McCain lining up big money donors, Bush bundlers, and corporate interests for campaign financing

[Bitek]

McCain is slowly selling out the parts of his maverick soul in order to get elected in the fall. Facing cronic fund-raising problems and the potential onslaught of Obama's small-donor driven campaign, McCain is turning to old adversaries to aid him in his quest for the White House.

LinkyLinky

To confront the Obama juggernaut, Senator John McCain, whose fund-raising has badly trailed that of his Democratic counterparts, is leaning on the Republican National Committee. Mr. McCain?s efforts to raise money suffered a blow this weekend when a key fund-raiser, Tom Loeffler, resigned because of a new campaign policy on conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCain is likely to depend upon the party, which finished April with an impressive $40 million in the bank and has significantly higher contribution limits, to an unprecedented degree to power his campaign, Republican officials said.

To that end, Republican officials said they were enlisting President Bush, a formidable fund-raiser who has raised more than $36 million this year for Republican candidates and committees, for three events on Mr. McCain?s behalf. They will appear together at a fund-raiser in Phoenix on May 27, and the next day the president will take part in a luncheon with Mitt Romney in Salt Lake City and then an exclusive dinner at Mr. Romney?s vacation home in Park City, Utah.

The financial arms race that is shaping up is likely to produce the most expensive presidential contest in history and test the commitments that both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have made to rein in the influence of money in politics.

Mr. Obama?s fund-raising success makes it increasingly likely that he will back away from a pledge he made last year to accept public financing for the general election ? and its attendant spending limits ? if the Republican nominee also accepted public money.

Several major fund-raisers for Mr. Obama said in interviews that they could not envision the campaign sheathing its sword and accepting public financing, given how powerful Mr. Obama?s fund-raising could be in the Democrats? urgent quest to reclaim the White House. Mr. Obama would be the first major-party presidential candidate to bypass public financing for the general election since the system began in 1976.

Mr. McCain, who abandoned public financing in the primary but has indicated he would employ it in the general election, is aggressively building a joint fund-raising operation with the Republican National Committee and state party committees in four battleground states. These committees can raise money far in excess of the $2,300 limit imposed on individuals giving to Mr. McCain?s presidential campaign. Donors can write a single check of almost $70,000 to the committees that is divvied up to various entities.

Offering a glimpse of the kind of money that can be spread around with such a committee, $300,000 was collected from nine hedge fund executives and real estate investors at an event in New York in March, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission. More than $10 million was raised at an event on Thursday in Washington, McCain campaign advisers said.

Lacking a robust small-dollar Internet fund-raising operation, Mr. McCain has a busy schedule of some two dozen high-dollar fund-raising events this month.

 

[Jhhnn]

Good investment for the hedgefund managers- it seems unlikely that the ol' straightshooter will work to close their tax loophole anytime RSN...

and a dandy loophole it is-

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/pm120

 

[JJChicken]

Meh..all politicans are the same

 

[ntdz]

He tried to get Obama to do it with him, Obama refused.

 

[Lemon law]

The GOP has always benefited by the largess of corporate and business interests. And this hedge fund issue is just a tiny reason why. Business's make invests that they think will pay off. This Hedge fund issue is just a tiny tip of the ice berg example of how and why.

But at a certain point, If McCain is seen as a big loser, the money will dry up. Why make an investment that cannot pay off?

 

[jpeyton]

Even with big business in the GOP's corner, Obama's 1.5+ million small donors will slaughter McCain's fund-raising network.

What should really be scaring McCain right now is the fact that the vast majority of Obama's donors have not even come close to hitting their donation limits. Obama has already set donation records for the primaries, and is on pace to set records for the general.

 

[mshan]

But he's a maverick!!!

"He's just pandering to the hard right to win the presidential election; he'll obviously govern like the maverick Arizona senator he was."

Somehow I think those who control his pursestrings might not allow that.

But we can all "hope", can't we?

 

[Genx87]

Heh considering the amount big business has lent to the democrat party this election cycle. It is amusing to watch the left wing partisan hacks pretend to care about this now that McCain is realizing he needs a lot more cash if he intends to survive the Ospenda machine in the Fall.

 

[mshan]

Those 1.5 million small donors donated to Barrack Obama, not the Democratic Party.*

Establishment Democrats want to ride his coattails, and are beholden to him, not the other way around.

What type of leverage does McCain bring to his party bosses that will allow him to be nothing more than a puppet president for four more years?




* Remember that night Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania and claimed she had got $10 million in new donations the next day. I remember someone on tv asking the Obama campaign how they did, and even though they didn't disclose actual number, he did say that the website almost crashed that night! :thumbsup:

 

[nageov3t]

Obama has followed his party in lockstep during his entire time in the US senate.

McCain has broken with his party on several important and contentious issues, even at the cost of his political future (like the failed immigration bill that nearly cost him the primary).

wtf does "leverage" have to do with it? the only reason McCain is lining up the donors is because Obama did a 180 on public financing when he saw that he could just buy the election.

 

[mshan]

If Obama told his supporters he believed the Democratic Party no longer represented their shared values, then asked his supporters to help him form a new Obamican Party, how many would follow?

That's power!

McCain's power base as a senator was his constituents in Arizona; what they allowed is probably going to be quite different than what the entrenched Republican Party bosses / special interests in Washington will allow.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: loki8481
Obama has followed his party in lockstep during his entire time in the US senate.

McCain has broken with his party on several important and contentious issues, even at the cost of his political future (like the failed immigration bill that nearly cost him the primary).

wtf does "leverage" have to do with it? the only reason McCain is lining up the donors is because Obama did a 180 on public financing when he saw that he could just buy the election.

I thought Obama was all speeches, hope, and change? Now it's money? Yeah, ok... :roll:

 

[mshan]

Obama sits on gold mine: "gigantic" donor database


By Christopher Stern
Bloomberg News

Sen. Barack Obama's supporters are giving him more than just record amounts of cash: They are providing personal information that may make his donor list the most powerful tool in U.S. politics.

Even if the Illinois Democrat doesn't succeed in his White House bid, this data will make him a power broker in the party for years to come. For the interest groups or Democratic candidates he chooses to sell it to, it would provide a gold mine of information and access to potential donors.

Almost 2 million people have entered personal information on Obama pages on social-networking Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace and his campaign's mybarackobama.com, offering home addresses, phone numbers, their views on specific issues and the names of friends. The data have allowed Obama, 46, to raise more than $200 million and motivate millions more with custom-tailored messages.

"It's gigantic," said Laura Quinn, chief executive officer of Catalist, a company that maintains a database of 280 million Americans. The list is as "transformational" as the advent of political advertising, she said.

The campaign's biggest innovation is in persuading people to enter personal information on the Illinois senator's site, according to Bill McIntyre, executive vice president of Grass roots Enterprise, a Washington-based Internet marketing firm that advises campaigns.

McIntyre, a Republican and former chief national spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said the data entered by 800,000 names on mybarackobama.com may be worth as much as $200 million.

In the past, campaigns have cross-referenced lists of registered voters against other records such as credit-card purchases or magazine subscriptions to find potential supporters. Obama's information is more accurate and precise because it relies on data that donors provide themselves.

"When people give information online, they are going to be more truthful and more credible because they are in the privacy of their own environment," McIntyre said.

It's the kind of detailed information that Republican operatives such as Karl Rove, who directed President Bush's campaigns, excelled at gathering through expensive microtargeting techniques that combine data from several sources.

The Democrats responded with Catalist, a similar list-building effort organized by top Clinton campaign adviser Harold Ickes that sells its data to "progressive" causes and candidates, according to its Web site.

Obama's success stems from a decision early in his campaign to embrace the concept of social networking, allowing him to leap ahead of his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, or the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. For example, Obama now has 790,000 Facebook "friends," compared with 150,000 for Clinton and 117,000 for McCain.

Mybarackobama.com, the first social network specifically devoted to a political campaign, is modeled on Facebook. Chris Hughes, a 24-year-old Facebook co-founder, has been working for the Obama campaign full time for more than a year and helped develop the candidate's site.

When supporters join mybarackobama.com, they become part of the campaign, gaining access to phone-bank lists, local events and the ability to contact like-minded people or recruit new ones.

Mybarackobama.com is also a sophisticated data network that allows the campaign to home in on detailed information, such as whether a supporter is more concerned about civil liberties, foreign policy, education or energy policy.

People who provide their information online may not realize the data they are posting may have a long afterlife and find its way to other campaigns in future election cycles.

According to the Obama campaign's online privacy statement, it reserves the right to "make personal information available to organizations with similar political viewpoints and objectives, in furtherance of our own political objectives."

Federal election laws require campaigns to charge for the use of their data. The campaign must either sell the information or record the transaction as an in-kind contribution at fair-market value.

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment on the value or possible future uses of the data.

Even as Obama's interactive databases prove to be efficient ways to energize volunteers, their ability to raise large amounts of money may outlast the campaign, said Tad Devine, an independent media consultant.

"That's really what we are talking about here," said Devine, a former strategist for Democrat John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid. "We are talking about a fundraising network that will far surpass the dominance that the Republicans held in the '80s and even into the '90s."

Obama's list of 1.4 million donors may be an especially strong fundraising tool in the future, Devine said.

"This is something where if this guy sends out a letter saying send some money to someone, suddenly a House candidate can have a half-million dollars in a day," Devine said. "That may be what the House candidate was hoping to raise in a quarter."

This ability to produce results ensures Obama will play a prominent role in the future.

"Win or lose, it's his list," McIntyre said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.c...79934_obamalist29.html



That, my friend, is what I call leverage!!!

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: loki8481
Obama has followed his party in lockstep during his entire time in the US senate.

McCain has broken with his party on several important and contentious issues, even at the cost of his political future (like the failed immigration bill that nearly cost him the primary).

wtf does "leverage" have to do with it? the only reason McCain is lining up the donors is because Obama did a 180 on public financing when he saw that he could just buy the election.

Rachel Maddow smacking down Joe Scarborough pretty thoroughly on the above bolded talking point.

 

[mshan]

RNC owns McCain --> the $120 million puppet