espuelas

In a highly damaging disclosure, Politico obtained a confidential Republican National Committee presentation detailing the Party's strategy for fundraising.

The leaked document discusses the use of "fear" of President Barack Obama and stopping "socialism" as ways to motivate for donors.

But the document also asserts that Republican donors are interested to donate because of: "networking opportunities", "access", "wall of fame", "ego-driven", "extreme negative feelings towards current administration", and "reactionary" tendencies.

The strategy also contemplates that donors will be motivated by "tchochkes!!!!!" or trinkets.

Not surprisingly, Republican donors are less than happy at being depicted in this manner by the Republican Party itself.

Here's a particularly bizarre image from the presentation:

Politico reports on the Republicans' attempt at damage control:

Republicans, including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, are scrambling to put as much distance as they can between themselves and an RNC fundraising document encouraging operatives to use “fear” to solicit donations, but several veteran Republicans say the tone of the pitch is nothing new.

Steele also rushed Thursday to assure donors that the party respects them despite the assumptions behind the document. “Our donors are compassionate, concerned activists out there who support a party that they believe in. And we want that to continue,” he said on Fox News.

Nearly 30 Republican Party officials, committee members, strategists and top fundraisers were contacted Thursday by POLITICO to comment on the controversial PowerPoint presentation. Only a handful responded, and very few were willing to speak on the record.

“That a Beltway operative is supremely cynical is no surprise,” said Mark Hillman, a Republican National Committeeman from Colorado. “That he’s so foolish and naive as to air that crap publicly and distribute printed copies is just appalling.”

“It’s clear that the Obama administration’s far-left agenda is scaring a lot of people, and therefore it’s useful as a fundraising [tool], too. So I understand why they did it,” said Fred Malek, a prominent Republican donor and power broker who has aligned himself with the Republican Governors Association rather than the RNC.

“But I ... believe that it is always more powerful to state how we want to move the country forward, especially since our center-right agenda is where the country is as a whole,” he said.

Here's Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele bumbling his way through an explanation on FoxNews:

CNN reports on Steele's public reaction.  The disclosure of this document was "unfortunate", he said:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Thursday condemned a now-public internal party document that mocks GOP donors, but he would not say if disciplinary action is being taken against the official who created the presentation.

The powerpoint presentation, leaked to Politico on Wednesday, described high-level Republican donors as "ego-driven" and claimed they could be enticed with "tchochkes." The document included a slide - titled "The Evil Empire" - with cartoonish images depicting President Obama as the Joker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Cruella DeVille and Harry Reid as Scooby Doo. Steele called the pictures "unfortunate."

"Those are images that were pulled off the internet, they've been out in the public domain for a while, and you know, a staffer was putting together a presentation for a small group of about nine or ten folks and thought that they would intersperse the presentation with humorous shots," Steele explained in an appearance on Fox News. "They are inappropriate shots."

Steele would not say who was responsible for the document, saying only that he has asked RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart "to get to the bottom of it." Bickhart is reportedly the staffer who made the fundraising presentation to GOP donors in Boca Grande, Florida last month.

The Washington Post describes the attempt to control the damage:

National Republican leaders scrambled Thursday to control damage caused by an internal party document that caricatures President Obama as the Joker and stokes fear of socialism to raise money in a critical election year.

The 72-page PowerPoint presentation reveals the blunt appeal to emotion that both parties use to motivate donors and prefer to keep private. But its release online and consequent cable chatter became an unwelcome distraction for Republicans, because the strategy it outlined fit squarely with Democrats' portrait of the GOP as the party of "no."

"You don't defend it," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said Thursday in an interview on Fox News. "It was unfortunate. Those were images that were uploaded off the Internet. They've been out in the public domain for a while. A staffer was putting together a presentation for a small group of nine or 10 folks and thought they would intersperse their presentation with humorous shots. They're inappropriate."

Sen. John Thune (S.D.), a member of the Republican leadership, said: "There is no place for this. Obviously when you're fundraising . . . you want to make direct and succinct points, but using these sorts of tactics is certainly not something that any of us ought to condone."

Ironically, Republican fundraising for Congressional campaigns is running behind the Democrats' efforts.  Politico reports:

Republicans are feeling pretty good about the midterms. Prognosticators don’t laugh anymore when they talk about taking back Congress.

But while wind at one’s back is a good thing, cash in the bank would be better, and on that score Republicans are lagging behind. Their candidates have raised less than half the $84 million that experts estimate it will take to seriously threaten the Democratic majority in the House. The situation at the National Republican Congressional Committee is even bleaker.

In 2008, the committee spent more than $34 million on advertising and other assistance to candidates, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Today, the NRCC has a grand total of $4 million in the bank — and that is after one of its best fundraising months. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, by contrast, has about $18 million.

Overall, the Democratic Party committees combined have outraised their Republican counterparts significantly, bringing in $442,885,585 since last January, compared with $255,000,681 for the respective GOP committees. The Democrats’ $51 million in cash is also significantly larger than the Republicans’ $34 million.

In recent cycles, such disparities have become the norm for the Democratic Senate and House committees. A major difference this year, however, is the Democratic National Committee’s ability to keep pace with the Republican National Committee, which has dominated the fundraising world for decades.

Michael Steele has once again ruffled the feathers of fellow Republicans.

Steele, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee and the most senior African-American Republican in the Party, was elected to infuse the GOP with instant diversity.

Think of him as a Conservative Obama doppelganger.

But his boisterous style - plus the suspicion of many Party grandees that he harbors big, personal ambitions for the future - has often put him at odds with the GOP mainstream.

Now it seems that Steele has been more proficient at spending donor money than raising it.

Politico reports:

Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is spending twice as much as his recent predecessors on private planes and paying more for limousines, catering and flowers – expenses that are infuriating the party's major donors who say Republicans need every penny they can get for the fight to win back Congress.

Most recently, donors grumbled when Steele hired renowned chef Wolfgang Puck's local crew to cater the RNC's Christmas party inside the trendy Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, and then moved its annual winter meeting from Washington to Hawaii.

For some major GOP donors, both decisions were symbolic of the kind of wasteful spending habits they claim has become endemic to his tenure at the RNC. When Ken Mehlman served as the committee chairman during the critical 2006 midterm elections, the holiday party was held in a headquarters conference room and Chic-fil-A was the caterer.

A POLITICO analysis of expenses found that compared with 2005, the last comparable year preceding a midterm election, the committee’s payments for charter flights doubled; the number of sedan contractors tripled, and meal expenses jumped from $306,000 to $599,000.

“Michael Steele is an imperial chairman,” said one longtime Republican fundraiser. “He flies in private aircraft. He drives in private cars. He has private consultants that are paid ridiculous retainers. He fancies himself a presidential candidate and wants all of the trappings and gets them by using other people’s money.”

And compounding Steele's problems with his own party is the fact that Democrats seem to be well funded for the 2010 elections.  Politico reports:

In nearly every state where Republican Senate candidates have a contested primary this year, the leading Democratic Senate candidate enjoys a money advantage over his would-be foes.

Democratic officials hope that these intra-party GOP contests will further bleed the eventual Republican nominees, hobbling them as they head into the fall campaign. If already-underfunded Republican Senate candidates have to spend their cash fending off primary opponents, that will leave their war chests diminished for the general election.

In five states where potentially vulnerable Democrats are up for reelection, the incumbents enjoy a strong cash-on-hand lead over their assorted challengers. That early edge could help Arkansas's Blanche Lincoln, Colorado's Michael Bennet (who also faces a Democratic primary), California's Barbara Boxer, Nevada's Harry Reid and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter.

The 2010 election is on.

Democrats and Republicans are using the 1st anniversary of the Recovery Act - the stimulus bill passed in the early days of the Obama Administration - to offer contrasting views of why each party should be trusted to run the country.

The November mid-term elections are a crucial moment in American politics.  People across the country are living in high anxiety - and the politicians in Washington seem oblivious to the real pain and suffering inaction and partisanship are causing.

Considering both parties' dismal poll numbers, this partisan wrangling at a time when unemployment is still sky high, millions of people are threatened with foreclosures and the economy has yet to really recover for middle class families, these mutual attacks may confirm that the political parties are more interested in the 2010 election than in fixing our broken political system.

Vice-President Joe Biden wrote this morning in USA Today about how the stimulus worked:

A year ago today, President Obama signed the Recovery Act into law. Time and again I am asked, "How can you say that the Recovery Act has worked when the unemployment rate is so much higher today than it was when the act was signed?" It's a fair question — and one worth answering on this anniversary day.

First, we think the Recovery Act is working because of the progress we've made in slowing job loss. In the three months before the act took effect, America lost 750,000 jobs a month. In the last three months, we've lost about 35,000 jobs a month. That's progress — not good enough, not where we need to be, but progress. And most economists agree that that progress is thanks in a very large part to the Recovery Act.

Independent economists believe that, thanks to the Recovery Act, about 2 million people are on the job today who would not have work otherwise. Is that good enough in an economy that has lost more than 8 million jobs? Of course not. But it is a lot better than the alternative.

Second, the Recovery Act is working because it is helping hard-hit families get through tough economic times. If you get a paycheck, you got a tax cut from the Recovery Act, which lowered the amount of withholding for over 95% of working Americans. If you are a senior citizen, or a veteran, you got a $250 check to help pay your bills. If you are unemployed, your benefits were extended thanks to the Recovery Act. In fact, these tax cuts and direct aid to individuals are the largest parts of the Recovery Act — more than half of all Recovery Act spending has gone to cut taxes or provide relief to seniors, veterans and the unemployed.

And Republican Chairman Michael Steele made the counter argument in a piece for the Daily Caller:

Over a year ago, the American people placed an enormous amount of trust in President Obama to make good on his promises of renewed responsibility and a new era of political bipartisanship. However, when faced with an extreme economic downturn he used the crisis as a means to his liberal ends and with the help of his Congressional allies forced his failed $862 billion stimulus package on America.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this failed stimulus package, something the president still claims as one of his signature achievements and which he proclaimed would “create or save” 3.5 million jobs and keep unemployment below 8 percent. Since those early heady days of the Obama administration the American people have seen behind the curtain of rhetoric and watched as millions of jobs were lost and unemployment rose into the double digits.

While the Democrats spend their President’s Day recess celebrating their stimulus bill, something Speaker Nancy Pelosi called “a hallmark achievement of this Congress,” the American people are faced with the daily consequences of broken promises and fiscal irresponsibility. The fact is over 20,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of January, meaning more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus passed. And let’s not forget the 136,000 workers became discouraged last month from seeking work, bringing the total number of workers who have given up hope of finding a job to over 1 million.

President Obama promised 3.5 million jobs would be created by December 2010 which means Democrats need to create 6.3 million jobs over the next 10 months to meet their own rhetorical standard, a level of job growth that has never been achieved in American history. The president might call his fiscal and job creation plans a “new foundation for prosperity,” but in reality his binge spending agenda sets the stage for the type of economic stagnation that would make even Jimmy Carter blush.

Here's the President making the argument that the stimulus package prevented a second Great Depression  speaking at the White House this morning:

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The president argued that he signed the legislation, a move he said was not politically easy for him or for those in Congress. Such a large expenditure is never popular at a time of massive deficits, he said.

“We acted because failure to do so would have led to catastrophe,” Obama said in televised remarks. “We acted because we had a larger responsibility than simply winning the next election.

“One year later, it is largely thanks to the Recovery Act that a second Depression is no longer a possibility,” he said.

Obama made the arguments he has made before that a third of the money went to tax cuts and a third to bring relief to those laid off, giving them added jobless benefits and help with health insurance.

“Our work is far from over, but we have rescued this economy,” Obama said.

The New York Times reports on the rhetorical duel between the Democrats and Republicans over the efficacy of the stimulus plan:

On the anniversary of President Obama’s stimulus package, Democrats and Republicans have been throwing grenades online at one another.

In televised remarks this morning, Mr. Obama contends that the recession would have been far worse without the stimulus package — now estimated to cost about $850 billion. But he adds that signing such a large spending bill was not an easy decision.

He and his administration contend that about 2 million people are working who otherwise would not be, as a direct result of the stimulus. Republicans counter that millions of jobs have still been lost through the year that the stimulus has been in effect. Reaction is pitched and indeed partisan on the topic of the nation’s economy. (While former Gov. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic party, has been out in force on the airwaves defending the stimulus today, conservatives are featuring some noted commentary. For example, the Heritage Foundation at 12:45 today will host a Webcast with Steve Forbes.)

The Democratic Party is on the attack against what it calls Republican "hypocrisy":

And here's the GOP anti-stimulus 2010 election ad pronouncing Obama a failure:

Update on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 12:14PM by Espuelas

 

Ezra Klein writes in the Washington Post about the real impact of the stimulus bill:

The macroeconomic story. According to private forecasters -- we're not talking Obama administration folks, but private firms that are paid by other private companies to accurately analyze the market -- the stimulus worked. "Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com," reports David Leonhardt. "They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative."

You have to sympathize with the Obama administration: It has done more to save and create jobs than any White House in recent memory. It stabilized a financial system that was teetering on the edge of collapse, and that would have sent unemployment skyrocketing if it had fallen. The administration passed an $800 billion stimulus bill that has already created more than 1.6 million jobs and is likely to create 2.5 million by the time it ends. And still it's hammered, on the one hand, for not doing enough to create jobs, and on the other hand, for high deficits, which are a direct product of how much the administration's doing to create jobs.

But it is operating amid an economy that's much better at shedding jobs than any economy since the 1930s. Better, even, than the administration is at passing legislation to create jobs. The fact that the captain is uncommonly good at bailing out his boat does not mean he outmatches the ocean around him. Meanwhile, half the crew is blaming him for the fact of the waves and telling the passengers that they should never ride this cruise line again.