Election of a President

It is interesting to see how presidential campaigns are funded. On the Democrat side you have people giving one dollar, five dollars, ten dollars and sometimes a tad bit more. Yes the President has some big campaign donors where they max out at $2500 for a plate of chicken and a short speech from the President of the United States of America. But when you look at Governor Romney and his fundraising efforts it is all the people that can max out donations. That should set off an alarm in your head where the Presidency can be bought.

But Romney has proved unable to tap into the emotion-driven small-dollar contributors that helped power Barack Obama in 2008, and which fueled even his more Establishment rival, Hillary Clinton, this time four years ago when she too began to run out of big donors. The result: Republican fundraisers say that despite his success so far, they think Romney is fast approaching a wall, and that he will likely be forced to pay for the campaign out of his own deep pockets.

“I don't know that he’s completely tapped out, but they are trying to look under every stone,” said a top New York Republican fundraiser. “You run out of people you can hit up for $2,500,” he said, referring to the legal limit for primary contributions.

“Here in New York he has had fundraiser after fundraiser after fundraiser,” said another top New York Republican. “Even in New York, there’s only so much you can get out of the city.”

Romney is unusually dependent on those contributions. Over 82 percent of Romney's haul from individuals in 2011 came in donations greater than $1000 —which doesn’t even include the larger donations to the SuperPAC that supports him, Restore Our Future. And as Rick Santorum stays in the game with a growing pool of small donors — to whom he can return for another $20 or $100 when the millions they’ve given him runs out — Romney’s campaign has launched an intense, late scramble for the cash to fend off his conservative challenger. - Buzz Feed

I thought that the idea to elect a president was not based on the money they had but the people that supported his ideas to be the next president of the country? Apparently, the system has changed and money talks and presidents are selected by the size of their bank accounts.

That leads me to think that the people that have been blessed with those huge bank accounts do not want us one dollar, and five dollar, and ten dollar people donations. Money talks and that must mean something. Mitt Romney has tapped into his personal wealth for many campaigns because he could not sell what he was saying. Nobody was buying it with donations that’s for sure. He tapped his own funds to run against Teddy Kennedy and lost it all. He tapped into his own funds to win the Governor’s office in Massachusetts by simply flooding the state with advertisements. He tapped into his own funds in the last presidential election and still lost. We should feel sorry for Mitt Romney, he so much wants the power of the Presidency of this nation that he would put himself on earned income credit tax status. Why does he want it more than the money he built his life up to have? That is the question that us little people that give five and ten bucks will never know because we are not sending our money to Mitt for Prez.

Papamoka

Lobbyist Working around The, Them, He…

Picture courtesy of University of California Davis

It was only a matter of time for lobbyist reform and the ability for big money to get back to our nations capitol politicians . More like the time it took for the light switch to be flipped up and the light bulb actually illuminates. One would have to be very gullible to think that lawmakers would ever separate themselves from the almighty dollars that ultimately gets them re-elected every couple of years.

I would tend to think that many lobbying firms on K Street in the District had advanced copies of the legislation and their lawyers had red penned all of the wording that led to open season on the “Waskily Wabbit’s” of Capitol Hill. Over at the Washington Post they have a great piece that the Lobbyist on K Street are working on to get around the rules…

Seeing the Ethics Rules, and Raising an Exception
By Jeffrey H. BirnbaumTuesday, October 23, 2007

Shhhh! Don't tell anyone, but lobby groups are plotting all sorts of ways to get around the new ethics rules.

Lobbyists and their lawyers don't want to talk publicly about these "workarounds," a.k.a. clever cheating. But privately I've collected a few of the likely ways that lobbyists will continue to stay close to lawmakers while not outright breaking the law. - Washington Post

I can actually envision a group of lobbyist from any given firm sitting around the corporate conference table with a Thesaurus, a Dictionary, and of course the Latin Dictionary. With the English language derived from so many other languages I’m betting that a few linguistics experts were called in to sit in on the meeting that would define the word “It” in every sentence and any possible alternative to the meaning. I won’t even mention the definition of “Is” because that could start a language race war in America. Librarian’s would be going after English teachers and Theologians would be launching midnight battles against Theorists. All that number two pencil lead would fly and the cloud of eraser dust would probably send the world over the edge of global warming.

We can look at this as just another way of lawyers and lobbyist getting back their form of good government or we can look at this as lobbyist showing we the people how corruption will survive in the District long after the cockroaches have left town. I tend to admire the cockroach over the politician for their ability to know when the gig is up.

Papamoka

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