Month: October 2009

Does Charlie Crist have permission to use all those articles?

Specifically, the ones written by Alex Leary for the St. Petersburg Times, and which are now showing up on Charlie Crist’s anti-Rubio hit site. Compare a post from said hit site:

Rubio1

…with the original:
Rubio2

Unless Mr. Leary is actually involved with this project, and the St. Petersburg Times, this is an embarrassing failure to understand the Internet. Why? Because of this:

ARR

Reproducing other people’s articles and posting them under your own name? Definite no-no. I’m curious to why the Crist campaign thinks that it’s entitled to do this. Perhaps it just thinks that it’s entitled in general?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Hey, did you vote last November to end business as usual?

You know, new broom sweeping clean, cleaning out the Augean stables, generally showing those people in Washington who was who and what was what – and how there was going to be a new boss, with new rules and expectations on behavior. Well, meet the new boss:

During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings.

High-dollar fundraisers have been promised access to senior White House officials in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, according to internal Democratic National Committee documents obtained by The Washington Times.

H/T: The Conservatives. Note that none of this is actually illegal; it’s just… business. This is how things are done in Washington. People willing to give money to politicians will be generally treated better by those politicians than people who are not, all other things being equal. This may disappoint supporters of the President, who (rightfully) may be feeling that they were at least misled about this administration’s intentions, but that’s not exactly the fault of everybody else. Of course, one way of controlling the underlying problem is by encouraging negative feedback mechanisms; for example, transparency…

Since taking office, Mr. Obama has pledged that his administration will be “the most open and transparent administration in history” and has agreed to make public the names of those who sign into White House visitor logs, though a request from The Times for logs that show visits from his top 45 bundlers has so far gone unfilled.

Requests for guest lists to various White House events, such as a recent cocktail reception surrounding the celebration of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ National Hockey League Stanley Cup victory or the Latin music concert last week, have also been denied repeatedly.

Ah. Never mind.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Joe Biden: supporting Steve Israel (D, NY) is a smart investment.

No, that’s what he said to a room full of potential campaign contributors.  Ones from outside Steve Israel’s district.

I just want you to know that supporting him is a smart investment.

Do tell, Mr. Vice President. Do tell.

Moe Lane

PS: NY-02 is a D+4 district. Getting to the edge, but still gettable. Needs a challenger, though.

Crossposted to RedState.

PPP: maybe DON’T GOTV for Corzine?

At least, that’s the impression that I’m getting from this PPP blog entry:

The voters under 30 in New Jersey in our latest poll reported voting for Obama 56-36 last year. But they support Corzine just 42-40 over Chris Christie this fall with 13% going to Chris Daggett.

In fact, in general I’m getting the impression that PPP is quietly operating from the expectation that Corzine will lose under current circumstances, and is trying to find some way of writing that without starting a self-fulfilling prophecy panic.  Meanwhile, Q-Pac is saying Corzine +5; reconciling that number with them having Christie win independents 45/30 is left as an exercise for the interested student (see Geraghty for more along those lines).  And, as usual, the uncertainty about the percentage of the vote going to Daggett is driving all the pollsters mad.

Moe Lane

PS: Chris Christie for Governor.

Crossposted to RedState.