November 14, 2007
CNN is not allowing Mike Gravel to participate in Thursday’s debate in Vegas because he doesn’t have a category on eightfor08.com…that and he hasn’t raised $1 million yet. Gravel’s camp claims it’s really because he ‘called Hillary out’ at the last debate (yeah, nobody’s doing that these days…) and the former Senator has opted to hold his own protest debate instead (thank, CM).
Seriously though, using the funding as a criteria highlights the sad state of play in campaign politics, but it’s really not a bad metric - it’s at least transparent, difficult to fudge, and does in many ways measure how visible and prominent you have made yourself. The down-side is, by that measure, Bloomberg or Gore could declare today and debate tomorrow and I’m not sure how fair that would be to someone like Gravel who has battled hard for the last six months.
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Debates, Money | 
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Posted by Andrew Bennett
September 19, 2007
Wow…it’s been a while since I’ve been moved enough by presidential race to actually make a public comment on a current event. I hope you all missed me.
I need to air out some thoughts on Clinton’s campaign finance “scandal.” I use quotes because the whole media frenzy over the last week or so has me feeling the same way I have for years about Communism—I still feel like I must have been out sick the day my 7th grade Social Studies teacher explained why Communism was “bad” to our entire class. That digression aside, why is the fact that the Clinton campaign took bundled contribution from alleged felon Norman Hsu interesting enough to warrant 4 days of front page coverage? He funneled some cash to the campaign, and they gave it back when they found out he might be a criminal. End of story. As far as I’m concerned, the issue should be framed in terms of the criminal allegations against Hsu, and not in terms of some scant whisper of possible ethical violations on Clinton’s part.
On the flip side, the Ted Stevens scandal (not in quotations because this is actually a newsworthy corruption story) has barely seen the light of day recently. As more information comes to light, I continue to be shocked by the blatant exchange of money/services/goods in for access to power in which Stevens was engaged. Check this out:
“Former VECO Corp. CEO Bill Allen admitted Friday to using company funds to pay some of the construction costs associated with Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) home remodeling project as well as using a small number of company employees to do the work. Allen, testifying in federal court as part of a state-level bribery case, also said he gave Stevens furniture for the home. Additionally, Allen admitted to paying Stevens’ son, Ben, $4,000 a month while the younger Stevens served in the state Senate.”
Now that’s a story! Stevens got a home remodel job, free labor, and free furniture, while managing to get his son a nice chunk of change per month.
I would think that, after all the criticism mainstream media has been receiving about its choice of coverage lately, i.e. Lohan v. Bagdad, the media would start giving non-stories the (lack of) coverage they deserve.
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Clinton, Money | 
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Posted by hilljunkie
August 11, 2007
This New York Times article highlights a nascent, nationwide movement afoot to reorder the processes through which the president is elected. As dull as electoral procedures sound, they have a huge impact on how presidential candidates run their campaigns, and are ultimately elected. So file this under the “utterly dull yet vitally important” tag. Currently, the electoral votes of most states (consisting of the sum of the votes in the two houses of Congress) go to the presidential candidate receiving the plurality of the vote on a statewide basis. The problem with this system, however, is that it encourages presidential candidates to focus the bulk of their attention on a few states whose electoral votes are judged to be “in play.” In other words, a candidate thinks, if I am likely to get a plurality of the vote in a given state anyway, then why spend time and money campaigning in that state which is not “in play”? Thus, as the article points out, in 2004, 13 states with a total of 159 electoral votes were considered to be in play by both political parties and that was where they focused all their attention.
If presidential candidates calculate that they can ignore the voter preferences of significant chunks of the population, then this is less than what a democratic system should aspire to. So recent initiatives considered in 8 states have considered bills that give electoral votes to winners of the national popular vote, rather than to the presidential candidate chosen by the plurality of state voters. Obviously, this means that whoever gets the most votes from the public gets the electoral votes of a given state, essentially sucking out the juice from the electoral college and giving primacy to nationwide electoral results. MD has gone as far as to overtly pass legislation that would abolish the electoral college altogether.
However, these are germinal movements, still in their early stages. A drastic overhauling of the entire presidential voting system before 08 is highly unlikely. What is possible, however, are resurgent state proposals to allocate their electoral votes in a way that does not depend on the rest of the states in the Union following suit. Thus there is a proposal afoot in California that would award electoral votes based on number of congressional districts carried, rather than statewide vote. A Republican measure that would primarily benefit a Republican presidential candidate, it is being carefully watched by the Democrats who are likely to respond with similar initiatives in other states. Keep an eye on this development because if within the year such proposals are successful (and the Republicans are making a concerted effort in California) it could result in a lot more electoral votes being cast one way or another…
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Campaign Advertising, Money | 
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Posted by AAH4
July 5, 2007
Some nice insights these last couple days re: new fundraising numbers. Here’s another one from Clive Crook’s Financial Times Op-Ed (again, no link, subscription only…they’ll get that right someday):
Obama is outperforming Clinton in what was suppose to be her strongest event (fundraising); she is outperforming him in what was supposed to be his (rhetoric).
As in the good kind of rhetoric: inspirational and influencial speech. In case you missed the Democratic Forum on PBS last week, performances there were definitely in line with Cook’s observations. My reactions to that pseudo-debate were something like this:
Richardson = Awful on all things not foreign policy
Mike Gravel = Oh my God, are they paying these people to nod and clap when he speaks?
John Edwards = So polished he’s blinding…not a good thing.
Joe Biden = If he’s talking over people’s heads on the PBS debate, how’s he gonna play on Fox News?
Barak Obama = Seems to be fumbling opportunities. Timing’s off. His staff needs to grill him on this stuff more often.
Hillary = Wow.
1 Comment | Clinton, Debates, Edwards, Money, Obama, Richardson, The Others | Permalink
Posted by Andrew Bennett
July 3, 2007
That’s right, I said it: Poor John McCain. I was an almost fan of his back in the day–his whole gunslinger-gone-politician-gunning-for-the-presidency thing really turned me on. But that was a long time ago. Today the WaPo reports that his campaign is literally bleeding cash. Or rather, that his campaign would be if it had only fundraised a bit more effectively. The candidate sought safehaven overseas as his campaign manager announced that the lack of funds is causing them to let go of at least half of their staff. Even more incredibly, his campaign is actually considering accepting public matching funds, which would provide cash but comes with the tradeoff of numerous regulations on how the money is spent.
So what does this mean for the the ‘08 race? Well, TIME reports that:
“Consultants aligned with rival campaigns were loath to pound nails into McCain’s coffin, saying that the national media counted out Bob Dole and John Kerry early on in their campaigns and both went on to earn their parties’ nominations. But while there’s precedent for coming from behind to win, there’s almost none for leading the race, falling to the back of the pack and surging ahead again. ‘Very occasionally, a weak campaign will get stronger,’ says Sabato. ‘But they never get strong enough to win.’”
I am inclined to agree. However, I think it is important to note that his sinking ship will make waves in other GOP compaigns. McCain’s tough stances on the war and willingness to draw the line on immigration where he saw fit will reverberate long after he has bowed out of the race. In fact, I suspect that the absence of a strong voice on the issues to counter the ambivalence of the rest of the GOP field will actually make more noise going into the primaries than he is now.
Finally, I’m curious to see who he endorses if he does drop out. Romney? Or Thompson? Whatever the outcome, I think John McCain still has a few tricks up his sleeve.
No Comments » | McCain, Money | Permalink
Posted by hilljunkie
July 2, 2007
The Obama campaign has hit a pair of new milestones this week: 30 million dollars. That’s the record for this quarter, blasting past Hillary’s quarterly totals.
The coolest thing about it, though, is that they also have hit 250,000 donors. The vast majority have only given a small amount, but they were sufficiently inspired to donate to the campaign. That’s a big leap. Now that they’re invested in the campaign, they can be tapped over and over, and are far more likely to volunteer as well.
There’s something going on with the Obama campaign. I don’t quite get it, but anyone who can inspire that many folks to give money this far out is something special.
No Comments » | Clinton, Money, Obama | Permalink
Posted by cdog
