Tag: obama for america

Obama for America team preparing to milk Obama for America database.

It will surprise no-one that Politico buried the hell out of the lede when it wrote up the story of Obama’s Donor/Volunteer List*.  In fact, they got almost all the way to the end before exhuming said lede:

Several sources say Team Obama is looking closely at creating a new 501(c)(4) organization, an IRS designation for a nonprofit that operates to promote social welfare. It’s sole purpose would be to manage Obama’s grass-roots supporters. The designation would also allow the group to lobby, endorse or oppose candidates, and donate to campaigns.

For those who don’t memorize my site posts – tsk, tsk – here’s my description of 501(c)(4)s:

Short version: a 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, unlike a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, does not have to disclose its donor lists; contributions to it are not tax-deductible.  501(c)(4) corporations are technically not supposed to be majority politically oriented; but there’s nothing stopping one from donating heavily to, say, a Super PAC that is politically oriented (see here and here).  Shorter Moe Lane: 501(c)(4) corporations are great for legally laundering political cash.  Which is fine by me – I’m a full transparency, full disclosure, no-limit free speech absolutist when it comes to political contributions – but it’s insanely hypocritical for group who supported the DISCLOSE Act to be using this system.  And, guess what?  Most of the professional Activist Left supported the DISCLOSE Act.

Well then.  I hear that there’s money in that sort of thing, for an ambitious set of folks who might not be adverse to taking advantage of potential customers’ superstitious, slightly frantic natures.  Quite a bit of money. Also: hard to tell this way if any failures are on the part of the list, or on the part of the (no doubt unworthy) customer who bought the list.

Not that I’m suggesting anything.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane

*Short version: the Democrats want that list, despite the fact that objectively speaking Obama did hella worse in ’12 than he did in ’08, and despite the fact that Obama was never able to use the list to actually push policy successfully.  The Obama team does not want to give away that list.

…Wait, where have I heard this ‘Rallying Obama for America’ story before?

You know, this one?

With lawmakers scheduled to return to work on Monday to begin intense discussions before a looming fiscal deadline, Mr. Obama’s aides are trying to harness the passions that returned him to the White House, hoping to pressure Republicans in Congress to accept tax increases on the wealthy. The president’s strategists are turning first to the millions of e-mail addresses assembled by the campaign and the White House.

Already, supporters are being asked to record YouTube videos of themselves talking about the importance of raising taxes on the rich. Aides said those videos would be shared on Facebook and Twitter and would be forwarded to centrist Democrats, as well as to mainstream Republicans, who they hope will break with their Tea Party colleagues.

Continue reading …Wait, where have I heard this ‘Rallying Obama for America’ story before?

Obama for America: Go phone bank! …In the middle of the hurricane!

Spoiler warning: DON’T.

You have got to be kidding me.

…For those who can’t see the photo: Fox News is reporting an email where Obama for America asked for volunteers to man the Annapolis, MD phone banks, starting at 5:30 PM this afternoon.  At that point, Hurricane Sandy will be descending upon the Chesapeake Bay area and will make landfall some time between 8 PM this evening and 8 AM tomorrow.  Annapolis is in the possible storm track.  It WILL get hammered by winds, rain, and flooding.

So NO.  DO NOT GO INTO ANNAPOLIS TO PHONE BANK TODAY.  IT CAN WAIT.

Sheesh.  Are there no adults in Obama for America?  …Sorry, rhetorical question.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Scenes From the Class(less) Struggle In (Apparently) Ohio*…

…got to love Obama for America’s outreach program, huh?

Charming. Hopefully that camera has a zoom function…

Moe Lane

*If you’ve never seen Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills… well. It’s worth watching, but… well… um… yeah. Hoo, boy, hard to describe that one.

Now THIS is what happens when a party takes you for granted, DC Democrats.

You don’t just get the short end of the stick. You don’t get the stick at all.

Hey, remember when Obama for America was rolling in cash? Yeah, me too: that’s why I’m bringing it up, with malice aforethought.

Obama for America… taking out $15 million dollar loan… from BANK OF AMERICA?

This is a situation where the traditional “…Wait. WHAT?” seems a bit… understated: “Obama For America took out a $15 million loan from Bank of America last month, according to the campaign’s October monthly FEC report. The loan was incurred on September 4 and is due November 14, eight days after the election. OFA received an interest rate of 2.5% plus the current Libor rate.”

Now, I could say a lot of things about this.  I could say that it is passing strange for a campaign to borrow walking-around money when it’s supposedly a fundraising mega-machine (the Government Accountability Institute is a little concerned about that, actually).  I could say that it’s remarkably awkward that Bank of America apparently has a much cozier relationship with Obama for America than the latter’s faux-populist message might imply.  I could even say that Warren Buffett may have found a fairly clever way to dump fifteen million into the Obama campaign without having to answer to those pesky finance laws that Obama once supported, until they all got in the way.  But I won’t.

Instead I’ll say: I really hope that Bank of America has some good collateral on that loan, because they ain’t seeing that money paid back any time soon.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh In which I fix Obama for America’s Commie agitprop poster for it.

Like Weasel Zippers, I can see how the “Forward” poster that OfA is flogging is pretty danged Commie all on its own; but the weak-sister bourgeois-sentimental crypto-Marxists over at Team Magic Beautiful Space Unicorn really didn’t make their poster pop.  So, I gave it a shot.

…Shocking how little I had to change it from the original, huh?

Obama for America’s quiet, nervous, base repair efforts.

So, I get forwarded this email blast from the go… the people over at Obama for America:

Yeah, the usual outrageous outrage from the outrageously outraged Left.  So far, so typical.  But then I noticed something: where’s the video link? Continue reading Obama for America’s quiet, nervous, base repair efforts.

Obama for America promises to fill stadium for Obama’s convention speech.

Alternative title: Main campaign team for an allegedly likeable President who won the general election with 53% of the popular vote and 365-173 in the Electoral College issues statement that the President will be able to fill a 74,000 seat stadium on the night of his convention speech.  Which is, of course, far too long.

There’s a bit more absurdity in that Hill article (H/T Hot Air Headlines) – particularly the bits about how Obama for America is still pretending that it has a shot at winning North Carolina again, instead of just counting the days until it can bail out of the state for good – but the above represents the main incongruity.  It’s not whether or not OfA can fill a stadium; filling the stadium by fair means or foul is OfA’s job*.  It’s not even that questions have been raised whether or not OfA is capable of filling a stadium. It’s that OfA is tacitly admitting that those questions were justified.  Continue reading Obama for America promises to fill stadium for Obama’s convention speech.

Why the Left freaked out about Paul Ryan telling the truth about the Janesville closing.

Such an innocent looking passage, to spark such panic from the Left. 

From Paul Ryan’s convention speech yesterday:

President Barack Obama came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two.  Those were very tough days, and any fair measure of his record has to take that into account.  My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.

A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.”  That’s what he said in 2008.

Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year.  It is locked up and empty to this day.  And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

This is, by the way, a perfectly accurate statement.  There was a GM plant in Janesville.  Barack Obama did make a speech there in 2008.  He did, in that speech, make those comments*.  And the plant did not “last another year” – despite, I should note, the Obama administration’s bailout of GM that the administration is kind-of, sort-of touting as an ‘achievement.’  These are all true things; which has not kept the Left from screaming otherwise, to the point where the Obama campaign has officially (and in my opinion, unwisely) called Paul Ryan a liar. Continue reading Why the Left freaked out about Paul Ryan telling the truth about the Janesville closing.