Subject: [big campaign] FW: [big campaign] St Paul Pioneer Press - Want to See McCain? Pay up or hope for an invite
From: David Donnelly <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:14:09 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

> 
> Speaking of the fundraiser... Also in the Twin Cities, we have an op-ed in the
> Star-Tribune hitting McCain on the fundraising issues and his opposition to
> public financing... And because of today¹s announcement:
> 
> Excerpt from below: ³McCain will try to make political hay if Obama chooses
> not to participate in the presidential public financing system in the general
> election. But we shouldn't forget that McCain himself has already opted in,
> and then opted out, of the presidential system this election cycle. The only
> reason he's gone unchecked is the lack of a quorum at the dormant Federal
> Election Commission.²
>  
> 
> http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/20518474.html?location_refer=Opi
> nion
> 
> Candidates will do most anything for money
> 
> By DAVID DONNELLY
> 
> June 18, 2008
> 
> When Sen. John McCain arrives in Minneapolis for a high-dollar fundraiser
> today, he will have already attended at least seven other fundraising events
> in five cities this week. This circuit is par for the course for our
> presidential candidates, who both are racing around the country as if on a
> giant Monopoly board, scooping up checks from whomever will write them.
> 
> And that's recently landed McCain in a bit of hot water.
> 
> McCain's campaign was forced to postpone another event this week -- scheduled
> in Midland, Texas -- when women's organizations questioned why he would hold a
> fundraiser at the home of oilman Clayton Williams. During his 1990 campaign
> for governor against the late Ann Richards, Williams equated rape to bad
> weather. "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it," he said. He also
> promised to treat Richards as if she were a cow, saying he'd "head her and
> hoof her and drag her through the dirt."
> 
> The McCain campaign feigned ignorance about Williams' past, but that claim
> rang hollow. These unconscionable comments are widely known in Texan and
> national political circles, and could have been easily found with a quick
> Google search. The most charitable read is that the campaign used the old
> Sergeant Schultz defense -- "I see nothing!" -- so that they could deny ever
> knowing the truth if someone caught them red-handed.
> 
> How can the campaign be so oblivious? Perhaps the insatiable drive for cash is
> also to blame. McCain has been asked to rid the campaign of the $300,000 that
> Williams raised, but so far he's refused. Returning the money or donating it
> to a charity is the right thing to do in this case. But this political penance
> would only wallpaper over the real problem: Regardless of political party,
> candidates are required to raise ever-increasing large sums of money to run
> for higher office.
> 
> Much has been written about McCain's opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, and the
> fundraising machine he's built. The explosion of small donations to his
> campaign is a hopeful sign of political engagement of millions of Americans,
> but it does not, in and of itself, represent an overhaul of the rules for
> everyone else. While small online donors fuel Obama's rise, McCain's run has
> been increasingly dependent on large contributions to his campaign and even
> larger ones to the Republican National Committee. In fact, they've set a goal
> of raising $120 million for the party alone. And that's how most candidates do
> it.
> 
> McCain will try to make political hay if Obama chooses not to participate in
> the presidential public financing system in the general election. But we
> shouldn't forget that McCain himself has already opted in, and then opted out,
> of the presidential system this election cycle. The only reason he's gone
> unchecked is the lack of a quorum at the dormant Federal Election Commission.
> 
> Relatively little has been written about what the candidates intend to do
> about the cash-and-carry system of paying for campaigns. On the surface, one
> would think that the race features two reform candidates. The truth, however,
> is more complex. Like his shift to support President George W. Bush's policies
> on tax cuts and off-shore oil drilling, McCain's record on campaign finance
> reform is decidedly not prologue to what he would support as president.
> 
> McCain once authored a fix to the broken presidential public financing system
> but now refuses to add his name as cosponsor to the same bipartisan
> legislation. He once called his state's Clean Elections public financing law a
> "national model" but now states he opposes its extension to all federal races.
> 
> Obama has cosponsored both and has said that their passage would be a priority
> if elected.
> 
> McCain's campaign website rightly identifies one aspect of the problem of
> money in politics, stating that "the most influential lobbyists with the
> greatest access in the nation's Capitol are also the most prolific political
> fundraisers," but, according to Public Citizen, McCain has five times the
> number of lobbyists as Obama -- 70 to 14 -- raising money for his campaign.
> 
> Under comprehensive public financing systems, like those operating
> successfully in a number of states around the country, candidates would rely
> little if at all on lobbyists and fundraisers like Clayton Williams. Perhaps
> that's the ultimate lesson for McCain from the canceled fundraiser in Texas.
> Don't just vet the fundraisers. Overhaul the system.
> 
> David Donnelly is director of Campaign Money Watch, which describes itself as
> a nonpartisan campaign-finance watchdog group based in Washington.
> 
> 
> 
> On 6/19/08 11:36 AM, "Tory Brown" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Want to see McCain? Pay up or hope for an invite
> <http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_9628845?nclick_check=1>
> First, a fundraiser, then a gathering for a select few
> 
> 
> By Bill Salisbury
> [email-masked]
> <mailto:[email-masked]?subject=TwinCities.com:%20Want%20to%20see%
> 20McCain?%20Pay%20up%20or%20hope%20for%20an%20invite>
> Article Last Updated: 06/18/2008 11:59:35 PM CDT
> 
> Republican John McCain will bring his presidential campaign to Minnesota for
> the first time today, holding an early evening town hall meeting in St. Paul
> with a select group of undecided voters after a late afternoon fundraiser in
> Minneapolis. 
> None of the events is open to the public.
> 
> An earlier public event tentatively planned for Eagan has been canceled, a
> campaign aide said.
> 
> Facing a November showdown with Democrat Barack Obama, McCain hopes to push
> purple Minnesota into the red column for the first time in 36 years and pick
> up some much-needed cash in the process.
> 
> Tickets for his fundraising reception, starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Hilton
> Minneapolis, range from $1,000 a person for dinner to a private reception for
> individuals and couples who raise $50,000.
> 
> The Arizona senator needs the money. Through April, Obama had raised $265
> million to McCain's $97 million.
> 
> The town hall meeting will be at the Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul,
> just a block from the Xcel Energy Center where McCain will receive the
> Republican presidential nomination in September.
> 
> The event is by ticket only. The campaign did not say how they selected
> undecided voters to attend the meeting.
> 
> The crowd will not come close to matching the 30,000 people who swarmed the
> "X" on June 3 to hear Obama declare victory in the race for the Democratic
> presidential nomination.
> 
> McCain's visit suggests he considers Minnesota a battleground state. Although
> Democrats have carried it in the past eight elections ‹ their longest winning
> streak in any state ‹ the past two presidential contests have been close. In
> 2000, Al Gore narrowly defeated George W. Bush, 48 percent to 46 percent, and
> four years ago, John Kerry topped Bush 51 percent to 48 percent.
> 
> Polls suggest McCain is within striking distance in Minnesota. The most recent
> one showed he and Obama are virtually tied.
> 
> Obama led McCain, 47 percent to 46 percent, in a Survey USA poll released
> Monday. That survey, conducted for KSTP-TV and two other Minnesota television
> stations, had a 4.3 percentage point margin of error, making the race a dead
> heat. 
> 
> But the average of the three most recent statewide polls gives Obama a 9-point
> lead, 50 percent to 41 percent. The Rasmussen Report and the Star Tribune's
> Minnesota Poll conducted the other surveys.
> 
> "It is clearly a dead heat," Ben Golnik, McCain's regional campaign manager,
> said Wednesday. "We think we've out-organized Obama. Our offices opened ahead
> of theirs. We have more staff on the ground, and we feel good about it."
> 
> In addition, Gov. Tim Pawlenty is McCain's national campaign co-chairman and
> is frequently mentioned as a possible running mate. But when asked to comment
> on McCain's visit, Pawlenty said ... nothing. He failed to respond to a
> Pioneer Press request for an interview on the event.
> 
> He did, however, find time to publicly criticize Obama before the Democratic
> candidate held his St. Paul rally.
> 
> But the governor has not had a discernible impact on the presidential race in
> Minnesota so far, said Donna Cassutt, associate chair of the state
> Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
> 
> "Minnesotans are not buying what John McCain is selling, and Gov. Pawlenty is
> not helping him to close the deal," Cassutt said. "As we recall, Gov. Pawlenty
> couldn't even carry his own party's caucuses for McCain."
> 
> McCain finished a distant second behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney
> in Minnesota's Feb. 5 Republican precinct caucuses.
> 
> But McCain won 35 of the 41 Republican National Convention delegates elected
> at GOP conventions around Minnesota this spring.
> 
>  
>  
> Tory Brown
> Deputy Director of State Media
> Progressive Media USA
> Office: 202-609-7673
> Cell: 703-655-4888
> 
> 
> > 
> 
>  
> 

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