Tag: dnc

Romney/RNC almost catches up with Obama/DNC in April.

The New York Times reported this morning that the combined raised total for Romney and the RNC was $40.1 million in April, with Romney having $61.4 million in the bank: in comparison, Obama/the DNC raised $43.6 million.  Barack Obama’s own cash on hand for April – it was $104.1 million at the end of March – and we probably won’t be told it until the Sunday deadline, or possibly a little later than that. Though, to be fair, Romney and the RNC haven’t submitted their latest fundraising reports to the FEC, either.

Also: while I give points to the NYT for mentioning that this was a significant jump from Romney’s March haul of $12.6 million, they might have kept comparing apples-to-apples and included the RNC’s March fundraising total ($13.7 million). Or noted that the Democrats’ $43.6 million number for April represents a drop from March’s $53 million.  Then again, I suppose that there’s a narrative in place. Continue reading Romney/RNC almost catches up with Obama/DNC in April.

The DNC seems to be sitting out the Wisconsin recall.

Alternate title: Eau de Flopsweat from #wirecall Democrats.

Alernate-alternate title: DOOM.

You know, when I saw this secondhand whine from Wisconsin Democrats upset that the DNC apparently wasn’t prepared to throw half a million dollars at the general recall election, I assumed that this would be resolved.  I mean, really: the Left has  already thrown away tens of millions of dollars; what’s a bit more?  Admittedly, not throwing utterly horrible money after bad (we’ve passed the ‘throwing good money after bad’ stage already) would be the right answer, in a strictly utilitarian sense; but the state party is in a bad way right now.  They sort of need an indication that the President cares for more than his own election, right?

Well… that’s apparently not going to happen.  MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asked Obama’s deputy* campaign manager Stephanie Cutter whether the DNC would be sending money earmarked for the recall, and Ms. Cutter said… nothing in particular. And definitely nothing that would commit the DNC to giving out money. Continue reading The DNC seems to be sitting out the Wisconsin recall.

#rsrh Rumor? Speculation? Misplaced Desire? Anyway, Debbie Wasserman Schultz to retire?

I called it ‘misplaced desire’ because Debbie Wasserman Schultz is turning out to be the kind of DNC chair that Republicans like: which is to say, incompetent – and loud about.  So very, very, very loud… but, fortunately, there’s no real indication yet that this Shark Tank report that DWS may not run for re-election.  I predict that if she does do so then Wasserman Schultz will probably not resign; at this point the expense of a second election for the rest of DWS’s term* would be an annoyance, and Florida is already enough of a headache for the Democratic party.

Then again, this assumes that DWS is thinking of anybody except herself, so if she plans to retire she might just cut and run at the same time anyway.

Moe Lane

*Article I, Section 2.  “When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.” And I don’t think that Rick Scott would pull a David Paterson and schedule the special election for the same date as the general.

Interesting: epithet-tossing Jewish liaison Dani Gilbert daughter of Obama bundlers.

Via Legal Insurrection comes this interesting story about DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her rather embarrassing Jewish liaison Dani Gilbert.  As you may remember, Ms. Gilbert had some unfortunate comments surface from her Facebook page – essentially, stuff from 2006 where she used admittedly self-derogatory religious/cultural epithets.  At the time, I wondered when exactly DWS had hired the young woman – just on the off chance that the DNC chair had knowingly hired an underaged drinker, which the DNC chair is certainly dumb enough to do.  It turns out that this was a new hire (for the DNC position, at least)… but, hey, that’s where this gets interesting!

Turns out that the DNC already had a Jewish liaison – Ira Forman.  Mr. Forman brings to the table a large amount of experience, as one would expect from a former executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council.  But he’s just one person – and not the daughter of two Florida Democratic bundlers who put together 500K for the Obama campaign, which is apparently Ms. Gilbert’s primary qualification for the job.  Shockingly, it’s being reported that the Obama administration recognized that Ms. Gilbert may not have been the most suitable candidate for this position; even more shockingly, Debbie Wasserman Schultz defied them… actually, not shockingly.  The Gilberts are also very heavy donor’s to Wasserman Schultz’s own campaign coffers, and since it’s clear by now that Barack Obama plans to get himself elected first and worry about everybody else in the Democratic party when he feels like it, the DNC chair may be feeling the need for a little insurance. Continue reading Interesting: epithet-tossing Jewish liaison Dani Gilbert daughter of Obama bundlers.

Obama throws… all non-Obama Democrats… under the fundraising bus.

DOOM*.

I had not realized that things were this bad for the Obama administration:

Democratic congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have privately sought as much as $30 million combined from Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee — a replay of the financial help they received from Obama in 2008 and 2010.

But that’s not going to happen, top Obama aides Jim Messina and David Plouffe told Reid and Pelosi in back-to-back meetings on Capitol Hill on Thursday, according to sources familiar with the high-level talks.

I mean, I knew that things were bad, and for the same reason that Ed Morrissey knew: both of us can read campaign finance reports, and both of us remember how the 2008 Obama campaign trumpeted its monthly fundraising.  Mind you, it’s reasonable to expect that Obama is probably going to have a hefty enough war chest, but 2008 was a fluke.  Or possibly a mass hallucination comparable to the ergot-fueled European witch panics; the historians will make the final decision on that in about sixty years or so, after we’re all safely dead.

Continue reading Obama throws… all non-Obama Democrats… under the fundraising bus.

#rsrh Hey, everyone! It’s DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

Having a moment of semi-honesty.  Apparently, we don’t elect ‘leaders’ – mind the sudden chill, there – to create jobs:

(H/T: Hot Air) I say ‘semi-honesty’ because it’s somewhat more accurate to say that empirical evidence over the last three years suggests that nobody should realistically expect that electing Democrats will create jobs.  But that is a somewhat complex concept, with several hard words in it – and Wasserman Schultz was picked for DNC chair more for her ability to snarl on cue than for her level of cognitive development.  I mean, I’m sure that she has some – but nobody’s exactly calling Debbie in to double-check the math on that neutrino thing, if you know what I mean…

#rsrh RNC beats DNC in August fundraising.

…and, oddly, it’s not bigger news:

As political rancor reached a crescendo over the debt limit crisis heading into the August Congressional recess, would-be Democratic donors seem to have been left with a bad taste in their mouths. Figures released Tuesday night show the Democratic National Committee making its poorest fundraising showing in months.

The $5.4 million raised by the main fundraising arm of the Democratic Party in August was overwhelmed by the more than $8 million raised by the Republican National Committee. The DNC’s haul was far lower than the $12 million it raised in June and the $7 million it raised in July.

Probably because, thanks to the Supreme Court’s landmark – and very belated – free speech reform decision (Citizens United v. FEC), worries about the parties having enough money to properly promote candidates have been fairly drastically muted.  Which means that while this news is of course welcome, it’s does not really have the connotations of being part of a life-or-death struggle that it would have in 2008…

Moe Lane

Debbie Downer’s bad first month as DNC Chair.

(Via Hot Air) The Politico is just now starting to realize just how big a boon DNC chair Debbie Downer (aka Debbie Wasserman Schultz) is… for the Republican Party:

She’s accused Republicans of wanting to reinstate segregation and of waging a “war on women.” She has asserted, somewhat nonsensically, that the GOP wants to make illegal immigration — by definition against the law — “a crime.” She’s also been mocked for driving a foreign car after pounding Republicans for not supporting the American auto industry.

[snip]

No one seems ready to declare her the Democratic version of Michael Steele, the gaffe-prone former Republican National Committee chairman whose rhetorical and administrative missteps led numerous party leaders to publicly insist he had to go.

Continue reading Debbie Downer’s bad first month as DNC Chair.

#rsrh Waitasecond. The DNC convention starts on LABOR DAY?

The Democratic party picked Labor Day weekend for their nominating convention in Charlotte, North Right-to-work Carolina?

Apparently.

Wow.  That’s the funniest damned thing that I’ve seen all day.

(pause)

Oh, well, it’s not like Big Labor doesn’t deserve the contempt shown to it by the Democrats.  I can’t respect people who won’t respect themselves, sorry.

Moe Lane

Democrats start clearing out OfA deadwood.

Well, that didn’t take long.  I mean, when I wrote this post indicating that Tim Kaine’s retention as DNC chair meant that the Democratic leadership had decided to concentrate solely on the President’s re-election*, I did not expect that I would receive some sort of confirmation of this within minutes.  But, thanks to Doug Heye, I see this report that the DNC is laying off… selected… Organizing for America staffers.  Which ones?  Well, Roll Call didn’t give specifics, but it’s fairly clear that the firings reflect the final abandonment of Howard Dean’s Fifty-State Strategy: they’re removing field staffers, which means that the leadership is writing off entire states.  Smart move for a Presidential campaign that’s starting kinda-sorta on the rocks; dumb move for a political party that wants to avoid regional status.

Organizing for America has, of course, always been a tool for the President.  It was clear even before the 2010 election that it was permitted to persist after the 2008 election in order to further the President’s chances in the 2012 election, and not to further the interests of the national Democratic party  – a charge angrily denied by the same press hack who is now gamely trying to explain away the layoffs – and it should be noted that the Roll Call article is noting that this was only the ‘first wave’ of layoffs.  Which means: expect more people getting fired, and expect non-Presidential Democratic resources be reserved for Democratic candidates running for office in states that Obama did win in 2008 but might lose in 2010.  Everybody else in the Democratic party is simply going to have to make do with less.

For the sake of the Lightworker.

Continue reading Democrats start clearing out OfA deadwood.