There’s only three days left for the Members Project. If you have an American Express card, go vote for Kiva, Loans That Change Lives, at the Members Project. Right now they’re in third place, just 1500 votes short of second place. 1500 is nothing!
By now it seems like the primaries happened ages ago, but a recent post at FiveThirtyEight.com made me remember one of the reasons I supported Obama over Clinton.
On the Road: New Albany, Indiana
…we zipped up to the Obama Columbus office and found it both open and busy. Jonathan Swain, Barack Obama’s Communications Director, noted that it was one of 43 field offices open around the state, with the potential for a couple more to be added in the final weeks. In all 92 Indiana counties, Swain said, “Barack Obama always intended to compete and compete hard.”
When Bill Clinton won the Presidency in 1992, the Democratic Party was overtaken by the Democratic Leadership Council idea that you only had to compete in the “battleground” states, completely ceding several states to the Republicans. They completely glossed over the fact that Ross Perot took 20% of the vote and allowed Clinton to win with a plurality.
It was people from this DLC school of thought who ran Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign, and allowed Obama to pick up race after race to catch up and surpass Clinton in delegates. It’s these same people who would have run her general campaign in much the same way.
The fact that so many of these states are now in play has a lot to do with the economy, but with Obama as the candidate, the Democrats are ready with offices and feet on the ground in all these states to help Democrats up and down the ticket.
If you’ve never been, check out Open Secrets from the Center for Responsive Politics. They’ve got a donor lookup that lets you find out who’s made political contributions to which candidate or party. Pretty interesting stuff.
For instance, people who have MySpace or Fox Interactive Media listed as their company have given $12,450 in this election cycle to the Democratic Party and their candidates. The Republicans have received $10,051.
NewsCorp’s President and COO Peter Chernin gave over $31,000 to different Democratic candidates and committees.
NewsCorp’s Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch gave over $33,000 to Republican candidates and committees, but also handed Hillary Clinton a $2300 check.
They put the balance into “Fair and Balanced.”
There’s some sort of reporting threshold (I think it’s $250), so it’s not comprehensive, but I guess that would allow those of you who value your privacy to slip under the radar by making a bunch of $200 contributions on a monthly basis.