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Sunday, October 20, 2013

Damn your principles. Show me your donor list

We have heard enough talk about increased partisanship and gerrymandered districts that are too safe to allow pragmatism. In 2010 the Republican Party took 63 seats from districts that were either neutral or gerrymandered with a Democratic advantage. After the states were redistricted in all probability there are 63 neutral or Republican leaning districts that suddenly pose a threat to representative government. Left untouched, for the most part, are the racially gerrymandered districts that keep doctrinaire and uninformed legislators such as Sheila Jackson Lee and Hank Johnson in office because the Black Congressional Caucus should be doctrinaire but the Tea Party may not.
Let's try it another way. The Democrats and RINO Republicans are beholden to the K Street lobbyists and the Tea Party is not. They are paid in campaign funds to pursue and further the interests of the business community. Their "principles" are primarily political survival and "reaching across the aisle" to make common cause with the opposition for the betterment of their corporate donors. They are the antithesis of responsible government. When we hear that Republican donors are upset with this or that we should assume that the bankers who underwrite Senator Corker's career are upset. From 2009 to date Corker has raised $2,379,980 from PAC's primarily from the insurance and financial communities. I chose Senator Corker as an example because I don't like him but his fund raising typifies most members of Congress who are not part of the Tea Party.
The Tea Party has smashed K Street's monopoly on Republican fundraising. The Club for Growth only has money for candidates who meet its rigorous ideological tests and it pours millions into independent expenditures against less favored Republicans and Democrats. Add to that the Senate Conservatives Fund, founded by Jim DeMint in 2009 and other smaller groups which only donate to candidates who espouse small government, low taxes, and individual freedom and ideas prevail over special interests.
It is an inconvenient truth that Ted Cruz and Rand Paul got to the senate by beating the disciples of K Street. David Dewhurst, Cruz's primary opponent got more than $ 500,000 from business PAC's, which was 33 times what Cruz got, and Republican lobbyists hosted a fundraiser for him at the Capitol Hill townhouse of Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta. Club for Growth was there for Cruz, donating $2.5 million. Rand Paul's primary opponent, Trey Grayson raised half a million dollars from business PAC's, including Obamacare backers like Pfizer and the American Hospital Association, bailout beneficiaries like the American Bankers Association and the Managed Funds Association. Paul tapped into his father's organization and raised $435,000 in a single day. He also got $105,000 from the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund kicked in $36,685.
Is it any wonder Tea Party Republicans are less pragmatic than the RINO breed? They don't need the money.
“I don't think there's a way for Wall Street to punish the 25 to 50 hardcore House Republicans,” one Wall Street lobbyist told Politico in the first couple days of the shutdown. Referring to an anti-establishment libertarian freshman congressman, the lobbyist said, “I don't think Justin Amash cares if Bank of America gives to him or not.”
How about that!

2 comments:

  1. Yes, and we hear that the DNC raised more money than the RNC in September and we're supposed to hyperventilate at the prospect. Do they not get the fact that we are contributing to individual candidates and PACs now? Not the RNC?

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  2. The DNC is broke. I forget how much debt it has.

    ReplyDelete