May 23 - Foes Clash Over Cash - Mark Pazniokas
May 25 - Small Donors Aid Lamont - Mark Pazniokas
The first focuses on the Lieberman campaign making an issue of Lamont's personal wealth and his willingness to contribute to his own campaign. Here are the interesting bits (without much context, I encourage you to click on the link):
"I am confident they want as their senator somebody who has had the experience of growing up in this state, living the lives they have lived," Lieberman said.
...
"We started nearly $5 million behind an 18-year incumbent," Lamont said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. "My contribution amplifies the voices of thousands of our supporters who want to change our priorities in Washington."
...
"Having between $90 million and $300 million, Ned Lamont can not only try to buy a seat from Connecticut in the U.S. Senate, he can probably buy a seat in a couple of other states if he wanted," Lieberman said.
...
Tom Swan, Lamont's campaign manager, said his candidate is not taking special-interest money, unlike Lieberman.
"The additional $500,000 is still way less money than what Joe Lieberman has raised from Washington, D.C., special interests," Swan said. "It's not in Joe Lieberman's interest to make an issue of sources of campaign contributions."
This is an interesting strategy by Lieberman's team, that I, personally, don't think will resonate. First of all, much of the state population-wise (from Stamford to roughly Danbury in one direction and New Haven in the other) are in the NYC media market and, in the last 6 years or so have watched John Corzine spend far more than $1 million of his personal money to "buy" a senate seat and than the governor's mansion (NJ). The politically engaged Democrat will look at the amount, shrug, and vote their values. The non-politically engaged will not be voting in the Democratic primary.
Second, and unfortunately, this is the way the system works. And what a perverse system it is when the very rich guy who spends his fortune actually smells cleaner than the rich guy who spends PAC and corporate bundles! Given Lieberman's reliance on out-of-state sources of money in PAC and large corporate bundles, I think he treads down this road at his own peril.
Finally, I don't (and I imagine the average nutmegger would agree) need to hear this: "I am confident they want as their senator somebody who has had the experience of growing up in this state, living the lives they have lived" out of the mouth of someone who is worth between $431,059 and $1,675,000 (source: 2004 Financial Disclosure Report) to attack someone who is worth between $90 million and $300 million. [For the record, the Courant article says that Senator Lieberman is worth "no more than $940,000, based on his financial disclosure statement." Which disclosure statement is not noted.]
With all due respect to the Senator, he is not personally aware of the effect of revaluation (my house doubled) and the new mill rate (down about 2 mills) will have on my ability to pay my property taxes (hint: not good). Nor is he personally aware of how the bankruptcy bill, that he voted against but, when the chips were down, he voted for cloture, will effect nutmeggers who will have to declare under the new rules.
Leaving aside the very rich and the merely rich, none of these guys is like the average Connecticut voter; we are free to vote our values.
Also, a little post-convention spin:
Lieberman downplayed losing one-third of the Democratic convention vote over the weekend to Lamont.
"I will take a 2-1 victory, which is what I was lucky to have at the state convention, any day and in any campaign in which I am involved," Lieberman said.
This is just laughable. Pre-convention, they were setting the bar impossibly high for Lamont (35%) and he exceeded all reasonable expectations and almost met their unreasonable ones. When that 2-1 margin was announced, every Lieberman supporter got nervous.
The second article talks about Lamont's fundraising from individuals, especially stemming from his endorsement by Democracy For America (now raised over $60,000 for the Lamont campaign). Here are the money graphs:
Tom Swan, the manager of Lamont's campaign, said Lamont has raised $620,000 from individuals, in addition to the $1 million provided by the candidate.
Lieberman, a three-term incumbent, has raised about $7 million since his re-election in 2000.
Make this point number 4 above to why Lieberman's strategy of making an issue of Lamont's wealth is risky: After contributing a million ($1,000,000!) of his own money to the campaign, he is still has about 5.375 million dollars ($5,375,000!) raised less than the Lieberman campaign. Buying the election? Or the biggest longshot underdog in recent memory?
As I wrote this, the fundraising story got a little sunnier for the Lamont campaign. In the MoveOn.org online primary, he took 85% of the vote to Lieberman's 14% (I received an email, the press release is not currantly online). MoveOn now will jump into the fray on the Lamont side, presumably with fundraising emails and issue advocacy ads. It will be very interesting to see how much cash the campaign brings in as a result of this endorsement and whether any MoveOn ads are played and their effectiveness. [The MoveOn endorsement is really seperate news and I will do a seperate post on it later, but it was relevant here so I had to mention it.]
Sources:
Courant May 23, 2006 - Foes Clash Over Cash - Mark Pazniokas
Courant May 25, 2006 - Small Donors Aid Lamont - Mark Pazniokas
Journal Inquirer May 18, 2006 - Out-of-staters boost Lieberman warchest in April; Lamont late to file - Don Michak
May 24, 2006 - How Much Are YOU Worth, Senator Lieberman? - Branford Boy
Joe Lieberman's 2004 FDR - OpenSecrets.org
May 26, 2006 - MoveOn.org Press Release - Lamont Wins MoveOn Endorsement for U.S. Senate
16 comments:
Truth Squad -
From one supporter of public financing to another, I agree with you that there is a huge difference between 940k (or 430k or 1.4MM) and 90MM (or 300MM). That said, none of those amounts (that an individual is worth) is middle class. As I wrote, someone worth any of those amounts has no personal connection to my property taxes or to the changes in the bankruptcy law.
Either way, both of my main points stand (I think - reasonable people, as always can disagree):
1. The majority of nutmeggers (especially those that vote in the Democratic primary) will not be swayed by someone with more money than they have attacking a guy with even more money for closing the electoral money gap between them with his personal funds. This is not a good strategy.
2. Lieberman has a liability in the amount of out-of-state PAC and corporate bundled (and ordinary donors giving the max) he has raised, especially when contrasted with Lieberman's fundraising base of small donors from Connecticut. It makes the guy who is self financing look cleaner! At least we know he doesn't owe, for example, CitiBank, any favors.
Of course, this is the world we have chosen (to paraphrase the Godfather).
Thanks, CGG.
Mod.Dem - Like I said, reasonable people can disagree...
Two points:
2. I think once all the information regarding contributions has filtered through the media, the dominant theme will be that he needed to contribute his own money because he started from scratch and his opponent, an 18 year incumbant, had a $7,000,000 war chest built up on the strength of out-of-state, PAC, and corporate bundled donations.
2. And this is the snarky one: Even if it is viewed as him "buying " the seat, at least he is buying it and not CitiBank, or all of the people from other states that TrueBlue mentioned above.
This whole debate, on sum, will do more to advance the cause of public financing of elections than it will help Lieberman.
A squared + B squared = C squared
TSC and DC -
Love him or hate him, it is hard to see how, even if Lamont wins the primary and Lieberman runs as an independant, Schlesinger can possibly win this race.
D_R - I'm on record, the money in politics is rotting our democracy.
That said, the difference between Larson and what we are talking about here is that no one is running against Larson and thus no one cares...
I am figting hard against the urge to launch into another rant against geographically defined single member first past the post districting...
TSC - you might, but no one is running against her, so who cares?
Crickets...
I think you misread my snark. Let me be clearer:
PAC money and corporate bundled contributions are ruining our democracy.
That said, the only reason Lieberman's contributions came up is because he has a strong primary challenge.
No one is challenging either of these congresscritters, so you don't hear anything about their donations.
If Nancy Johnson didn't have a credible challenge, you wouldn't have heard anything about the contributions she gets from pharmacuetical companies...
Where, in anything I've written, do you see me saying its not a problem?
When I said it rots democracy, did anyone mistake that as me arguing that its a good thing?
My only point is that if no one credible is running against them, then no one is paying attention to where their contributions are coming from...
TSC - I said it was rotting our democracy. I also said that, because no one serious is running against them, no one will care. Where is the disconnect?
I'm going to say this one more time, so its clear.
I get it. I understand where PAC money comes from and where it goes. I think I made clear, by this post and when I wrote (and repeated) (and repeated again) that PAC and corporate contributions are ROTTING OUR DEMOCRACY, that I think its a bad thing. Just to make sure: I think its a bad thing.
But we live in reality. And the reality is that the media, where 90% of CT gets its political news (not this blog, GASP!), will not be reporting on races that do not exist. The majority of CT (and the country at large) will never hear about the 1st or 3rd districts. Not one time. They would have to do something illegal and these contributions are not illegal. Unseemly, icky, uncomfortable, but legal.
If you want to strike a blow against money in poitics, CT-Sen and the 5th are the places to do it, because people are paying attention.
If you want to quixotically wave the "See, All Liberals Are Hypocrits" in my face, please by all means continue (even though I said its rotting our democracy. Was that not strong enough language? Was it not clear? Should I have used all caps the first time?).
D_R, when I need a lecture from you about respect (damned or otherwise), I will let you know.
My mistake is thinking we were having an actual conversation about the reality of big money in politics with the context of a race where people are paying attention. And maybe, dare I dream, a conversation about how districting creates seats that will never be competitive. Instead let me apologize to you, Daniel Sumrall, and anyone else who was slighted by my assumption that we were discussing how this race spotlights the money in politics to a wide audience.
Gabe,
Wow, great post.
As a sidebar, The NYC market in the Danbury area goes all the way up to about Southbury as you can get all the NYC stations on cable (Charter Communications). I lived in Sandy Hook right on the Zoar River which is right next to Southbury and I would say at that point, the whole NYC attitude starts to evaporate.
Here's my favorite quote from Lamont's campaign in regards to Joe's attacking Ned's wealth.
"That's them trying to make an issue of Ned giving money instead of all the money they've taken from Republican lobbyists,"
Too easy.
Bluecoat: Bush actually got higher grades than Kerry at Yale (Kerry's grades didn't come out until after the election). Neither Bush nor Kerry were in any danger of being named valedictorian.
The current structure of campaign finance is a bit nutty with more and more millionaires becoming Senators. These millionaires can contribute unlimited sums to their own campaigns, but only $2,000 to someone else's. Corzine, Cantwell, Dayton, Kohl, etc. are all multi-millionaires. I'm not convinced public financing is the answer. Why should newspapers get to write editorials day in and day out, but not have this count as a contribution?
I do not know how to properly post a link, but here is a website that links to a very interesting article about campaign finance reform by a friend of mine who is a law school professor.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=816244
Real campaign finance reform is the only way to make government about the local voter again. I have been more and more disgusted that politics is often more about raising money and less about who we would like to represent our views.
TSC - I support campaign finance across the board. I'm going to spend my time on the races that people are paying attention to. I will leave the races to which no one is paying attention to you. Will see which races better make the point.
Gabe, are you in high school? No, was this comment an example of your staggering maturity?
D_R - If I was being unfair in my arguments, I would have said that the PACs involved with DeLauro and Larson were no big deal. Instead, I said that no one was paying attention to those races, so I am going to focus on the races that people are paying attention to. Also, being that I am attacking a Democrat, how unfair am I being?
I'm reading your posts, and I agree that PAC money is corrupting regardless which race we are talking about. As I said above, I am going to concentrate on the races that people are paying attention to. That does not put my head in the sand - still think its bad, I just know that no one is paying attention to John Larson.
On MoveOn, since they are sending an email to their CT members asking for them to contribute to Lamont, so far I am okay with it (If CitiBank's PAC had sent an email to their supporters asking them to support Lieberman and they had the choice to do so, I would be okay with it too).
If their PAC directly contributes money to Lamont, I will decry it just as strenously as I did above.
As for the ads, I'm not wild about outside groups running campaign ads to advocate an issue in the middle of a race. That said, as long as they follow all the rules (i.e. advocate an issue and not a candidate, no coordination between the group and the candidate), I'm not sure how it can be stopped with out free speech implications.
As for your hint, I'm afraid you are going to have to make your condescension more clear; it flew right over my head.
Here is the whole law review article
I am not a huge fan of public financing for campaigns, I would prefer that we restrict spending, but there are some real constitutional concerns.
I'm not Chuck Schumer... I want to turn the attention to where the cameras are pointed, so that we can fix the dark corners...
Paul, that was a fascinating article, but I'm not sure that I buy a majority of this SCOTUS finding that the time spent on fundraising rather than legislating is a compelling interest so as to restrict a fundemantal right. Also, the main reason given against public financing seems to be that it is voluntary and thus unworkable. If a court was willing to recognize the above as a compelling interest and public financing as necessary to the compelling interest, couldn't public financing be made involuntary (same as expenditure limits)?
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