August 2008

How many commitments does he have to break?

The
LA times has exposed a nice little bit of hypocrisy from Barack
Obama’s campaign. His campaign is now directly soliciting
high-six-figure checks from unions:

In an example of the campaign’s late-innings effort, a very
senior Obama campaign official called the political director of one
of the largest labor unions about two weeks ago and asked for a
$500,000 contribution on top of a similar amount that had been
committed just a few weeks before, according to the union
official.

The campaign, further more, refuses to deny whether Obama is
doing it directly:

A spokesman for the campaign, Hari Sevugan, declined to say
whether Obama himself had become involved in these fundraising
efforts or to confirm any details of work done by others from the
campaign.

Now, my problem here isn’t that he is doing it. It is the
hypocrisy of attacking it and then doing and claiming that he is
clean. This “say Mister Clean, do Mr. Washington” pattern is
the pattern of his campaign. Read on for
details.

First he says that he will take public financing. Then he
doesn’t. His argument is that he gets most of his money from small
donors. It’s not true, as noted by Open
Secrets.

In the primary, he attacked outside groups for attacking him,
but thought it was fine that they attacked Obama. He also invoked
Republican outside groups — and there are none this year — when
he dropped out of public financing. At the same time, AFL-CIO is
dropping $54m, and just last week the
the Obama campaign started sending signals to outside groups
that they should turn it on.

Indeed, as a comical exercise, just
google “obama outside groups”. Here’s what you get:

• 
  Obama Aide Warns Against “Shadowy Outside Groups” in Fundraising
  Pitch

• Outside
  Groups Aid Obama, Their Vocal Critic

• Obama: Don’t
  Fund the Outside Groups

• 
  Obama favorite of outside groups

• 
  Source: Obama To Start Looking The Other Way On 527s

The only “Change I Can Believe In” there is the changing on the
dime for his own political advantage.

John McCain released a technology policy. For the most part, I am not qualified to comment on it, but I appreciate that it is more an "innovation" policy than a "technology" policy.

That said, I am completely shocked by some of the responses from the techno-left on this. They seem to actively desire the government to engage in social engineering through industrial policy. It is terrifying.

I first saw this in Micah Sifry’s tweet yesterday.

to McCain, the net appears to be just an economic engine. A series of tubes, if you will.

I was startled by this when I read it. "Just an economic engine" is not a bad thing to my mind. This thing that is "just an economic engine" has dramatically transformed our lives in a small number of years. But I just thought it was weird. Then I read this at Joho the Blog:

To McCain, the Internet is all about business. It’s about people working and buying stuff. There is nothing — nothing — in his policy statement that acknowledges that maybe the Net is also a new way we citizens are connecting with one another. The phrase “free speech” does not show up in it. The term “democracy” does not show up in it. What’s the opposite of visionary?

The most generous reading of this is unserious technology fetishism. Why should a document about government’s economic levers in encouraging innovation talk about "democracy"? The most alarming reading is that everything we do should be subordinated to technology. But it doesn’t stop there.

Joho later says, "Even if we ignore the cultural, social, and democratic aspects of the Net …" Does he really want government policy to regulate the "cultural, social, and democratic" aspects of anything? Should these be the subject of tax policy? Which government agency? Should we make a new "Federal Cultural and Social Regulatory Agency?"

For real guys. Do you want government guiding the way in the creation of cultural or social practices?

Now, "democracy" is a seperate question. But here, McCain and the RNC have actually put resources and time where the Democrats and Obama have not. There is much more of a mechanism for feedback on the RNC platform. McCain actually uses participatory — as in "Partcipatory Democracy Forum" — frameworks as the default mode of campaigning.  Sure he doesn’t blackberry and SMS with Scarlett Johansen, but so what? And what does that tell us about "democracy"?

On another level, the transformative impact of technology on our lives is occurring precisely because of economics. Lowered transaction and manufacturing costs are allowing interactions and connections that could not happen before. But why have the government drive that? Let’s have the government facilitate the innovation and let everyone drive it.

The Club for Growth just dropped a huge amount of coin in Alaska to help Sean Parnell. $350k for 2 weeks, the largest independent expenditure in a federal race in Alaska history, according to one AK operative. Here’s the ad:

CfG has taken care of the negative. Now go help Sean Parnell with the positive. Give money to Sean Parnell.

When you give money to your spouse, aren’t you giving money to
yourself?

Regular readers will know that I hate corruption, especially by
elected officials and unions. The press seems to love the stories
about the elected officials, but rarely focuses on the unions. The

LA Times breaks the mold:

Advocates for low-wage caregivers called on authorities Monday
to investigate the spending practices of a Los Angeles union and a
related charity that have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to
firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of the labor
organization’s leader. …

It gets tastier:

In addition, the union last year spent nearly $300,000 on a Four
Seasons Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club,
restaurants such as Morton’s and a consulting contract with the
William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, records show.

The union paid a combined $219,000 in 2006 and 2007 to a
video firm whose principals include a former employee of the
local, according to Labor Department filings and
interviews. And a now-defunct minor league basketball team
that Freeman’s brother-in-law coached received $16,000 for what the
union described as public relations.

The local paid about $106,000 to a firm called the
Filming, for which no incorporation record, business license,
address or telephone listing could be found.

And:

The Times reported Saturday that the payments to the company
owned by Freeman’s wife, Pilar Planells, were among the local’s
largest single expenses last year, at about $178,000. Planells has
said she did not personally profit.

With all that money, no wonder they could afford
such a swank destination wedding.

For more, try the
LAT story from the weekend too.

So someone pleads guilty to tring to bribe Mississippi Democratic Senate candidate and former Governor Ronnie Musgrove. The Clarion-Ledger has the details:

Georgia businessman pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy to corruptly influence a public official in connection with Mississippi’s costly and failed beef plant venture — a decision that could spill over into a U.S. Senate race.

Who? Ronnie Musgrove, with $45k to his campaign account:

Robert Moultrie, chairman and chief executive of The Facility Group of Smyrna, Ga., admitted he gave $45,000 in contributions to the re-election campaign of then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who is now running for the Senate.

And:

Moultrie has agreed to cooperate with authorities. He first gave Musgrove $20,000 through a PAC Moultrie formed in July 2003. In September 2003, “Musgrove contacted Moultrie for another campaign contribution of $25,000,” according to court documents.

Currently, no one is alleging that Musgrove did anything wrong. Currently.

Change Musgrove can believe in. It’s in his pocket

So someone pleads guilty to tring to bribe Mississippi
Democratic Senate candidate and former Governor Ronnie Musgrove.

The Clarion-Ledger has the details:

Georgia businessman pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy
to corruptly influence a public official in connection
with Mississippi’s costly and failed beef plant venture — a
decision that could spill over into a U.S. Senate race.

Who? Ronnie Musgrove, with $45k to his campaign account:

Robert Moultrie, chairman and chief executive of The
Facility Group of Smyrna, Ga., admitted he gave $45,000 in
contributions to the re-election campaign of then-Gov. Ronnie
Musgrove, who is now running for the Senate.

And:

Moultrie has agreed to cooperate with authorities. He first gave
Musgrove $20,000 through a PAC Moultrie formed in July 2003. In
September 2003, “Musgrove contacted Moultrie for another campaign
contribution of $25,000,” according to court documents.

Currently, no one is alleging that Musgrove did anything wrong.
Currently.

What did Hillary have in her grasp?

Jen Rubin passes on a great little tibit from the document dump
from the Atlantic. You want to read this
one which contains Mark Penn’s analysis just prior to the Iowa
Caucus.

On page 8, in the scenario that Hillary Clinton comes in second
behind Barack Obama, Penn recommends:

If it is a two-way race with
Obama, on Friday we do a media interviews (sic) and basically say
that he is unvetted, discuss his ever-changing positions.
Release the tapes. Create immediate pressure that
deprives him of oxygen

What tapes? If it is the Wright tapes, why did it take so long?
If it is something else…, what tapes?

Crossposted from
The Next Right

Jen Rubin passes on a great little tibit from Jake Tapper on the document dump from the Atlantic. You want to read this one which contains Mark Penn’s analysis just prior to the Iowa Caucus.

On page 8, in the scenario that Hillary Clinton comes in second behind Barack Obama, Penn recommends:

If it is a two-way race with Obama, on Friday we do a media interviews (sic) and basically say that he is unvetted, discuss his ever-changing positions. Release the tapes. Create immediate pressure that deprives him of oxygen

What tapes? If it is the Wright tapes, why did it take so long? If it is something else…, what tapes?

What did Hillary have in her grasp?

Jen Rubin passes on a great little tibit from the document dump
from the Atlantic. You want to read this
one which contains Mark Penn’s analysis just prior to the Iowa
Caucus.

On page 8, in the scenario that Hillary Clinton comes in second
behind Barack Obama, Penn recommends:

If it is a two-way race with
Obama, on Friday we do a media interviews (sic) and basically say
that he is unvetted, discuss his ever-changing positions.
Release the tapes. Create immediate pressure that
deprives him of oxygen

What tapes? If it is the Wright tapes, why did it take so long?
If it is something else…, what tapes?

Crossposted from
The Next Right

I have been a little skeptical of the whole #dontGo thing. Perhaps inappropriately so. I saw three thinigs today that might be changing my mind about the effect. At the very least, it is changing Democratic minds and raising GOP coin. I can’t ask for better than that.

Grist and Open Left’s Matt Stoller both object to this language from a letter from Al Gore’s We Can Solve It campaign:

Last week, the U.S. Congress left Washington without addressing the energy crisis. They didn’t deal with gas prices. They didn’t move on solutions to climate change. What’s worse, their inability to renew the clean energy tax credits means that government incentive programs to support the solar and wind industries will expire at the end of this year. Jobs will be lost as a result of their inaction.

Grist and Matt are right. When the greenies use that framing, we win.

Second, a Democratic candidate in upstate New York running against Rep. Randy Kuhl (R-NY) demands that Nancy Pelosi bring back Congress:

A top Democratic House candidate is calling for Congress to convene a special session to address the lingering energy problems that went unaddressed when the chamber adjourned earlier this month.

Gulf War veteran Eric Massa, who is making his second attempt at taking down Rep. Randy Kuhl (R-N.Y.), stressed that he disagrees with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the issue. Pelosi has resisted calls — which have come almost exclusively from Republicans — for a special session.

And third, the RNC got in the game with an email this morning. This is both educating activists and raising coin. As Morton Blackwell noted last Friday, Republican activists see the GOP fighting for something. That’s good.