Archive for the ‘PACS’ Tag
It isn’t a case of the Democrats now going off soul searching, it case of total revamp from top to bottom after Trump’s win last Tuesday. The Amazing Democrats’ advice very early on to the Clinton Campaign (and some of those comments were posted on our social media platforms as far back as the late summer of 2015) went unheard unlike when we worked for the Obama/Biden campaign in 2012. It is time DNC to fire all your overpaid pollsters (who got it so wrong), consultants and the like. The DNC should of known in their hearts of hearts that after Bernie Sanders won twenty-two states with so little money against Hillary Clinton, their candidate of choice would be in serious trouble if the Republicans got a candidate who could storm the mainstream and social media which Trump did and of course got a bit of luck along the way with that first letter released by the FBI Director that certainly damaged Hillary in early voting and gave a huge boast for Trump with his base. Yes, a lot of questions will be asked as to how the FBI were allowed to influence an election so openly. But this was far from the only reason Hillary lost even if the DNC die hards believe it to be so. The DNC and Democrats have lost their way and have been now for a long time. Their obsession only seems to be with fundraising not the core principles of what the party was founded on, Trump was able to tap into that huge hole in the DNC. It was a party that once cared for the low income, the homeless, our veterans, the poor people of America and not the massive billions of dollars in fundraising which was totally wasted trying to take Trump down. Just think today how many homeless people that billion of dollars plus would do to help house the homeless crisis in our major cities which should have been a top issue for Hillary.
Hillary campaign interviewed myself and members of The Amazing Democrats, for the record we call ourselves The Amazing Democrats as we not die hard Democrats, we wouldn’t have followed Hillary in to the fires of hell if she was wrong and we wouldn’t be silent either even if it meant we were fired from the campaign, that’s the way worked in the Obama/Biden 2012 reelection campaign and we were amazed how we survived not to be fired (nearly maybe once or twice when we really overstepped our mark and criticized some of the President’s polices publicly). The interviewing process went back as far as January 2016 to join her campaign. We were subjected to rounds and rounds of interviews, back ground checks, etc. Months would go by and we heard nothing and then it would start all over again. It was by late August this Editor got interviewed for the sixth time, more back ground checks and then was offered four important positions in four different swing states and one of this offers came directly from the DNC. All this was paid employment and not volunteer work. That last weekend in August for me was were I suffered so much turmoil as I had to give them a decision by the following Monday. It meant dropping everything in my life and getting on a plane to Pennsylvania. What was most troubling in my mind was I could sense there was panic setting in for the Democrats and Hillary’s campaign. I didn’t sleep that weekend. I went back to the old formula that the Obama campaign thought me and even though I didn’t have access to data like we did when worked for Obama, never the less, I ran the data all weekend long. It is a long and laborious process that you can see today that both the pollsters and media don’t do, why? Maybe they just are too lazy to do it, who knows? You have to run every state’s county’s data county by county, you have then figure in the data available from both the candidates’ primary wins or loses, a lot of mathematics but in the end you get a somewhat overview, be it very rough. Also you have to take into account that I had been tracking the swing states every week since both primaries ended last year. Not good for Hillary and her team I could see, in fact the Wednesday before the election I was gloomy, I could predict Trump was going to win Ohio by three percent (he won by five percent so I was only out by two percent) and as you know, no Presidential candidate can take their place in The White House if they don’t win Ohio. With all this, it was the hardiest email I ever sent, declining the positions to work on the Hillary Clinton campaign.
As we move into the Trump Presidency, it’s going to be a very dark lonely path for the Democrats. Yes, there is the mid-terms in 2018, but if the DNC works as it has for the last twenty years, they are a very slow climb back up on Capitol Hill as remember this Presidential election in 2016 had the lowest turn out of voters in years, which helped Trump but destroyed Hillary’s chances of winning, nearly 50% of the electorate didn’t bother to vote and historically mid-term voting has a very low voter turn-out. Also if Trump makes any small success of his first term and as everything Trump touches turns to gold, whether you like his manner and process or not and as it very hard to unseat a sitting President, as we all know, Trump going for a second term, then the DNC and Democrats could be looking at the wildness for next eight years at least, that’s 2024, a very depressing thought I know, but maybe a fact unless the DNC make radically chances and that starts today, not six months before the 2018 mid-terms.
In the 2006 mid-terms under George W. Bush, the Republicans got wiped out in the House and the Senate. All the media said at that time that Republican Party need to reinvent itself and stop been the “party of no”. Did they? Of course not, in fact under Obama as President and because of their hatred of him, they became the “party of no, no, no” on every bill he sent to the House and Senate. Now look where they are ten years later. The power of Washington again with the Democrats hanging onto their coattails and the sad thing is, Trump gets to pick the next Supreme Court justice. If he gets two terms, who knows, with three more justices ready for retirement in the next few years, he might even hit the golden jackpot of nominating four Supreme Court justices, a very scary thought. The Democrats however can’t do as the Republicans did in 2006, which was nothing to change their image and beliefs but the Democrats aren’t so lucky. If the DNC go back to business as usual, it will be a very dark long road for the Democrats back to the shining lights of The White House. It is simply the base. The Republican base and the Democrat base is so so much different and as Trump said decades ago when he was a registered Democrat, pro-choice and donated a lot of money to Bill Clinton’s Presidential campaigns: “If I was to run as President, I would run as a Republican as their voters as so dumb and easy to fool, I would lie and lie to them until I got numbers”. That’s all he had to do for this Presidential campaign and he is the winner today not Hillary Clinton.
Which brings what fundamentally went south very early on in the Hillary Clinton campaign:
1. NEVER EVER underestimate your opponent.
2. If he/she gets down in the dirt, you go down there with them. Hillary taking the high road was her downfall as political correctness (PC) means nothing anymore in the world of social media as we saw with Trump, the King of Twitter and Obama/Biden in 2008 as the King of Facebook. PC has gone way too far in the US and the rest of the world and Trump, no matter what you think, turned PC on it’s head in this presidential election and as he said on 60 Minutes last night, “it was nasty, very nasty but I am the one sitting here today talking to you and not them”. In fact 2020 and 2024 will be so so much nastier. Rumors were that Trump using his own money, paid pockets of supporters all over America to flood the internet with lies about Hillary and Bill Clinton and the secret? They could never be traced back to him or his campaign. Why didn’t the Hillary Clinton campaign do the same with the rumors about Trump’s ties to the Mafia? Why was this never floated all over the internet? PC I guess but he won and Clinton lost. The new trend now with Presidential campaigns as Trump has lowered the bar, is to win 2020 or 2024 the candidates from both parties to win, will have to get down in the mud and get dirty. Sad? Of course but no cares about the loser, they only care about the winner.
3. Dump the negative ads. One billion dollars was such a waste of money by the Clinton campaign and Trump barely spent a faction of that. We kept telling the Obama/Biden campaign and the DNC in 2012, negative ads don’t work anymore and only turn all the voters off. Pity they didn’t listen.
The Amazing Democrats are not all about criticizing without offering the DNC suggestions for the road forward:
1. Fire all your overpaid pollsters, consultants, lobbyists, etc..
2. Allow the progressive members of the party to take over. (I do not mean the loony left), members who understand the issues of the day to day worries of the lower income Americans (who sadly are too many), the homeless crisis in our cities all over America, our veterans living on our streets.
3. Get back to what a community organizer really is. I used get so annoy with new volunteers who joined our team who tried to tell the person forcefully on the other side of the phone why they should vote for Obama or donate to Obama’s campaign and the DNC. A community organizer’s job is to listen and listen well and then send what they hear up the line and hope they are listening otherwise you get a result like Tuesday’s Presidential elections.
4. As the advice to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, get off the negative ads obsession (turns all voters off).
5. And please with every email you sent, stop looking for donations all the time. It makes us feel you don’t care about anything but money and donations which we know to be true.
6. Find the soul of the Democrat Party again of FDR and John F. Kennedy.
7. And finally, listen. Never stop listening to those on the ground as we are the ones who can make the difference from the Democrats winning or losing an election.
Here is to the 2018 mid-terms, see you then and to 2020 Presidential election. Keep the faith and a sense of humor as The Amazing Democrats do and God Bless America,
Editor, The Amazing Democrats.
Follow us on twitter: @DemocratAmazing
“No matter what side you’re on or not on, your opinion and vote does really matter”. – Be involved and be heard.
by Nicholas Confessore and Eric Lichtblau (New York Times)
As the 2016 campaign unfolds, Hillary Rodham Clinton will benefit from one rapid-response team working out of a war room in her Brooklyn headquarters — and another one working out of a “super PAC” in Washington.
Jeb Bush has hired a campaign manager, press aides and fund-raisers — yet insists he is not running for president, just exploring the possibility of maybe running.
And Senator Marco Rubio’s chance of winning his party’s nomination may hinge on the support of an “independent” group financed by a billionaire who has bankrolled Mr. Rubio’s past campaigns, paid his salary teaching at a university and employed his wife.
With striking speed, the 2016 contenders are exploiting loopholes and regulatory gray areas to transform the way presidential campaigns are organized and paid for.
Their “campaigns” are in practice intricate constellations of political committees, super PACs and tax-exempt groups, engineered to avoid fund-raising restrictions imposed on candidates and their parties after the Watergate scandal.
Major costs of each candidate’s White House bid, from television advertising to opposition research to policy development, are now being shifted to legally independent organizations that can accept unlimited contributions from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions.
In this new world, campaigns are not campaigns. And candidates are not actually candidates. Though they sometimes forget it.
“I am running for president in 2016,” Mr. Bush said during a speech in Nevada last week, before quickly amending himself.
“If I run,” clarified Mr. Bush, whose political operation has already raised tens of millions of dollars — just in case.
Much rides on this apparent distinction. Because of it, Mr. Bush and several other contenders have delayed registering their campaigns with the Federal Election Commission, even as they travel the country, meet with voters, attend candidate forums and ask donors for money. That allows them — or so their representatives argue — to personally raise money for and coordinate spending with super PACs.
By law, a campaign and an independent group cannot coordinate their activities. But since there is no campaign, the representatives argue, there is nothing for the groups to illegally coordinate with.
Not everyone agrees. In March, theCampaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, two groups that favor stricter enforcement of campaign regulations, filed complaints with the election commission alleging that Mr. Bush; Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin; Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania; and Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor, all met the legal definition of being a candidate and were raising tens of millions of dollars in violation of federal rules.
Mr. Bush’s comment in Nevada was “a slip of the mask, not a slip of the tongue,” said Paul S. Ryan, a senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “The rules apply to you as soon as you start spending money to determine whether you will run. Simply denying that you’re a candidate doesn’t get you around these campaign finance laws.”
No potential candidate has been more aggressive in using the new model than Mr. Bush. In recent months, his advisers have created a traditional political action committee — the kind that can accept contributions of only a few thousand dollars per donor — along with a super PAC that can take unlimited contributions and is expected to handle the bulk of the advertising on Mr. Bush’s behalf during the primaries. There is also a nonprofit organization, based in Arkansas, that can raise unlimited contributions and is not required to disclose its donors.
All share some variation of the name “Right to Rise,” and Mr. Bush has headlined fund-raisers for the groups, even putting his name on invitations to more than 300 donors who attended a Right to Rise conference in Miami in April.
Technically, however, the super PAC is controlled by a Republican campaign lawyer in Washington. The regular PAC is run by a Florida accountant who has also prepared Mr. Bush’s taxes. (Mr. Bush is merely the PAC’s “honorary chairman.”) And the nonprofit group is controlled by a former Bush aide who is widely described as the head of Mr. Bush’s policy team, but who has said the nonprofit will merely be “engaged in policy generation that is consistent with Governor Bush’s optimistic, conservative message.”
The non-campaigns reject the idea that their non-candidates are doing anything wrong.
“Right to Rise PAC and Honorary Chairman Jeb Bush are fully complying with the law and F.E.C. precedent in all of our activities,” said Tim Miller, who is often described in news accounts as a Bush spokesman but is technically only a consultant to the Right to Rise PAC.
If there is little risk to candidates in pushing the envelope, the benefits are substantial. Outsourcing campaign expenses to a super PAC, for example, allows would-be presidents to avoid the kind of cash-flow problems that can doom their bids even before the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Traditionally, a candidate who waited too long to hire a campaign staff risked losing all the best talent to rival candidates. Hire too early, and the campaign’s payroll costs quickly balloon, burning through contributions that are capped at $2,700 per donor.
Now candidates set up super PACs and other vehicles before entering the race and fill their bank accounts with six- and seven-figure checks from wealthy supporters. Those groups, in turn, can employ the candidate’s campaign staff-in-waiting.
Mr. Walker’s operation, for example, has hired advisers to handle fund-raising, Christian conservative outreach, polling and more. These advisers are not working for his campaign, which does not yet exist. Instead, all are on the payroll of a tax exempt organization, Our American Revival, for which Mr. Walker has already raised more than $5 million.
“Governor Walker does not sit on O.A.R.’s board or otherwise control it,” said AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for the group. “He is simply working with us to advance a big, bold conservative reform agenda across the country.”
The outsourcing even extends to the daily work of “rapid-response,” or reacting to criticisms in the news media or from other candidates.
When a Washington Post fact-checker sought clarification from the Republican campaign of Carly Fiorina about claims she had made about her business career, he was directed to an independent super PAC for some of the answers. The name of the super PAC: Carly for America.
“The super PAC has just been very vocal in defending her, so I thought that they’d be good to talk to,” explained Ms. Fiorina’s spokeswoman, Sarah Isgur Flores. Ms. Flores works for the campaign, which is registered as Carly for President.
Campaign lawyers in both parties say their efforts to circumvent the candidate contribution limits, however suspect they may appear, are fully consistent with existing laws and regulations. And to some extent, the model being pioneered in 2016 is merely a culmination of piecemeal efforts undertaken in past campaigns
Richard L. Hasen, a professor and campaign finance expert at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law, said it had become hard even for him to know what is legal anymore.
“You see some of these things and you have to do a double take; things we thought were established as red lines are no longer red lines,” Mr. Hasen said in an interview. “It’s all a mess.”
That extends to the rules that govern what candidates can do after they formally enter the race. Each cycle brings new tactics for candidates to collaborate with independent groups while trying to steer clear of illegal “coordination.”
In 2012, aides to the Republican candidate Mitt Romney were wary of acknowledging that he attended donor gatherings for a super PAC backing his campaign. This time, there is less sensitivity. Mr. Bush, other Republicans and Mrs. Clinton will all be attending donor events organized by super PACs. (Their attendance is legal so long as someone else asks for the money.)
And they are openly courting the donors who will finance the groups: Mr. Rubio frequently speaks with Norman Braman, who has said he and Mr. Rubio are “close personal friends.” Mr. Braman, a billionaire auto dealer who was a major contributor to Mr. Rubio’s past campaigns, helped cover the cost of his teaching job at Florida International University and employed his wife to advise the Braman family’s philanthropic foundation, has pledged at least $10 million to a pro-Rubio super PAC.
Supporters of Mrs. Clinton announced the creation last week of a super PAC, Correct the Record, that would serve as a communications “war room” and coordinate directly with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
Federal law prohibits a candidate from controlling super PACs, and such groups cannot coordinate expenditures such as paid advertisements.
But Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the super PAC, said the coordination restriction would not apply because Correct the Record’s defense of Mrs. Clinton would be built around material posted on the group’s own website, not paid media. Ms. Watson also ventured a further distinction that she said would keep Correct the Record on the right side of the law: The group will collaborate with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, but will not be controlled by it.
“While Correct the Record can legally coordinate with the Clinton campaign, the campaign will not be telling us what to do,” she said.
by Katie Zezima (The Washington Post)
A handful of political action committees created for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are expected to bring in $31 million this week, an eye-popping haul for a presidential candidate who has surprised many with his early ability to raise money.
The four super PACs, which will operate under the name “Keep the Promise,” submitted paperwork to the FEC Monday. They will be led by Dathan Voelter, an Austin CPA and attorney who is close friends with Cruz.
“Our goal is to guarantee Senator Cruz can compete against any candidate,” Voelter said in a statement confirming the haul, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “Supporters of the Senator now have a powerful vehicle with the resources necessary to aid in his effort to secure the Republican nomination and win back The White House.”
Cruz’s ability to raise money has been one of the biggest question marks of his newly-minted candidacy. So far he is surprising many — including himself, he said on the stump last week in Iowa. Cruz’s own campaign raised $4 million during its first eight days, a haul that relied mainly on small-dollar donations.
But the Texas senator is showing that he can rake in the big dollars as well. In the months before his candidacy he quietly laid the spadework for large-dollar donations, meeting privately with big moneyed supporters in New York, California and Florida. He is in the middle of a 10-city fundraising blitz this month; Monday he held an event in Austin and Tuesday night he attended a fundraising dinner in San Diego.
Cruz’s campaign made its first ad buys of the cycle Easter weekend, purchasing national time during “Killing Jesus” on Fox and ads in four primary states during NBC’s “AD: The Bible Continues” on NBC.
According to Voelter, we should expect to see more.
“The Keep the Promise network of PACs is here to make the sure the common-sense, conservative message of Senator Cruz reaches as many ears as possible across America,” he said. “Keep the Promise can provide the ‘appropriate air cover’ in the battle against Senator Cruz’s opponents in the Washington establishment and on the political left.”
by Matea Gold (The Washington Post)
In the last presidential contest, super PACs were an exotic add-on for most candidates. This time, they are the first priority.
Already, operatives with close ties to eight likely White House contenders have launched political committees that can accept unlimited donations — before any of them has even declared their candidacy. The latest, a super PAC called America Leads that plans to support Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, was announced Thursday.
The goal is simple: Potential candidates want to help their super PAC allies raise as much money as possible now, before their official campaigns start. That’s because once they announce their bids, federal rules require them to keep their distance.
Official candidates can still appear at super PAC fundraisers, but they cannot ask donors to give more than $5,000. And they cannot share inside strategic information with those running the group.
“Once someone becomes a candidate, there will be some very important guardrails you have to abide by,” said Michael E. Toner, a Republican campaign finance attorney who served on the Federal Election Commission.
But for now, there are few guardrails for most of the 2016 hopefuls. That’s why former Florida governor Jeb Bush is headlining $100,000-a-head fundraisers for a super PAC already ballooning with tens of millions of dollars in donations. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s political committee is soliciting corporate money and six-figure checks. And on Monday in New York, former New York governor George Pataki was the guest of honor at a fundraiser for his super PAC at a private Manhattan club, where co-chairs were asked to contribute $250,000 each.
[Why Jeb Bush is asking donors to stop at $1 million — for now]
The aggressive and open manner in which many White House hopefuls are embracing super PACs has startled many campaign finance experts, who say they are venturing onto untested legal ground even as undeclared candidates.
“We’re seeing a bending and an abuse and an evasion of federal campaign contribution limits to an extent that we’ve never before seen,” said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, which seeks tougher campaign finance restrictions.
Candidates took pains to steer clear of their big-money allies in public during the past few election cycles, but there is little such distancing now.
Bush’s leadership committee and super PAC share the same name, Right to Rise, and were set up by the same GOP election law attorney, Charlie Spies. Walker’s Our American Revival political committee — registered under section 527 of the tax code, allowing to collect unlimited donations like a super PAC — is being run by Rick Wiley, the veteran Republican strategist who is expected to helm his official campaign. We the People Not Washington, the super PAC backing Pataki, features his photo and bio prominently on its Web site, along with a form to request a meeting with him. And a new super PAC launched last week to back former Texas governor Rick Perry called the Opportunity and Freedom PAC is being run by Austin Barbour, brother of Perry adviser Henry Barbour.
In meetings with top political contributors, representatives of the presumptive candidates regularly lay out a menu of options that include making donations to a super PAC, according to multiple people familiar with the sessions. And unlike before, that no longer sets off alarm bells.
“It used to be that donors were very concerned that the super PAC was independent of the candidate,” said Robert Kelner, a Washington election law attorney. But now, he said, “candidates appear to be essentially establishing their own super PACs. In the absence of enforcement or even serious media scrutiny, donors will tend to conclude that they don’t have to worry.”
The presumptive Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is so far keeping her distance from a network of super PACs and advocacy groups that are gearing up to back her campaign.
[The Koch network plans to spend nearly $1 billion in the run up to 2016]
But on the GOP side, presumptive candidates have been engaged in a frantic hunt for wealthy political patrons for their super PAC allies. During the past two months, their schedules have been packed with visits to the Manhattan offices of billionaire hedge-fund managers and appearances at private donor conferences, such as a January event in Rancho Mirage, Calif., for backers of a political network organized by the industrialists Charles and David Koch.
“It really is a charade that we have any semblance of campaign finance limits,” said Miles Rapoport, president of Common Cause, which seeks to lessen the influence of money on politics. “What we’re seeing is a wealth primary to the tenth degree, where what candidates are doing is chasing a very small number of people who can make or break their candidacies from day one.”
Even some of those writing the big checks are uncomfortable with the new order.
“I do not like the super PACs,” said Chicago private-equity executive Bill Kunkler. “I think it’s the lowest return on investment.”
Nevertheless, Kunkler recently donated $25,000 to Bush’s super PAC. “I want to support the presumptive candidate, and that’s the vehicle,” Kunkler explained, adding: “We have got to reform how our political system is being financed. It’s just crazy.”
Campaign finance lawyers said the close ties between the likely candidates and their super-PAC allies pose serious legal questions, including whether the groups could later be considered affiliated with the eventual campaign or viewed as an entity created by the candidate. That could limit their ability to spend money raised outside candidate contribution limits, which stand at $2,700 per person for the 2016 primaries.
There’s little chance, however, that such issues will be wrestled with at a sharply divided Federal Election Commission, which has deadlocked over whether to even open up enforcement investigations.
The intense super PAC fundraising is also viewed by some critics as evidence that the presumptive candidates are “testing the waters,” a legal term used by the FEC to refer to activities undertaken by a possible candidate, such as polling and traveling to key states to measure support for a bid. Such activities can only be paid for by money raised under the candidate contribution limit, but they do not have to be reported to the FEC unless the person testing the waters decides to become a candidate.
So far, only three contenders — Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), former senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) and retired Maryland neurosurgeon Ben Carson (R) — have announced that they are testing the waters and have set up political committees to raise funds for that purpose.
Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said that his team is “fully complying with the law in all activities that Governor Bush is engaging in on the political front.”
“If Governor Bush engages in any testing-the-waters activities, they will be paid for appropriately under the law and reported at the required time,” she added.
One category of 2016 contenders cannot take part in the early super PAC rush: federal officeholders, who, like official candidates, can’t coordinate with the groups. That’s one reason there are no major super PACs yet for GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, all of whom are considering presidential bids.
After the campaigns officially kick off, candidate-specific super PACs are poised to be central to the 2016 race. The big-money groups are likely to fuel a protracted fight for the Republican nomination — a more intense version of what happened in 2012, when wealthy backers financed super PACs that helped former House speaker Newt Gingrich and former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania wound former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
This time around, GOP strategists believe that at least a half-dozen candidates could be flanked by super PACs sitting on millions as they head into the Iowa caucuses, including Bush, Christie, Cruz, Paul, Rubio and Walker.
“They could change the way we’ve always looked at the process for the nomination,” said Ron Weiser, a former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, noting that candidates who do well in the early primaries usually enjoy a rush of donations. “But what’s that mean when other candidates’ super PACs have amounts substantially in excess of that?”
It remains to be seen how the White House contenders will handle their big-money allies once they have no direct control over the groups.
Asked by reporters in Iowa on Saturday whether he would call on his aligned super PAC to refrain from running negative ads, Bush said, “My hope is that we’ll have a positive campaign. It’s possible a super PAC could be a positive message, as well.”
He brushed off the question when asked again: “That’s way in the future.”
Ed O’Keefe and Philip Rucker in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, contributed to this report.
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