Rove on the hot seat

11.8.2012 1 Comment

Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS reportedly collected and spent between $300M-$400M this election cycle. The result:

  • Barack Obama retained the presidency, obliterating Mitt Romney in the so-called battleground states.
  • The Democratic Party gained a seat in the Senate.
  • The Democratic Party gained three seats in the House (this could change).

How might Rove spin this political-financial debacle? I cannot say, but he will make the effort to Crossroads contributors today, according to Politico. The big donors are pissed, according to a Huffington Post report, at their money being ill spent.

I would not complain at all if the GOP were to have A Night of the Long Knives. I find it difficult to imagine that a purge would dramatically alter the political situation in the United States. Besides, the blood-letting might produce more than a few amusing auto-satirical incidents!

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The ungrateful bastards

4.21.2012 Leave a comment

The New York Times reports that:

President Obama’s re-election campaign is straining to raise the huge sums it is counting on to run against Mitt Romney, with sharp dropoffs in donations from nearly every major industry forcing it to rely more than ever on small contributions and a relative handful of major donors.

From Wall Street to Hollywood, from doctors and lawyers, the traditional big sources of campaign cash are not delivering for the Obama campaign as they did four years ago. The falloff has left his fund-raising totals running behind where they were at the same point in 2008 — though well ahead of Mr. Romney’s — and has induced growing concern among aides and supporters as they confront the prospect that Republicans and their “super PAC” allies will hold a substantial advantage this fall.

To whom does the Obama campaign turn when the stuffed-pocket crowd has turned its collective back on him?

With big checks no longer flowing as quickly into his campaign, Mr. Obama is leaning harder on his grass-roots supporters, whose small contributions make up well over half of the money he raised through the end of March, according to reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission.

As one should have expected after the Supreme Court’s very controversial Citizens United
decision (.pdf), the Republican Super PACs are fat with cash. This has forced the Obama campaign to appeal for funding from the lesser people whose interests he failed to serve during his first term.

Caveat emptor!

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Atlas shrugging?

7.7.2011 Leave a comment

An early report shows organized labor might be withdrawing its financial support for candidates for federal office:

Union donations to federal candidates for the first three months of 2011 are far lower than donations during the same period in 2009 and in 2007, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Unions’ political action committees have contributed $4.75 million to federal candidates this year through the end of March, according to the Center’s research. In 2009, union PACs donated $8.44 million — and in 2007, union PACs donated $6.77 million — through the same period.

It is still not clear why donations are down 40 percent, although a fraction of this percentage may be due to PACs who have not yet filed any paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. The biggest PACs file monthly campaign finance reports with the FEC, but PACs that file semi-annually in 2011 won’t submit their first reports to the FEC until next week.

Even if Union PAC money were eventually proven to be higher than the sum revealed by the Open Secrets report, the decrease now evident may be the first sign of organized labor withdrawing its financial support for the Democratic Party. This change should not be too surprising given the structural features of the current economy, which promote high-unemployment and low-wages, and the role the Democratic Party has played in the creation of this situation. Why, after all, would labor support a party like the Democratic Party, a party that has adopted anti-labor policies for a while?

It should not support the Democratic Party unless, of course, it supports candidates that promise to support a labor agenda and do eventually deliver on their promises.

I cross-posted this article at Fire Dog Lake

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