Maddow: Exposing Anonymous Corporate Republican Donors is a Winning Tactic for Democrats
Rachel Maddow talked to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake about the Democrats' strategy for the mid-term elections: using the emerging scandal around anonymous corporate donors pouring money into Republican coffers as a campaign issue. Lake explained to Maddow why -- contrary to Beltway conventional wisdom -- this is a good issue for Democrats to run on.
LAKE: This is an issue that is a good October surprise for the Democrats and the progressives. It’s a way of really raising the fundamental question about whose side you're on. It ties into an economic narrative. We’ve had a hard time getting off the ground. In twenty-two congressional districts where the Chamber is running its ads with foreign money, 184,000 jobs have been outsourced to many of these very same foreign corporations.
These people aren’t putting up their money for nothing. What are they buying? And this isn’t free speech, it’s bought speech and the public has a right to know who’s trying to buy their candidates.
As they both noted, this message is going to resonate in blue-collar districts where the Democrats are having the most trouble, and it keeps the message simple: Whose side are you on?
Naturally, Mark Halperin doesn't think the Democrats should be running on this issue. From Hardball earlier the same evening, here's Chris Matthews, Mark Halperin and Richard Wolffe discussing why everything is doom and gloom for Democrats in the midterm elections. Halperin of course thinks the Democrats should not be "engaging in strictly assassination of Republicans" or going after the Chamber of Commerce and their foreign donors and instead President Obama should be telling the country what he wants to do next.
Why that's some winning issue when he knows full well the Republicans will just obstruct anything he tries to get passed and then claim Democrats are incapable of governing is beyond me. I think the last thing the Democrats should be doing is taking any political advice from Mark Halperin.
Here's a prime example of the inside the Beltway common wisdom Rachel was talking about from Matthews and company.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell (1903 - 1950)
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/35028.html
I love to see them squirm. They really hate to admit they aren't even American sponsored.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Yeah, it makes the repugs look even worse and I'm all for going after 'em, but I'm not sure this helps much with regards to apathy on the part of the Dems' base.
jobs...and republican access! They are corporations on the side of Big business! Halprien is a republican shill...most have kicked him off shows because his bias is too obvious! Only Tweety would use him and gregory of course==same net work!
Look at who has curtailed free rein for business--not the Gop...Look at where the $$$ are going in Congress! ThinkProgress has a partial list of foreign contributors..
I love that CoC response.
We will not be silenced with regard to our silence!
they have a list of 84 foreign companies and how much they have contributed to The Chamber. It totals $885,000. And that's just the ones that are visible....imagine how much they have gotten from the companies they refuse to disclose!
Here in Oregon, the Rethuglican candidate for governor, Chris Dudley, got a pile of cash yesterday--$1.5 MILLION sent to him from out of state--The Rethuglican Governors' Association. Earlier in the campaign, they gave him $1 MILLION. Nice to know somebody from out of state wants to buy our government.
Oh, yes....I forgot to mention the mysterious $150,000 which was spent on behalf of Art Robinson, Peter DeFazio's Rethuglican/Tea Party opponent--and Art says he hasn't a clue whose money it is.
Nice.
They play with it. They are playing with the rest of us-- whether we like it or not.
Many months ago I surmised that the emerging political paradigm is shifting from left-right to corporate-populist. We're seeing this shift more clearly in the last few days.
I'm confused WHY Mark Halperin has seemed to been promoted to deity-level perspective on the upcoming elections. This guy is a HACK!
The Halperin trying to down-play the use of the rethuglicans solicitation for Foreign Government money for campaigns is just lunacy... I'd be willing to bet i you peeled back Halperin's rubbery covering just one layer you would find a full-fledged Karl-Rove-Wannabee...
The corporate conservative shill side.
for Joe Biden to go after scumbags like Rove. My question is what took so damn long? Did Obama finally decide to let him off his leash? Unfortunately too many people are unable or unwilling to make the effort to see the connections between corporate lobbying, corporate funding of Republican candidates, and outsourcing of jobs, but the may if Dems keep hammering on this. In my state Dan Coats left Congress to lobby for a firm that was responsible for the outsourcing of 800 jobs in one Indiana town. Now he's running for Evan Bayh's senate seat against a conservadem and he's winning. The mind reels.
Others call it sociopathic lying.
Yet the big money is able to sell their ideas to millions of buyers. And the buyers really believe that they are voting in their own best interests.
It's difficult to believe that stupidity like this is part of our nation's life. Millions of people who vote for Republicans will be laid off or work for less, if not, lose work entirely, BECAUSE of the very people for whom they will vote. These candidates are being paid to take jobs away from the very people who are trying to place them in office.
There are only a few weeks remaining, but an idea like this can catch fire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK7Bh1RMu5Y
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
WHY aren't we framing this issue as a national security issue. It's way worse than espionage! It's an economic invasion by foreign money. The foreign financial forces are taking over the US. That's a fact and a congruent frame that no one yet seems interested in pointing out.
I wonder why.
And so the Bush King Making Machine churns on?
Russ Baker's 'Family of Secrets, The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years' explains in detail how the Bush family is still running elections behind the scenes.
Are these more Bush Pioneers warming up for a Jeb Bush run in 2012?
You'd think 20 out of 28 years would be enough Bush for U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/familyofsecrets
Must be why I haven't seen any commercials on it.
Same old lame-a** dems.
We need her more than ever. I'd partition my I-pod if I could,listen to two of her shows at the same fcking time. Thats what I'm talking about !!!
I can remember an incident during the 2004 election where some American voters were criminally prosecuted for attempting to sell their votes to foreign bidders online using Ebay or something similar.
Granted most of the foreign bidders simply wanted to participate in the ousting of Bush back then, but it's ironic that I could go to jail for voting in accordance with someone who paid me to do so in China and yet PACs and The Chamber are essentially engaging in the same activity on a much larger scale and it's called freedom of speech.
What's the point of having instantaneous access to oodles of info from every nook and cranny of the planet if not to actually try and do something about it all?
http://sherrytalksback.wordpress.com/2010/10/...
selling their vote..Can a corporation or it's board? No---Thank you roberts republican activist court!
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