested Labour planned to use access to ministers and people in No 10 to raise donations from businessmen by “flattering their desire to offer political advice”.

“The prime minister has asked the party to step up its work on endorsements in preparation for the general election campaign and for you to be involved in this,” Baker stated.

“Endorsements play a vital role in raising the public’s awareness of policy areas and we need to increase our intelligence gathering operation to ensure we can provide appropriate endorsements for the campaign.

“The fundraising and endorsements taskforce has been charged with collating and updating our database of potential endorsers and contacts the party has. We have categorised endorsers into three areas: business, celebrities and professionals. There is obviously an overlap between these groups, based on past comparison, priorities and experiences.

“In order for us to collate information and to widen the net we need to be aware of what is going on and who in government is having contact with whom. You are in an important position as far as being able to inform us of who you and your secretary/minister of state are meeting with.”

Baker attached a form, called a “contact summary” spreadsheet, for political advisers to detail on behalf of their ministers each meeting they had with celebrities, businessmen or professionals.

On the same day, another e-mail from Milburn’s office backed up the campaign: “This work is absolutely vital to our general election preparations. (We) encourage you to ensure that you feed back to Old Queen’s Street (Labour headquarters) on a weekly basis as they have requested.”

However, last Tuesday, November 23, Prescott’s office issued a curt reply to Baker: “Jody, for the record, and as you might already be aware, we find this totally unacceptable and will not be co-operating with this exercise.”

A Labour party spokesman said last night: “It is not news that the Labour party is looking to work with supporters and endorsers in the run-up to the general election. We don’t accept that there would be a breach of the ministerial code.” Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Harvard Independent dot com - Arts Issue: 10/21/04

The recently released FUTURE Soundtrack for America, a collaboration featuring artists from R.E.M. and Tom Waits to OK Go and Jimmy Eat World to the late Elliott Smith, is, first and foremost, a fundraising effort for political causes. Motivated by the desire to get out and do something about the problems they see in our country today, multiple groups came together in this effort to contribute to organizations working for change. The back cover of the CD declares that 100% of the profits from the album "will go to non-profit organizations working to involve more Americans in our political process, to advocate for ordinary people and traditional American values, and to help keep the United States a country all of us can be proud of." The inside liner notes list suggested causes and organizations that interested listeners can get involved in.

Alright, now, all this having been said, I have to confess that before I heard this album, I had listened to very few of the artists on it. Primarily a folk, bluegrass, and classic rock fan, I admit to very little exposure to the indie/alt rock, so called "emo" sound. This album was described as along these lines as the album was handed to me. Consequently, I took the CD with plenty of nervousness about just what I was expected to say about it in a review. Sure, I had heard some Jimmy Eat World on the radio, and being from Georgia, I was well acquainted with R.E.M., but most of the other named were only vaguely familiar to me.

I'm not sure what I expected, but this CD surprised me with its variety, with its sound, and with how much I actually ended up liking it. I suppose I had an uninformed idea about the variety and talent that was actually out there these days. I found unexpected familiar sounding songs, like Clem Snide's heart-felt "Ballad of David Icke," which sounded like a traditional ballad musically and vocally, while being absolutely modern in its content and concerns, and also Laura Cantrell's "Sam Stone," which could be sung by an edgier Emmylou Harris or Allison Kraus. I also found artists I had never really listened to before and now want to investigate further, like Bright Eyes and OK Go.

Ultimately, this CD has something for everyone. Whether you like that folky, alternative country sound, "emo," alternative rock, or indie music, or you want to try a wide variety of new artists, or if you just want to contribute to get-out-the-vote efforts and liberal causes, I would recommend this album.

Kelly Faircloth '08 (fairclot@fas) endorses open mindedness in music and in politics.

The Denver Post.com published Oct 24, 2004 Mud-slinging season, Political campaigns get nastier every year by Fred Brown

Candidates of the same party always have been expected to run on the same platform. Now they even use the same playbook.

Local campaigns have been "nationalized," says Loevy. In his Colorado Springs television market, all the 3rd Congressional District spots have come from the congressional campaign committees. They focus on national issues like Iraq and the economy, not local issues like water. Loevy believes the increasing influence from out of state increases the negativity.

Political campaigns have become like pledge drives for public broadcasting - common phrases are developed that everyone uses.

George Lakoff, a University of California linguistics professor who spoke in Denver earlier this year, maintains that the Republicans are much better at this than the Democrats are. Lakoff says this "framing" of issues and language is reinforced through conservative think tanks, political commentators appearing on news shows, and 1,500 talk radio hosts who look at things through conservatively tinted lenses.

The Berkeley theorist's favorite example from the right's dictionary is the phrase "tax relief." It implies that "tax" is an affliction that needs someone to provide "relief." It puts government revenue in a bad light and proposes it should be obvious that tax cuts are always good.

The left has its examples of framing, too. "Affirmative action" is one - a positive phrase for a policy that is not universally applauded.

"The Republican spinmeisters are the masters of the playbook," says Jim Carpenter, manager of the U.S. Senate campaign of Democrat Ken Salazar.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had a list, Carpenter said. "The Republicans have worked very hard at this: Use these words, not those words."

But both parties do it, he says. "I think absolutely there are talking points, suggested comments, that go out all the time."

The Salazar campaign works with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, "and they talk about things that work around the country." Technology has improved the speed of those communications. But there's no "coercion" or "enforcement" to get everyone to use the same techniques, Carpenter said.

And then there's the Internet, which serves as fundraiser, affirmer of partisan beliefs and watchdog.

Howard Dean's success in the early Democratic primaries was attributed to his canny use of the Web to energize young voters and bring in thousands of donations.

The Internet also gives its users instant access to "all of the information they could ever hope to have," says Atkinson. It's "only a mouse-click away."

And it was right-leaning Web loggers - electronic diarists, or "bloggers" - who moved at the speed of light to point out inconsistencies in documents used in Dan Rather's report on the president's National Guard record.

In today's media environment, with new kinds of journalists watching over the old ones, no one can get away with sloppiness or inaccuracy.

Perhaps because everybody uses it, negative campaigning has grown in acceptance. Its defenders say it's the best way to spotlight the issues and the opponent's weaknesses.

"If you're on the receiving end, it's an attack ad. If you're the one doing the ad, it's a comparison," Atkinson says.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has said it may be an ancient survival instinct. People remember what's bad - the negative - because it's more likely to hurt them or eat them.

"If you watch the ads carefully, they're designed to upset you," says Loevy. Fundraising letters have used that tactic for decades. People are more likely to vote when they're upset.

"This election is very divisive," says UCD's Cummings, "but a good aspect of that is it motivates more people to get involved."

In the short term it does, but in the long term, Cummings feels, it eventually becomes "a terrible disservice to the political process." Fewer people will want to be involved with politicians "because they're all crooks," Cummings said.

But Atkinson is predicting a record turnout this year, "despite the negative tone of the campaigns."

"Everybody likes to moan and groan about all the political advertising on television," she says. "But I get tired of toothpaste ads, too."

And the stakes are much higher in politics. A toothpaste manufacturer may be happy with 2 percent of the toothed market; a campaign needs 51 percent, and it has to get its message out in less time.

"It's virtually obnoxious," said Loevy.

Added Atkinson: "It's the most important thing nobody wants to hear about."

Fred Brown can be reached at (punditfwb@aol.com) ).

The Proxy War. Government graft and cronyism are massive problems for

China's Communist Party-and the top complaints of ordinary Chinese. The

problem now serves as a battleground upon which the country's most powerful

political actors are jousting, reports Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu. Since

China's leaders are not given to drastic policy shifts or pronouncements,

observers are keeping a close eye on the protigis of new President Hu Jintao

and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin.

one of Europe's greatest problems, reports Special Correspondent Stefan Theil.

Despite half a century of European unification, Europeans seem as bound to

their own soil and surroundings as ever. The vast majority of the now 18

million jobless Europeans are unlikely to ever look beyond their own backyards

for work. No matter that regions such as southern Germany, northern Italy and

much of England are practically begging for outside labor. When European

leaders gather in Brussels on Nov. 3, this issue will be high on their

priority list.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6315317/site/newsweek/
WORLD VIEW: TV, Money, and 'Crossfire' Politics. Comedy Central's Jon

Stewart was right when he said that CNN's "Crossfire" and other TV programs

like it were not discussion shows but theater, writes Editor Fareed Zakaria.

"The structure of political life in Washington is increasingly made for

theater, partisan fundraising, polling, and consulting-but not for governing.

And after a close election the problem is only going to get worse," he writes.

"Progress on any major problem-the deficit, Social Security, health care-will

require compromise from both sides ... But that's highly unlikely."

Chris Bell is a one-term Texas Democratic congressman who lost his bid for re-election when the Texas legislature gratuitously gerrymandered him into a district where he had to face another (apparently more popular) Democratic incumbent. With his career nipped in the bud, Bell, perhaps humming the “Me and Bobby McGee” lyric about freedom being another word for nothing left to lose, filed a 187-page ethics complaint against Tom DeLay, the powerful House Majority Leader and engineer of the hyper-aggressive redistricting scheme that claimed Bell's seat.

Bell's long-overdue complaint accused DeLay of “bribery, extortion, fraud, money laundering and the abuse of power.” In response, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has so far rebuked DeLay twice. The first time was for being insufficiently discreet in his influence-peddling (“Geez, Tom, take the time to maintain a veil of hypocrisy, willya?”) The second time was for using the Federal Aviation Administration to track down furtive Democratic Texas legislators after they had escaped to Oklahoma in an effort to deny the Republican majority a quorum for the redistricting session in which the state Democratic Party would be sliced and diced to death. (The panel had shown a lot of backbone to this point, but in a prime example of state-of-the-art buck passing, deferred action on another of Bell's complaints, this one alleging illegal corporate fundraising. They are going to wait and see what happens to three DeLay cronies who have been charged with felonies in that matter.)

Regardless of what else happens – and there hangs in the air the kind of ominous silence that precedes the dropping of the other shoe – Bell's complaint has already inspired House Speaker Dennis Hastert to deliver what will surely prove to be one of the Ten Most Unintentionally Hilarious Comments of the Year. “The worry I have,” Hastert told The New York Times, “is that you again politicize the process, and it denigrates what ethics is all about.”

And surely the name of Tom DeLay should never be associated with any denigration of ethics.

Tom DeLay is the most odious character in American politics today. He does not lack for competition, of course, but what sets him apart is that all of his perversions have been accomplished under the radar screen. Apart from his colorful name “the Hammer,” DeLay has no public identity, and even that nickname will more likely inspire people outside the Beltway to think of old jocks like Fred Williamson or Dave Schultz than the beady-eyed former exterminator who terrifies Capitol Hill. It's easy to dislike Dick Cheney; he gets lampooned on “Saturday Night Live.” But Darrell Hammond could perform a dead-on impersonation of Tom DeLay, and almost nobody would get the reference. Tom DeLay is a cancer cell, silently metastasizing.

Perhaps "The Hammer: Tom DeLay: God, Money, and the United States Congress" will shine a bright spotlight on the nefarious activities of the majority leader. Lou Dubose and Jan Reid have calmly, clearly and pointedly laid out the story of DeLay's rise from an undistinguished Texas legislature backbencher to his current position of power. They show how DeLay has morphed from a tough whip, admired in the hardball world of Washington politics for his take-no-prisoners approach to party discipline, to a thoroughgoing bully who uses money and capricious, Scarface-like gestures to amass more and more and more power.

The most fun to be had from this book will be the arguments it causes about which of DeLay's antics is most scurrilous. Is it his turning over his office to industry lobbyists to write legislation? Is it his innovation of jamming conference committees with loyalists who will pack bills with choice pieces of pork and industry-pleasing amendments? Will it be the way DeLay crazy-cut the district map of Texas to eliminate the possibility of contested elections? Is it his gluttonous fundraising and his naked commerce in political favors? Maybe it's the way he tried to bribe Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) to vote a certain way in exchange for a $100,000 payment to Smith's son's campaign committee.

It's hard to say that any one of these is more shocking than the next, although DeLay's colluding with clothing manufacturers in the Marianas Islands, a U.S. protectorate, to set up unregulated sweatshops is particularly ugly and shameless. DeLay and his benefactors created an industry that enjoyed American trade protection but that operated without American regulations, leaving the workers in virtual servitude.

So swaggering has DeLay become that he even spits on the hands that feed him – the lobbyists. DeLay not only does business with lobbyists, but he has also subsumed them. In one early, tone-setting power play, he discovered that the electronics industry was about to appoint as its chief lobbyist a former Democratic congressman, Dave McCurdy. DeLay told the industry that he didn't approve of its choice. When the association refused to change its selection, DeLay simply yanked off the House calendar an important piece of legislation that the administration, congressional committees, and the industry had been working on for months. The industry group cobbled together a face-saving arrangement, and DeLay put the bill back on the schedule, but a billboard on K Street couldn't have sent the message more clearly. So thoroughly has DeLay taken over the lobbies that now lobbyists actually work for him. You may be, for example, an automotive lobbyist, but when DeLay wants a tobacco bill passed, he gets you to talk to the congressmen from car country.

Politics, as it's been famously said, ain't beanbag, and the list of powerful people, Democrat and Republican, who have advanced personal and special interests over the public interest is long indeed. But it's just not true to say that DeLay is simply engaging in the kind of corruption Democratic leaders succumbed to during their long period in control of Congress. DeLay is a corruptor to a revolutionary degree. As The Boston Globe recently reported, conference committees stuffed 3,407 bits of pork barrel legislation into this year's federal budget; in 1994, the last year Democrats controlled the House, 47 projects were added. In 1977-78, 85 percent of non-appropriations legislation was sent to the floor under open rules that permitted amendment; in the DeLay-controlled Congress, only 15 percent had open rules. As "The Hammer" spells out in detail, DeLay subverts the public's business, undermines the rules and perverts ideas of fairness in order to gain even more control of the House, the legislative process, the Republican Party and national policy. DeLay has not merely maximized the powers of his office; he's not merely the model of the modern martinet; he has eliminated all the customary checks on his power. There are no longer powerful committee chairmen or a group of independent moderates to act as a check; indeed, given the embarrassing redistricting he masterminded in Texas, voters are hardly a check anymore.

As Dubose and Reid explain, DeLay has accumulated all this power not for personal aggrandizement – he lives rather modestly – but to promote his causes, big business, and fundamentalist Christianity. This places DeLay right at the center of two of the most dangerous trends in America today: the rise of corporate society and the fundamentalization of politics. The balance between business and government, between private economic good and the public realm, which produced a standard of living that was the envy of the world, has been radically tilted in favor of business. And, as we have seen, political leaders who are confident in their own righteousness are apt to embark on all kinds of unsound policies. DeLay is not just a tough guy or a cunning guy; DeLay is a power-grabbing radical who wants to undermine the democratic nature of our political institutions and our two-party system. I doubt very much that DeLay will like this book, but as a man who knows something about pest control, I hope events turn out in such a way that he eventually comes to recognize its insecticidal strength.

This gives some idea of how the DNC chair is put in place and may be a mirror image of what the Repub Pty does: wwww.alternet.org Dec. 1, 2004

The selection of DNC Chair defines a bright line between large and small 'd' democrats: the face of the people's party will be decided by 447 members of the Democratic National Committee in secret balloting. While those members are largely elected by their respective state and local parties, they are nonetheless a small, insular group of party insiders who live in a Washington political culture apart from the rest of America.

And it's a closed system; while anyone can become a candidate for Party chair, 20 established DNC members must back their run. Candidates have lobbied in the halls of Congress, at cocktail parties and, according to ABC news, during the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock last week. The millions of people who gave their time and money in vain during the election – leaving everything they had on the field – have little say in which way the party is headed. Yet the liberal political junkies continue to gaze with rapt attention at the proceedings.

Now, contrast that with what the right is doing during Washington's slow season. Having won the "most important election of our lifetime," social conservatives aren't resting on their laurels. Their leaders are calling for an Evangelical revolution, and they've found an issue around which they can keep their people mobilized: fighting a secular, rogue judiciary bent on re-writing the Constitution. The right's socially conservative base wants real activist judges credentialed by the leading lights of the strict constructionist set, and they're going to fight to get them come hell or high water.

That battle has heated up over Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) becoming head of the Senate Judiciary Committee and threatening to moderate the GOP's nominees. Facing down Specter is a coalition of 20 Evangelical Christian, conservative Catholic and Orthodox Jewish groups planning a nationwide day of demonstrations on December 9. They'll be camped outside senators' offices – both in DC and in their home states. Letter-writing campaigns and phone banks have been in full swing. Hard-core conservative activists like direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie are giving their all to the push. Viguerie told me in an interview that "conservatives have been biting their tongues and going along for the sake of the re-election. Now there's a feeling that we put in all this effort and it's time to work on our agenda. There is a lot of pent up pressure and stress about our issues." The most powerful faction of the right's base is turning that pressure around on their party.

William Greene, the founder of Rightmarch.com, a website dedicated to conservative activism, told me that his site alone had funneled 155,000 faxes to conservative senators. "I think they were bowled over by the response and didn't know what to do with it," Greene said. "The Senate has their traditions, their old boys' network, their rules and they're not used to that kind of outside pressure."

An un-named Republican Senator told the Washington Times that the 1,000 phone calls his office received in one day was the most since the Senate debated the Federal Marriage Amendment. Judiciary Committee member Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said at a news conference that his office had received more calls from concerned citizens than at any time since the Clinton impeachment. Remember, these are the people who just won the election.

Those squeaky wheels apparently weren't enough to block Specter's appointment, but it wasn't a loss for the movement. According to Rightmarch's Greene, "without that pressure Specter would have just waltzed right in and he wouldn't have been beholden to anyone. But because the Senate was overwhelmed by the grassroots response we won't have a rogue liberal Republican senator who can do anything he wants. Instead, we'll have a liberal Republican senator who has been so thoroughly chastised that he was forced to sign a document pledging to toe the line."

So the right's activist base is busy getting things done. And we, once again, turn to a national leadership that's so busy navel-gazing and avoiding an ideological debate that it is unable to offer a compelling alternative to an extreme conservative agenda and too spineless to get in there and fight the dirty, no-holds-barred brawl this country's polity demands.

It's time for liberals to lead and the Democratic Party bosses to either follow or get the hell out of the way. Where is our liberal ideology? Who is funneling all that election energy into a renewed opposition to the war in Iraq? Who is in charge of spending the next wave of money for the 2006 mid-term elections? Who is organizing a push back against the right-wing fringe's all-out assault on the judiciary?

Conservatives have learned that national parties do not have a character of their own but are vehicles by which savvy players can push their agendas into the public sphere. And they deliver thunder and lightning to the Republicans who stand in their way. Until liberals learn that lesson and create a national movement independent of the Democrats, they will be unable to exert influence over the party's platform. And until they start a conversation about ideology, we can look forward to loss after loss by the party of the slightly less destructive platform, regardless of whom its new chairman is.

The race for Maryland Democratic Party Chair has proven surprisingly competitive, with three announced candidates taking each other to the mat over the future of the state party. Party Treasurer Gary Gensler, former Howard Dean state political director and congressional candidate Terry Lierman, and former Glendening staffer Dan Ruppley are vying for the office, whose current holder, Ike Leggett, is stepping down most likely to run for Montgomery County Executive.

Gensler maintains a home in Baltimore County, though his main residence is Montgomery County. He has been the treasurer of the national Democratic Party and has a proven record as a fundraiser. Gensler appears to have been the initial frontrunner but is facing a staunch challenge from Lierman, a resident of Maryland's Eighth Congressional District, whose fundraising skills are also considerable -- he was the national finance co-chair for the Dean campaign. It is expected that a Lierman chairmanship would result in more grassroots Democratic activism, as his work with Dean demonstrates; Gensler seems to be the choice of the older, more entrenched party bosses.

The two candidates are waging an extremely low-profile pitched battle for votes inside the several-hundred-member Democratic State Central Committee, which decides the next party chair. A third candidate, Dan Ruppley of Frederick, has a record of experience in former Gov. Parris Glendening's political campaigns. However, a party insider and Lierman supporter who asked not to be named told me that Lierman has been endorsed by Frederick Mayor Jennifer Dougherty, which would seem to put quite a damper on Ruppley's hopes.

The divisive race highlights the many divisions among a party still smarting from its 2002 gubernatorial defeat at the hands of then-Rep. Bob Ehrlich. One high-profile Democrat, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, has already announced he is challenging Ehrlich in 2006; another Democrat, Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, also is gearing up for a run. The party is also split along urban/rural lines, with Eastern Shore and Western and Southern Maryland residents feeling passed over in favor of heavy Baltimore and D.C.-area representation.

More 'soft money' used in election

December 13, 2004

WASHINGTON (AP) — Whatever the reasons John Kerry and the Democrats lost the race for the White House, lack of money wasn’t one.

Tax-exempt pro-Democratic groups raising big checks for this year’s election collected almost twice as much money as their Republican rivals in the presidential race, a study shows. The financial advantage comes in addition to record fundraising by Kerry, the unsuccessful candidate, and the Democratic Party.

In all, nonparty political groups, known as 527s because of the tax code section that covers them, raised about $534 million and spent roughly $544 million in the 2003-04 election cycle, the analysis by the nonpartisan Political Money Line campaign finance tracking service found.

The prolific fundraising is a sign that such groups, many of which debuted in the 2004 election season, will have no problem surviving the competition for contributions, Kent Cooper, co-founder of Political Money Line, said yesterday. Fundraising drives over websites and through e-mail helped several become political players very quickly, he said.

“I think it shows you that with the Internet, anyway, your lines of communication can be large pipelines for quick money,” Cooper said.

The presidential race drew most of their attention. Groups supporting John Kerry or opposing President Bush raised $266 million. Those opposing Kerry or backing Bush collected $144 million, the Political Money Line said. The study was based on a review of the organizations’ postelection campaign finance reports to the Internal Revenue Service.

Democratic activists began forming such groups soon after a law took effect in November 2002 that banned national party committees from collecting “soft money” — corporate or union contributions in any amount and unlimited donations from any source.

Leading groups such as the Media Fund and America Coming Together, jump-started by multimillion-dollar donations from wealthy businessmen such as George Soros, focused on advertising and get-out-the-vote operations. That eased pressure on the national Democratic Party, which was prohibited from raising six- and seven-figure donations to finance such expensive activities. The outside groups’ similarities in objective to party committees prompted campaign finance watchdogs to characterize them as “shadow parties.”

Republicans, relying in part on their long-standing advantage over Democrats in collecting donations in modest amounts such as $10 or $20 as well as checks up to the new individual donor of $25,000 per year, initially held off on formation of their own 527 groups.

Instead, they argued that the pro-Democratic organizations violated the new law’s broad ban on the use of soft money to influence federal elections. The Federal Election Commission failed to curb the groups’ activities, however, and GOP activists decided last spring to forge ahead with their own outside groups.

The new Republican groups quickly raised millions from wealthy Republicans such as Texas homebuilder Bob Perry. His donations helped fund the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose allegations that Kerry exaggerated his decorated Vietnam War service record monopolized attention in the campaign for weeks last summer. Their late start limited their impact on the presidential race.

The anti-Bush groups, meanwhile, had millions of dollars on hand by the time Kerry wrapped up the Democratic primaries last winter. They spent big on TV ads that kept Kerry’s side on the air as he worked to rebuild his campaign fund.

In addition to the pro-Democratic outside groups’ financial advantage over their pro-Bush counterparts in the presidential race, the Democratic National Committee out-raised the Republican National Committee by several million dollars during the two-year election cycle.

Although Bush raised an all-time presidential record of $273 million from private contributors, Kerry was not far behind. He collected a Democratic-record $249 million after veering from party tradition and becoming the first Democratic nominee ever to skip public financing and its spending limits during the primaries, as Bush did in 2000 and 2004.

"If you're in good with the Senate president, you get the money; if you're not, you don't. It's that simple," said Frank Sapareto, a former state senator from Derry who lost his re-election bid this fall in a Republican primary - in part, he claims, because party leaders were reluctant to spend money on his race.

Those involved in the process say what's going on in New Hampshire is no aberration.

"(Contributors) probably are feeling the squeeze, but what they're seeing here is what already happens in other states," said Mini Timmaraju, who handles fundraising for Senate Democrats.

So, how does it work? Both parties rely more and more on political action committees - known as PACs - to pool money and target their resources. State campaign finance laws allow unlimited donations to PACs. Contributions to individual candidates are limited to $1,000 ($5,000 if the candidate abides by voluntary spending caps).

The Senate PACs have been around since the mid-1990s, but until recently they handed out small amounts of money directly to candidates. In recent years, however, both parties have turned the PACs into full-time fundraising vehicles with a new professionalism and expertise, spending tens of thousands of dollars on their own advertising campaigns.

The committees organize regular fund-raisers, often asking up to $1,000 from attendees, who include lobbyists, corporations and wealthy donors. Both parties raised impressive sums this past election cycle: Democrats brought in $185,000, while Republicans raised $127,000. The money is controlled by the parties' Senate leaders: Tom Eaton of Keene for Republicans, and Sylvia Larsen of Concord for the Democrats.

In the past, much of the money raised came in $50 or $100 amounts. Now, both parties regularly rake in donations of $1,000 and up. Lobbyist groups like the New Hampshire Medical Society and the New Hampshire Gaming Association doled out checks in the thousands to the Republican Senate caucus. U.S. Sen. John Sununu's fundraising committee, the Daniel Webster PAC, donated $5,000 in October. Pfizer, the drug manufacturer, gave $2,000 last summer.

For the past two years, Democrats took advantage of the New Hampshire presidential primary to scoop up huge gifts from several candidates: $25,000 from Rep. Dick Gephardt alone, $19,000 from Sen. John Edwards. Stoneyfield Farm donated $5,000, and the New Hampshire Educators PAC gave $4,500.

A good portion of the money goes directly to the consultants who arrange the fundraising events, coordinate the advertising campaigns and help determine which races need the money.

Dave Carney fills that role on the Republican side. His consulting firm, Norway Hill Associates, gets $2,000 a month to host regular fundraisers for up to 10 senators. That includes designing and printing invitations, preparing the guest list and sorting through the checks.

It's a relatively modest fee, but it's guaranteed throughout the year. Carney picked up nearly $15,000 from the Republican Senate PAC in the six months after the November 2002 election, even though the only PAC event during that time was one fundraiser in early January.

Last spring, Carney organized fundraisers for at least eight Republican senators, most of them casual affairs of light hors d'oeuvres - with a $250 or $500 price tag. A breakfast event for Sen. Joseph Kenney of Union in April, "Java with Joe," asked $500 for "cappuccino,"$250 for "latte" and $100 for "espresso."

Then there are the bigger fundraisers hosted by Eaton and Senate Majority Leader Bob Clegg of Hudson. A President's Day fundraiser at the Grappone Center in Concord last February brought in $35,000. A $1,000 check got the donor named co-chair of the reception.

When campaign time comes around, Eaton and Larsen decide how to spend the money, relying on the advice of the consultants who have sophisticated polling data at their fingertips. They target races that seem competitive, or where an opponent seems to be spending a lot of his or her own cash. In 2004, both parties spent tens of thousands of dollars on advertisements, bro-chures and mail pieces for candidates they thought needed the extra financial boost. When Sen. Carl Johnson of Meredith faced a challenge from Richard Brothers in the Republican primary last year, Carney whipped up a batch of brochures attacking Brothers, courtesy of the PAC.

While state law requires the committees to report how much they raise and spend, they don't have to specify which candidates benefit. They aren't supposed to coordinate their spending with the candidate.

Carney said the increased dollar amounts are the result of the higher cost of politics. Mailings and advertisements are more expensive, and that money has to come from somewhere.

"Lobbyists may get more hit up then they used to, but they're free not to come if they don't want to,"Carney said.

Some of the capital's best-known lobbyists said they may take him up on that offer.

"I'm taking another look at a lot of fundraisers," said Liz Murphy, a lobbyist who represents clients like Verizon and KeySpan. "I'd prefer that my money go directly to candidates, rather than to fund the salaries of fundraisers."

Timmaraju, the Senate Democrats'fundraiser, who is paid $3,000 a month year-round for her services, said pooling money among the candidates allows for better coordination. Most candidates, especially first-time candidates, are reluctant to ask for money and don't know how to spend it wisely, she said.

"We're here to streamline the operation," said Timmaraju, who raised money for candidates in Oklahoma, Tennessee and South Carolina before she was recruited to New Hampshire last year. "We're the campaign experts; we make sure the money is spent more effectively."

Both Carney and Timmaraju say their work takes a lot of pressure off individual Senate candidates. But it also centralizes a lot of money - and influence - in the hands of the Senate's most powerful people.

It also changes the dynamic within the Senate. When Sen. Ted Gatsas of Manchester challenged Eaton for the Senate presidency last month, the ten senators who supported Eaton had all been the recipient of fundraisers organized by the PAC. Carney said he was happy to help any senator with money; those who didn't get any money - like Gatsas - just happened not to ask for it.

Be that as it may, the lack of accounting for how the PAC money is spent can leave candidates wondering whether they got fair treatment. Sapareto, for instance, said when he asked Eaton and Carney for a mailing to help him fight off a tough primary challenge, they obliged. But Sapareto suspects they spent far less money on him than on other incumbent Republicans, because he was known to go against party leadership on votes in the last legislative session.

"I had no idea how much they spent on me," Sapareto said. "I always wondered how much money they had and who they were giving it to."

Questions like these didn't come up in past, said Jim Rubens, a state senator from 1994 to 1998.

Rubens, a Republican from Hanover, said candidates used to be "on their own" in raising money. The Senate president would hand out small sums, "but it wasn't enough to make or break a campaign," Rubens said.

"When the amount of money directed by party leadership is large enough to influence election outcomes, senators are going to be more receptive to the wishes of leadership," Rubens said. "Look at the national Congress. You see people in office less willing to buck their party leadership."

Re Bernard Kerick who was briefly up for Homeland directorship: By 1991, he was working for the Giuliani mayoral election campaign won him the job of Commissioner of Corrections after Giuliani’s election. “He couldn’t run the Rikers commissary without getting greedy and making a mess,” one correction veteran told a NYC newspaper columnist, referring to the nearly $1 million of tobacco-company kickbacks that were diverted into one of Kerik’s shady charity foundations. At Corrections, Kerik organized a political party machine of city employees ready to “volunteer” for canvassing and fundraising for the Republican Party. Scandal also swirls around Kerik’s friend and long-time chief-of-staff, John Picciano, who for a time was under investigation for having beaten up his girlfriend and for having pointed his gun at her. Despite the fact that he lacked a college (and a high school) degree - a requirement that had been established in 1985 for anyone promoted above captain – Kerik was appointed Police Commissioner by Giuliani in August 2000 in the wake of the atrocities famously committed by NYPD cops against Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima. (Kerik was later awarded a college degree in 2001 from Empire State College, which awarded credits for “life or work experience.”) While employed by Dyncorp, he went to Baghdad to rebuild the Iraqi police force after the US invasion. But three months into his $140,000 six-month contract, Kerik abruptly left Iraq for reasons never explained, leaving in his wake a corps of incompetent, corrupt and compromised police officers.

Since then, he has been employed by Giuliani Partners, a private security consulting group set up by the former NYC mayor, and he has served on the boards of several corporations and at least two charities which are currently under investigation for financial misconduct.

Town of Tonawanda officials reviewed a set of proposed laws Thursday that restrict campaign and fund-raising activities down to the use of a paper clip.

Councilman John Flynn, a Democrat who drew up the measures, said the additions to the ethics code protect Town employees and establish ethical guidelines for proper conduct of Town officials.

The proposed amendments prohibit officials from requiring employees to take part in campaign activities. They also prevent the use of items owned by the Town — such as telephones, fax machines, computers or Town letterhead — for soliciting political campaign contributions.

Deputy Town Attorney Kevin T. Stocker, citing the stiff penalties in the law, questioned whether Town property included something as small as a paper clip.

“As long as we’re down to paper clips, you shouldn’t even be using paper clips,” said Cal Champlain, town clerk.

Violations of the ethics code carry fines of up to $10,000 and possible criminal charges.

The five members of the current Board of Ethics agreed that restricting political activities and preventing employees from being coerced into political fundraising is a smart move.

“It’s clearly spelled it out and people know what can and can’t be done,” board member Lou Reuter said. http://www.tonawanda-news.com/story.asp?id=1310