Monday night, I sat looking at the GOP primary schedule and, considering Mitt Romney’s enormous fundraising advantage, was filled with a sense of foreboding. After Newt Gingrich’s meltdown in Nevada, the prospects for the conservative “Anybody But Romney” opposition looked grim indeed. Rick Santorum’s 3-for-3 hat-trick Tuesday night , however, revives the glimmer of a possibility that Romney can still be beat.
This morning’s Wall Street Journal reports on Obama’s “Runway to Win” fashion fundraiser tonight, where the campaign will begin hawking campaign-themed apparel and accessories from high-end designers. The article also raises some serious issues about potential campaign finance law violations: “Jan Baran, an election lawyer with Wiley Rein LLP, said designers can’t ask employees to work on political projects unless they willingly volunteered their time. ‘Someone who is paid to do campaign work is not a volunteer,’ he said. If the designer or staff are paid by anyone other than the campaign, it would be considered a campaign contribution from a company to a candidate.” These are serious questions and deserve a serious investigation—and an honest answer from the self-proclaimed “most transparent administration in history.” But visitors to www.RunwaytoWin.com may find themselves asking yet another question: Is the Obama campaign promoting a president or a product? The high-priced T-shirts ($45), totes ($75), and scarves ($95) are designed by the likes of Vera Wang, Marc Jacobs, and Beyoncé, and feature logos (the Obama ‘O’), slogans (“Greater Together”), and images (of the president himself). While the products’ prices are high by conventional standards, it all speaks to a certain cheapening of the commander-in-chief. It underscores yet again the Obama campaign’s desire to run on something—anything!—other than the president’s record. In 2008, Barack Obama had no record, so he ran on empty slogans. In 2012, he has a record, but because that record is so abysmal, the campaign has calculated that they must run a campaign that deliberately avoids mentioning it. The campaign has new slogans, old logos, and equally vapid platitudes—all meant to distract from high unemployment, rising debt, and the overwhelming sense that America is headed in the wrong direction. The American people won’t be distracted, but the Obama campaign has managed to distract themselves from reality. Team Obama talks about “fighting” for the middle class and about vague notions of “fairness”—and then they peddle a $95 scarf. In the Obama economy, few can realistically afford to be campaign- chic —even if these are supposed to be discounted prices. (See the RNC’s video, “ The Obama 2012 Fashion Show ”) This tone-deafness comes on the same day that Team Obama took hypocrisy to a new level—embracing the very Super PACs that the president once called a “threat to democracy.” It’s just the latest broken promise from Barack Obama and, like the fashion fundraising, directly undermines the administration’s own rhetoric. Seeing an opportunity for millions of dollars of pro-Obama cash, the campaign decided politics trumped principle and reversed their own position on Super PACs, encouraging donors to support the third party group Priorities USA. Barack Obama once declared that as a result of Super PACs, “every American might end up suffering.” Now, the Obama campaign has decided that, in the words of a $50 pin designed by Eddie Borgo, Barack Obama and his Super PAC could be “greater together.” Never mind the effect on “every American.” It really is all about “Priorities.” Obama now prioritizes fundraising over fighting supposed “suffering.” It doesn’t take a fashion designer to see that’s a bad look on him.
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Hope, Handbags, and Hypocrisy
[Posted by Karl] Calling SuperPACs a “ threat to democracy ” is sooo two days ago: On a conference call with members of President Obama’s 2012 reelection committee Monday evening, campaign manager Jim Messina announced that donors should start funding Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC run by two former White House staffers, Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney. The move was a remarkable shift in approach toward the independent political expenditure groups, whose role in the political process Obama has criticized and from which his campaign had sought to keep distance. *** Just seven months earlier, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt assured, “Neither the President nor his campaign staff or aides will fundraise for super PACs,” according to the LA Times . BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski collects video of Obama’s attacks on the Citizens United ruling that made this spending possible, while Ben Smith recalls Obama’s earlier campaign financing hypocrisy in rejecting public funding: That 2008 decision wasn’t made entirely out of some reformist purity. Obama would go back on a pledge to take public financing, accepting the hit on his reform credentials (which was enacted solely on the Times editorial page) in exchange for a serious financial advantage over John McCain. And his team decided that outside allies — whether the 527s or the more traditional DNC independent expenditure, could only muddy up the purity of his very pure message. So what has changed? One major shift is that Obama faces an opponent whose rich friends really will pour tens of millions into outside groups, unlike the underfunded and relatively isolated John McCain. Josh Kraushaar laid this out in detail last week. Based on the 2011 numbers: [T]he combined Obama and Democratic outside group totals to $98.3 million cash-on-hand, with the GOP groups tallying $94.1 million. Take out the Democratic groups strictly devoted to congressional activities, and it’s a virtual financial tie. With labor and environmental groups poised to help Obama’s re-election, Democrats still could hold a narrow edge. But it’s hardly the cash advantage that would allow Team Obama to run negative advertising uncontested against Romney, without an aggressive response. It’s a far cry from the vision of a billion-dollar Obama re-election campaign bankroll that Democratic strategists are now downplaying. And it shows that the amount of time Democrats spent complaining and attacking the liberalized campaign finance laws before the 2010 midterms would have been better spent preparing for an infrastructure utilizing super PACs to their advantage. Priorities USA, headed by former White House spokesman Bill Burton, hasn’t yet shown it can compete with American Crossroads so far — and time is running short. This was really a no-brainer for Obama. In my experience — and his — there is no political price to be paid for gaming the campaign finance system. Politico’s Jonathan Martin and others will sniff and move on, just to make sure it remains a Beltway story. Indeed, it’s barely a “Beltway story” — it made the front page of the NYT, but not the WaPo . –Karl
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Barack Obama, Super-hypocrite on SuperPACs
[Posted by Karl] Calling SuperPACs a “ threat to democracy ” is sooo two days ago: On a conference call with members of President Obama’s 2012 reelection committee Monday evening, campaign manager Jim Messina announced that donors should start funding Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC run by two former White House staffers, Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney. The move was a remarkable shift in approach toward the independent political expenditure groups, whose role in the political process Obama has criticized and from which his campaign had sought to keep distance. *** Just seven months earlier, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt assured, “Neither the President nor his campaign staff or aides will fundraise for super PACs,” according to the LA Times . BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski collects video of Obama’s attacks on the Citizens United ruling that made this spending possible, while Ben Smith recalls Obama’s earlier campaign financing hypocrisy in rejecting public funding: That 2008 decision wasn’t made entirely out of some reformist purity. Obama would go back on a pledge to take public financing, accepting the hit on his reform credentials (which was enacted solely on the Times editorial page) in exchange for a serious financial advantage over John McCain. And his team decided that outside allies — whether the 527s or the more traditional DNC independent expenditure, could only muddy up the purity of his very pure message. So what has changed? One major shift is that Obama faces an opponent whose rich friends really will pour tens of millions into outside groups, unlike the underfunded and relatively isolated John McCain. Josh Kraushaar laid this out in detail last week. Based on the 2011 numbers: [T]he combined Obama and Democratic outside group totals to $98.3 million cash-on-hand, with the GOP groups tallying $94.1 million. Take out the Democratic groups strictly devoted to congressional activities, and it’s a virtual financial tie. With labor and environmental groups poised to help Obama’s re-election, Democrats still could hold a narrow edge. But it’s hardly the cash advantage that would allow Team Obama to run negative advertising uncontested against Romney, without an aggressive response. It’s a far cry from the vision of a billion-dollar Obama re-election campaign bankroll that Democratic strategists are now downplaying. And it shows that the amount of time Democrats spent complaining and attacking the liberalized campaign finance laws before the 2010 midterms would have been better spent preparing for an infrastructure utilizing super PACs to their advantage. Priorities USA, headed by former White House spokesman Bill Burton, hasn’t yet shown it can compete with American Crossroads so far — and time is running short. This was really a no-brainer for Obama. In my experience — and his — there is no political price to be paid for gaming the campaign finance system. Politico’s Jonathan Martin and others will sniff and move on, just to make sure it remains a Beltway story. Indeed, it’s barely a “Beltway story” — it made the front page of the NYT, but not the WaPo . –Karl
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Barack Obama, Super-hypocrite on SuperPACs
[Posted by Karl] Only the naive thought stories like this were going away: Political hacktivist group Anonymous claims to have found emails linking Texas Rep. Ron Paul to an American white supremacist group, a claim the Paul campaign says is completely untrue. Las Vegas-based group American Third Party Position (AP3) — whose stated goal is “to reach out to Americans of European ancestry and particularly to disenfranchised White workers, farmers and students who have become victims of the discriminatory affirmative action policies” — was allegedly hacked by Anonymous Tuesday, and emails purportedly reveal close ties between Paul and members who are admitted white supremacists. Last week the story was that Paul was deeply involved in the company that produced racist, anti-gay, conspiracy-mongering newsletters , Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day. I am in no position to confirm or deny the Anonymous claims, but Paul is the guy who once bragged about how much money he raised from the mailing list for The Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, anti-Semitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto. Paul’s columns appeared in in the American Free Press — another Carto publication. His 2008 campaign was, er, unconcerned about donations coming via the Stormfront website. And Paul’s association with Civil War revisionists and the John Birch Society are recent-to-ongoing. Accordingly, the campaign’s denials are going to be met with skepticism in many quarters. But probably not from all quarters. My interest in the newsletter story has been Paul’s apologists and supporters in the media and libertarian circles. These folks are are spinning for Paul because they see his campaign as their best chance at gaining real-world political influence. That’s interesting insofar as these sorts of libertarians generally look down on supporters of the major parties as grubby and unprincipled. But for all their touting of Ron Paul as the principled candidate in the race, he’s a poseur on entitlements . Beyond what these stories reveal about supposedly principled libertarians, there is a potential residual effect on the election. Although Paul is downplaying expectations for the Nevada caucus , it appears he plans to stay in the race and amass as many delegates as he can for leverage at the GOP convention. Giving Paul a prime speaking slot or influence over the platform will give the establishment media a chance to drape his dirty laundry all over the eventual nominee, much as they hung Pat Buchanan’s around the neck of George H. W. Bush in 1992. –Karl
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Ron Paul campaign denies white supremacist ties
