Rolling Stone Article on Political Consultants

[Starbuck1975]

In the last few months, Rolling Stone has issued a series of scathing articles on the nature of our whole political process. These articles typically tear into the Bush Administration, but a growing number of articles have also gone after the Democrats. IMO, any publication willing to call out corruption and incompetence regardless of political affiliation, will earn my readership and attention.

That being said, the latest issue of Rolling Stone draws attention to Democrat political consultants. Unlike their Republican counterparts, who earn a flat fee, Democrat consultants have managed to negotiate a percentage income tied to the number of campaign dollars spend on campaign media.

So in other words, if a Democrat candidate runs a $10M television ad campaign, the political consultant pockets a percentage of that expenditure.

The article basically criticizes how the Democrat pollsters and consultants essentially derailed both the Gore and Kerry campaigns while lining their own pockets rather nicely. The article mentions that Clinton brought in his own team, one of the reasons why his campaign didnt suffer a similar fate.

Interestingly enough, all of the main political consultant players are spread across the Hillary, Obama and Edwards campaigns.

I invite those interested to read the article, as it does expose how both parties have fallen victim to their own respective power players who, at the end of the day, only care about one thing...their bank account.

 

[SViscusi]

That has been one of the main complaints of liberal bloggers. The only reason Howard Dean is in the position he is in today is because of his call to decentralize the party's power structure and place more power in the hands of the individual state party's and activists.