Not sure what to think. Would it have been better if he separated them into 2 trips? Maybe, maybe not. Does it add to the feeling that POTUS is disconnected from middle-class America and increase resentment that the American tax-payers have to pay for him to continually campaign and raise money? Maybe, maybe not. Is he the only politician to do this? Fat chance. It still feels dirty to me...regardless of which politician does it. Bolding is done by me. Read the original here.
Campaigner-in-chief: Obama jets out of New York on Air Force One after an evening of star-studded fundraisers... but a short trip to the World Trade Center means TAXPAYERS must pick up the check
By HUGO GYE and LOUISE BOYLE
PUBLISHED: 17:39 EST, 14 June 2012 | UPDATED: 08:01 EST, 15 June 2012
UK Daily Mail
President Barack Obama brought Manhattan to a standstill last night as he held two star-studded fundraising events at exclusive addresses in the city - raising a total of $4.5 million. However, the President's re-election campaign will not have to pay the full cost of his jaunt to the Big Apple, because he combined the trip with an official event which will be charged to the taxpayer. Before the fundraisers, one at actress Sarah Jessica Parker's house and one at the five-star Plaza Hotel, Mr Obama scheduled a visit to the World Trade Center site. Following his visits across New York he headed home to the White House in Washington DC aboard the presidential helicopter, Marine One.
Mr Obama has now held more fundraising events than the last six presidents combined, leading to his opponents coining the derisive nickname 'Campaigner in Chief'. He frequently combines the events with his official duties, which allows his re-election campaign to defray the President's travel costs by charging part of them to the public purse.
For a trip like yesterday's, involving both official duties and campaign events, a formula is applied so that the campaign pays part of the costs - but it still works out cheaper than making a trip purely for campaigning. Mr Obama must be accompanied by Secret Service protection and fly on Air Force One at all times for security reasons, further increasing the cost of his travel.
The World Trade Center, which Mr Obama has visited several times before, is a major building project and recipient of generous federal aid, as well as an iconic national memorial. It is unclear what prompted the President to return to the site - where he took the chance to hail 'the American spirit' - on this occasion.
The intimate dinner at the house of Sex and the City star Ms Parker and her actor husband Matthew Broderick banked about $2million, with 50 people paying $40,000 each to attend.
Ms Parker, dressed in a navy lace cocktail dress, a jewel-studded necklace and a giant diamond ring, gave the president a hug and kiss as she introduced him to the donors in her Manhattan home.
She referred to Michelle Obama as 'our radiant and extraordinary First Lady' and said the group of 50 donors had gathered 'hopefully, with enormous enthusiasm'.
Speaking in a dimly-lit, art-filled room, Mr Obama told supporters they would play a critical role in an election that would determine a vision for the nation's future.
'The other side is going to spend $500 million with a very simple message, which is "You’re frustrated, you’re disappointed, and it’s the fault of the guy in the White House",' he said. 'And that’s an elegant message. It happens to be wrong. But it’s crisp. You can fit it on a bumper sticker.
'So we’re going to have to work hard in this election. We’re going to have to work harder than we did in 2008.' He went on: 'You're the tie-breaker. You're the ultimate arbiter of which direction this country goes.'
Among the celebrities on hand to hear the President's remarks were Oscar winner Meryl Streep, fashion designer Michael Kors and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who moderated a private question-and-answer session between the Mr Obama and the guests.
Mr Broderick, who was starring in a Broadway musical, was absent. New Orleans jazz musician Trombone Shorty performed for the guests, who were seated at two long tables that spanned two rooms, with the dividing doors thrown open.
Aretha Franklin, who left the party after just 20 minutes, told TMZ she ate 'chicken with a mustard sauce, diced tomatoes and a lot of relishes on the side of the plate'. The meal was prepared by Michael White, owner of Marea in Manhattan. Olivia Young, his publicist tweeted: 'I'm eating Marea steak in Sarah Jessica Parker's kitchen wearing no shoes. Oh and Obama is upstairs.'
During his address, Obama poured praise on Wintour, saying she was 'working hard in New York and Chicago' to help his campaign for re-election. He also had praise for his wife: 'I recognise that most of you are here to see Michelle,' he joked.
'I always explain I rank fifth in the hierarchy in the White House. There’s Michelle, my mother-in-law, the two girls and Bo. So that actually makes it six. In terms of star wattage, people come to the White House and say, "Where’s Michelle?"'
When the president mentioned that U.S. car manufacturer GM is 'back on top', Ms Parker's nine-year-old son started clapping, impromptu. 'That’s worth applauding,' Obama said with a smile as the donors laughed and also began clapping. 'Right on cue,' Obama said.
The night's second glitzy fundraiser was held at the Plaza Hotel for 250 guests, paying $10,000 each for dinner and a performance by Mariah Carey.
Co-host Newark Mayor Cory Booker and singer Alicia Keys addressed the crowd before Obama took the microphone to speak of the challenges the economic downturn has brought Americans. 'The crux of this campaign is going to be about the economy,' he said.
Some New Yorkers reacted with anger at the prospect of footing the bill for Mr Obama's fundraising visit to the city. Lauren Greenwood, a 28-year-old who works in medical sales, told MailOnline that while she had no objection to the President attending campaign events, 'it shouldn’t be on New York taxpayers’ dollars to support him having parties.' But Jonathan Fischer, 24, disagreed, saying: 'He came here on business, he handled his business... He spends his days protecting the country, the rest is up to his own free will. He also pays taxes, so it doesn’t bother me.'
Much of downtown Manhattan was temporarily sealed off for the duration of Mr Obama's visit, and the street in the West Village neighbourhood where Ms Parker's house is situated was closed to pedestrians. Some pedestrians bemoaned the disruption caused to the New York streets by the presidential motorcade - Mary Grach told ABC that Mr Obama's visit was 'really inconveniencing a lot of commuters'. She added: 'There has to be a better way to go about it rather than putting out how many thousands of riders out of commission, and having to find another way home.'
In 2004, Democrats criticised George W. Bush for combining fundraisers with official duties, and Republicans have responded in kind this year. Mr Obama has been furiously fundraising ever since a Supreme Court decision removed most restrictions on spending by super PACs, outside groups which raise money to promote causes and candidates.
The President initially opposed super PACs, but earlier this year he relented and allowed top officials to speak at fundraising events organised by such groups. The Republican party has officially complained about Obama’s campaign activities.
In a letter, Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman, alleged: 'Throughout his administration, but particularly in recent weeks, President Obama has been passing off campaign travel as "official events", thereby allowing taxpayers, rather than his campaign, to pay for his re-election efforts.'
During the 2008 election, Mr Obama declined public money for his campaign, allowing him to raise an unlimited amount privately. He ended up spending around $730million, almost double the amount raised by his rival John McCain.
Republicans also lambasted Obama for courting celebrities for dollars while middle-class angst rides high. The party lampooned the President when his campaign promoted Ms Parker's event on the same day news broke of climbing unemployment.
Priebus wrote a column on conservative website Breitbart.com criticising the president for declaring the private sector was 'doing fine' during a news conference last week. 'Where would President Obama get an outrageous idea like "the private sector is doing fine?" Perhaps from one of his many star-studded fundraisers,' he wrote.
'The president has his priorities all backward. He puts growing government ahead of growing the economy, his job above American jobs, and celebrity galas above presidential duties.' Obama, who has been seen at recent events with George Clooney, Tobey Maguire and Jessica Alba, appears increasingly reliant on the celebrity draw for his campaign fundraisers. His next Dinner With Barack raffle tells would-be donors they can help pick Obama's guest, naming Clooney and Parker as examples.
Neither Mr Obama nor his Republican opponent Mitt Romney is expected to take public financing for November's election.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2159554/Barack-Obama-New-York-President-jets-evening-star-studded-fundraisers.html#ixzz1xrsvLrwe
Showing posts with label campaign finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label campaign finance. Show all posts
Friday, June 15, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
President Obama Won’t Be Returning His Donations From Bain Capital
Do as I say, not as I do? Read the original here.
President Obama Won’t Be Returning His Donations From Bain Capital
By Hunter Walker 5/24 8:33pm
Though the Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Mitt Romney for his career at Bain Capital, President Obama stillaccepted $7,500 in campaign contributions from three Bain executives. His campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt toldThe Politicker the president has no intention of giving the money back.
“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for President highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation, when in fact, his goal was profit maximization,” said Mr. LaBolt. ”The President has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression, manufacturing and the auto industry revived, and support his agenda to build an economy that lasts where America outinnovates and outeducates the rest of the world and economic security for the middle class is restored.”
On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden defended the attacks on Mr. Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Though he insisted he wasn’t “criticizing private equity firms,” Mr. Biden said there were many examples of Mr. Romney and his Bain colleagues causing tremendous harm.
“You hear all these stories about his partners buying companies … where they load up with a tremendous amount of debt. The companies go under, everybody loses their job, the community is devastated, but they make money,” said Mr. Biden. “They make money even when a company goes bankrupt, when workers lose their jobs.”
Earlier in the week, President Obama described Bain and other private equity firms as a “healthy part of the free market” filled with many ”folks who do good work.” However, he also said the priority of private equity companies is to “maximize profits,” which is “not always going to be good for businesses or communities or workers.” Because of this, he said Mr. Romney’s work at Bain Capital isn’t good preparation for the presidency.
“If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you are missing what this job is about,” President Obama said. “It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity. But that’s not what my job is as president. My job is to take into account everybody, not just some.”
Follow Hunter Walker via RSS.
President Obama Won’t Be Returning His Donations From Bain Capital
By Hunter Walker 5/24 8:33pm
Though the Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Mitt Romney for his career at Bain Capital, President Obama stillaccepted $7,500 in campaign contributions from three Bain executives. His campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt toldThe Politicker the president has no intention of giving the money back.
“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for President highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation, when in fact, his goal was profit maximization,” said Mr. LaBolt. ”The President has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression, manufacturing and the auto industry revived, and support his agenda to build an economy that lasts where America outinnovates and outeducates the rest of the world and economic security for the middle class is restored.”
On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden defended the attacks on Mr. Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Though he insisted he wasn’t “criticizing private equity firms,” Mr. Biden said there were many examples of Mr. Romney and his Bain colleagues causing tremendous harm.
“You hear all these stories about his partners buying companies … where they load up with a tremendous amount of debt. The companies go under, everybody loses their job, the community is devastated, but they make money,” said Mr. Biden. “They make money even when a company goes bankrupt, when workers lose their jobs.”
Earlier in the week, President Obama described Bain and other private equity firms as a “healthy part of the free market” filled with many ”folks who do good work.” However, he also said the priority of private equity companies is to “maximize profits,” which is “not always going to be good for businesses or communities or workers.” Because of this, he said Mr. Romney’s work at Bain Capital isn’t good preparation for the presidency.
“If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you are missing what this job is about,” President Obama said. “It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity. But that’s not what my job is as president. My job is to take into account everybody, not just some.”
Follow Hunter Walker via RSS.
Monday, April 30, 2012
How much time should a President spend campaigning?
I mean, there are a few things going on in the world that might demand the President's attention? Is this just the way of doing business now? Is this the new standard? The permanent campaign, as it is? Read the original here.
Obama has held more re-election fundraisers than previous five Presidents combined as he visits key swing states on 'permanent campaign'By TOBY HARNDEN
PUBLISHED: 07:41 EST, 29 April 2012 | UPDATED: 14:16 EST, 29 April 2012
Obama has held more re-election fundraisers than previous five Presidents combined as he visits key swing states on 'permanent campaign'By TOBY HARNDEN
PUBLISHED: 07:41 EST, 29 April 2012 | UPDATED: 14:16 EST, 29 April 2012
UK Daily Mail
Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.
Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.
The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.
Doherty, who has compiled statistics about presidential travel and fundraising going back to President Jimmy Carter in 1977, found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March 6th this year, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.
Since then, Obama has held another 20 fundraisers, bringing his total to 124. Carter held four re-election fundraisers in the 1980 campaign, Reagan zero in 1984, Bush Snr 19 in 1992, Clinton 14 in 1996 and Bush Jnr 57 in 2004.
Doherty, a political science professor at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has also analysed presidential travel to battleground or swing states, which change and fluctuate in number with each election cycle.
In their first years in office, Carter visited eight out of 18 battleground states and Reagan seven out of 17. Bush Snr, Clinton and Bush Jnr all visited around three-quarters of battleground states while Obama went to all 15 within his first 12 months.
While the Obama’s campaign activities in office have been largely in line with historical trends, he is especially vulnerable to criticism because in 2008 he promised to change how politics works and to curb links with special interests.
Vowing in 2008 to ‘launch the most sweeping ethics reform in US history’ Obama said that if elected he would ‘make government more open, more accountable and more responsive to the problems of the American people’.
In his State of the Union speech in January, Obama bemoaned the ‘corrosive influence of money in politics’. The following month, he reversed course and announced he was allowing cabinet members and top advisors to speak at big money events for so-called super PACs – unaccountable outside groups raising money for his re-election.
During the 2008 election, Obama abandoned a pledge to opt for public funding of his campaign, instead opting to raise an unlimited amount privately. He then raised and spent approximately $730million, almost double the campaign funds of Senator John McCain, his Republican opponent.
Up to the end of March, Obama had raised $191.6million for his re-election bid, compared to $86.6million raised by his Republican challenger Mitt Romney. His frenetic fundraising activities are in part because he is lagging behind campaign expectations. Early last year, some advisers spoke privately of raising $1billion.
In his book, Doherty writes that in his first full month in office Obama visited Indiana, Florida, Colorado, Arizona and North Carolina – all battleground states - in 2012. 'Clearly, the White House made a point of the president travelling to key electoral states early in his term in office.'
This week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) lodged a formal complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about alleged misuse of taxpayer money by Obama.
The Obama campaign dismissed the complaint as a ‘stunt’ and the White House said that it would follow the same rules as previous administrations and refund the appropriate amounts.
In the complaint, Reince Priebus, RNC chairman, wrote: ‘Throughout his administration, but particularly in recent weeks, President Obama has been passing off campaign travel as “official events,” thereby allowing taxpayers, rather than his campaign, to pay for his re-election efforts.’
Doherty, however, said that although the tactic of labelling Obama’s activities as fraud was ‘novel’ in reality the opposing party always complained about a president facing re-election dressing up political events as official ones.
‘This is not new. The Republican complaint is more of a situational complaint than a principled complaint because they certainly weren’t complaining when George W. Bush did this eight years ago.'
He added: ‘In 2004, President George W. Bush broke all records for presidential fundraising in terms of time devoted to fundraising and in terms of money raised and at the time Democrats hit him hard for that.
'Obama has already surpassed Bush [Jnr] in numbers of re-election fundraisers, but not yet in money raised.'
The rising costs of campaigns, lower contribution limits, the breakdown of the public financing system, the 24/7 media environment and the professionalisation of campaigns had all led to successive presidents having to devote more and more time and energy to raising money.
He added that the ‘big picture’ was incumbent presidents fearing defeat. ‘Until 1976 [when Carter beat President Gerald Ford] no sitting president had been defeated for re-election since 1932. It had been 44 years.
‘And then three of the next four presidents who tried [Ford, Carter and Bush Snr] lost. Of all the presidents re-elected since Ford lost to Carter, only Reagan has won in a landslide. George W. Bush’s re-election [in 2004] was close, Clinton got less than 50 percent [in 1996]. There is a very keen sense among presidents that they really might lose.’
Kirsten Kukowski, an RNC spokesperson, said: 'It’s no surprise that the Campaigner-In-Chief has taken raising money for his re-election to a whole new level. The worst part is the American taxpayer has been footing the bill.' The Obama campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136851/Obama-held-fundraisers-previous-Presidents-combined-visits-key-swing-states-permanent-campaign.html#ixzz1tXASzMDq
Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.
Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.
The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.
Doherty, who has compiled statistics about presidential travel and fundraising going back to President Jimmy Carter in 1977, found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March 6th this year, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.
Since then, Obama has held another 20 fundraisers, bringing his total to 124. Carter held four re-election fundraisers in the 1980 campaign, Reagan zero in 1984, Bush Snr 19 in 1992, Clinton 14 in 1996 and Bush Jnr 57 in 2004.
Doherty, a political science professor at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has also analysed presidential travel to battleground or swing states, which change and fluctuate in number with each election cycle.
In their first years in office, Carter visited eight out of 18 battleground states and Reagan seven out of 17. Bush Snr, Clinton and Bush Jnr all visited around three-quarters of battleground states while Obama went to all 15 within his first 12 months.
While the Obama’s campaign activities in office have been largely in line with historical trends, he is especially vulnerable to criticism because in 2008 he promised to change how politics works and to curb links with special interests.
Vowing in 2008 to ‘launch the most sweeping ethics reform in US history’ Obama said that if elected he would ‘make government more open, more accountable and more responsive to the problems of the American people’.
In his State of the Union speech in January, Obama bemoaned the ‘corrosive influence of money in politics’. The following month, he reversed course and announced he was allowing cabinet members and top advisors to speak at big money events for so-called super PACs – unaccountable outside groups raising money for his re-election.
During the 2008 election, Obama abandoned a pledge to opt for public funding of his campaign, instead opting to raise an unlimited amount privately. He then raised and spent approximately $730million, almost double the campaign funds of Senator John McCain, his Republican opponent.
Up to the end of March, Obama had raised $191.6million for his re-election bid, compared to $86.6million raised by his Republican challenger Mitt Romney. His frenetic fundraising activities are in part because he is lagging behind campaign expectations. Early last year, some advisers spoke privately of raising $1billion.
In his book, Doherty writes that in his first full month in office Obama visited Indiana, Florida, Colorado, Arizona and North Carolina – all battleground states - in 2012. 'Clearly, the White House made a point of the president travelling to key electoral states early in his term in office.'
This week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) lodged a formal complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about alleged misuse of taxpayer money by Obama.
The Obama campaign dismissed the complaint as a ‘stunt’ and the White House said that it would follow the same rules as previous administrations and refund the appropriate amounts.
In the complaint, Reince Priebus, RNC chairman, wrote: ‘Throughout his administration, but particularly in recent weeks, President Obama has been passing off campaign travel as “official events,” thereby allowing taxpayers, rather than his campaign, to pay for his re-election efforts.’
Doherty, however, said that although the tactic of labelling Obama’s activities as fraud was ‘novel’ in reality the opposing party always complained about a president facing re-election dressing up political events as official ones.
‘This is not new. The Republican complaint is more of a situational complaint than a principled complaint because they certainly weren’t complaining when George W. Bush did this eight years ago.'
He added: ‘In 2004, President George W. Bush broke all records for presidential fundraising in terms of time devoted to fundraising and in terms of money raised and at the time Democrats hit him hard for that.
'Obama has already surpassed Bush [Jnr] in numbers of re-election fundraisers, but not yet in money raised.'
The rising costs of campaigns, lower contribution limits, the breakdown of the public financing system, the 24/7 media environment and the professionalisation of campaigns had all led to successive presidents having to devote more and more time and energy to raising money.
He added that the ‘big picture’ was incumbent presidents fearing defeat. ‘Until 1976 [when Carter beat President Gerald Ford] no sitting president had been defeated for re-election since 1932. It had been 44 years.
‘And then three of the next four presidents who tried [Ford, Carter and Bush Snr] lost. Of all the presidents re-elected since Ford lost to Carter, only Reagan has won in a landslide. George W. Bush’s re-election [in 2004] was close, Clinton got less than 50 percent [in 1996]. There is a very keen sense among presidents that they really might lose.’
Kirsten Kukowski, an RNC spokesperson, said: 'It’s no surprise that the Campaigner-In-Chief has taken raising money for his re-election to a whole new level. The worst part is the American taxpayer has been footing the bill.' The Obama campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136851/Obama-held-fundraisers-previous-Presidents-combined-visits-key-swing-states-permanent-campaign.html#ixzz1tXASzMDq
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Obama Super-PAC raises $59k in January....
and since when have the Democrats unilaterally disarmed in the political game? Militarily, I understand, it's their go-to move... Question is, do they need the Super-PAC? Or will the campaign get the cash anyways? Read the original here.
Obama super-PAC only raises $59K in January
By Jonathan Easley - 02/21/12 07:29 AM ET
Pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA raised only $59,000 in January, far less than any of the super-PACs backing Republican presidential candidates
By comparison, pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future took in nearly $7 million in January.
Priorities USA raised only $4.4 million in all of 2011, the bulk of which came from a handful of wealthy Hollywood donors.
The paltry January haul came before the campaign reversed course to acknowledge the necessity of super-PAC fundraising, while publicly disapproving of the concept of super-PACs, which must remain unaffiliated with the campaign but can take in unlimited amounts from single donors.
“With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote in a blog post earlier this month.
Still, the Obama campaign has proven it can generate cash from small donors. Last week, the campaign announced $29.1 million in fundraising for January, 98 percent of which it said came from donations of $250 or less.
The Romney campaign saw a steep decline in January fundraising, taking in $6.5 million, compared to the over $11 million it generated in December.
Obama super-PAC only raises $59K in January
By Jonathan Easley - 02/21/12 07:29 AM ET
Pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA raised only $59,000 in January, far less than any of the super-PACs backing Republican presidential candidates
By comparison, pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future took in nearly $7 million in January.
Priorities USA raised only $4.4 million in all of 2011, the bulk of which came from a handful of wealthy Hollywood donors.
The paltry January haul came before the campaign reversed course to acknowledge the necessity of super-PAC fundraising, while publicly disapproving of the concept of super-PACs, which must remain unaffiliated with the campaign but can take in unlimited amounts from single donors.
“With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote in a blog post earlier this month.
Still, the Obama campaign has proven it can generate cash from small donors. Last week, the campaign announced $29.1 million in fundraising for January, 98 percent of which it said came from donations of $250 or less.
The Romney campaign saw a steep decline in January fundraising, taking in $6.5 million, compared to the over $11 million it generated in December.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Campaigning from the White House?
Is this a thing? Does the administration's defense hold up? Should this be a thing? Or is this just a perk of being the incumbent? Should anyone be making a big deal of this to see if it is a thing? Read the original here.
White House says Obama Fundraising Appeal not Illegal
RealClearPolitics - Articles - Print Article
By Alexis Simendinger - June 28, 2011
President Obama appealed to supporters and donors in a videotaped message emailed by his campaign team to millions of people Monday -- a message filmed with the president inside the White House by a crew from the Democratic National Committee, according to a White House official who responded to RCP questions about the solicitation.
In the video, Obama tells supporters they can join him and Vice President Joe Biden for dinner if they win a contest offered by his campaign. "We're both really looking forward to it. Hope to see you soon," Obama says on camera. The script was written by the DNC.
The president's video is accompanied by a donor solicitation form in which supporters of the administration can check boxes donating from $5 to $700 to the Obama-Biden re-election effort. This may, or may not, constitute fundraising by a federal employee in a federal office building, a practice that is generally prohibited. Even if it is fundraising, the statutory barriers regarding the White House itself are vague.
In response to questions about whether the president and his political team had stayed safely on the legal side of the relevant statutes, White House officials made three arguments. First, they said, an open process for small donors to essentially win a raffle is not the kind of fundraising prohibited under the law -- and the president didn't make a direct appeal for donations, anyway. Second, they pointed to a longstanding advisory opinion from the Justice Department that differentiates between the residence portion of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. -- where the aide said Obama had been filmed -- and official rooms in the White House. Third, they said, Obama's approach is in keeping with the practices of his predecessors.
"It's no different than what happened under eight years of George Bush and eight years of Bill Clinton," the official explained, speaking on background.
This assertion appears to be half-true. Although the news accounts cited by White House officials do show that George W. Bush filmed political ads in the White House, they were not overt fundraising efforts. But directly raising money in the White House was indeed the context of the bitter controversy President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore provoked in 1995 and 1996 by aggressively raising millions of dollars in campaign funds during activities expressly designed to use the White House as a hook to attract donor interest.
Congress subsequently investigated Clinton's Pennsylvania Avenue courtship of donors, which included using the Lincoln Bedroom for donor sleepovers and offering intimate meetings and briefings with Clinton and other top officials inside the White House for the donors who could -- and did -- write big checks. Republican lawmakers, joined by some good-government advocates, howled that the president had sold White House access to raise money for his re-election.
Gore, who admitted that he solicited campaign cash from a telephone in his vice presidential office, famously argued during a West Wing briefing for reporters in 1997 that he had been operating within the law because there was "no controlling legal authority."
The Obama campaign video is a small part of an aggressive fundraising effort[1] being undertaken by Team Obama. It also comes on the heels of criticism that the president, who campaigned to change the way Washington works, was instead participating in some of its more questionable rituals, including a March 7 meeting with Obama arranged by the DNC in the Blue Room of the White House residence. The meeting, first described in a June 24 Politico story[2] about a list of attendees released by the White House, took place with business leaders who were former or current donors or fundraisers. White House press secretary Jay Carney told Politico the meeting was not "a fundraiser."
In the email message[3] that accompanies Obama's Monday video, however, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina explains to supporters that a minimum $5 donation is required to enter the campaign contest: "Make a donation today and be automatically registered for a chance to have dinner with President Obama and Vice President Biden together. We'll cover your airfare and the meal -- all you need to bring is your story and your ideas."
White House officials queried about the solicitation by RCP on Monday emphasized that the law permits Obama and Biden to conduct solicitations from select rooms inside the White House, including the residence, which is treated as the president's home and not his official workplace. That determination is based on an Office of Legal Counsel interpretation of the statute originating in the 1970s, a presidential spokesman told RCP before forwarding a copy of the opinion. A White House official repeatedly stated that the Obama dinner solicitation was filmed in the White House residence. If true, that would be a mitigating factor, but some observers who viewed the video believe it might be the Map Room[4], a venerated ground-floor office in the mansion that was used as a situation room for Franklin Roosevelt during the Second World War -- and where Obama himself often does official business[5]. A White House aide said Tuesday morning that he didn't think it was the Map Room, although he wasn't certain of the exact location.
The campaign's dine-with-Obama contest first began in mid-June and then added Biden to the prize this week. The campaign team is working intensively this week to solicit money from small-dollar donors to increase the size and composition of Obama's war chest prior to an important June 30, second-quarter deadline to report total campaign finance details to the Federal Election Commission.
"The web videos you're referencing don't ask for funds," the White House spokesman said. "However, even if we did it, the Office of Legal Counsel has determined that there are certain rooms in the White House in which you can do that."
He described Obama's campaigning from the White House as even more carefully scripted by the DNC than the filmed messages of Clinton and Bush. "We're going above and beyond what's required by law. The law would permit that in certain rooms. And we're not even doing what's permitted in certain rooms," he added.
To make the case that Obama acted in keeping with his predecessors, the White House sent RCP these references, as well as YouTube links:
2004: President Bush And First Lady Laura Bush Filmed Parts Of Their Campaign Ads In The White House Residence -- The Bush Campaign Pointed To 31 White House Images Used By The Clinton Campaign In 1996 For Precedent. "Bush and his wife filmed their parts of the ads last month in the White House residence. Campaign officials said both parties have used the executive mansion for political ads. By their count, President Clinton used White House images 31 times in 1996." [USA Today, 3/3/04]
2004: "The President's Reelection Campaign Filmed Mr. Bush In The White House During The Week Of Feb. 9 For Advertising To Be Aired In Swing States." "The president's reelection campaign filmed Mr. Bush in the White House during the week of Feb. 9 for advertising to be aired in swing states. Monday, it began the process of calling stations to inquire about purchasing ad time. The advertising campaign will emphasize President Bush's 'positive message' and present him as a man of 'steady leadership in the face of remarkable change,' Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said. He added that the advertising would show that the president has led 'with the strong leadership that challenging times demand.' " [CBS News, 2/11/09]
"This is not the Clinton coffees or the Lincoln bedroom," Obama's spokesman said. "This is something that was routinely done under Bill Clinton and routinely done under George Bush, so if you're going to start comparing this to those mega-scandals, you need to sort of back up and take a deep breath."
According to the advisory legal opinion on which Obama is relying as his re-election campaign begins, "Areas within the discrete private residence area included in the White House mansion, although not physically detached from areas formally given over to official office space or to areas used for ceremonial functions, may therefore reasonably be seen to fall outside the reach of the statute."
The statute governing campaign solicitations inside federal offices appears in Title 18, Section 607, of the U.S. Criminal Code and expressly includes the president and vice president. It states, "It shall be unlawful for an individual who is an officer of employee of the Federal Government, including the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress, to solicit or receive a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an officer or employee of the United States, from any person."
References
^ aggressive fundraising effort (www.washingtonpost.com)
^ Politico story (www.politico.com)
^ the email message (donate.barackobama.com)
^ Map Room (www.whitehousemuseum.org)
^ Obama himself often does official business (www.whitehouse.gov)
White House says Obama Fundraising Appeal not Illegal
RealClearPolitics - Articles - Print Article
By Alexis Simendinger - June 28, 2011
President Obama appealed to supporters and donors in a videotaped message emailed by his campaign team to millions of people Monday -- a message filmed with the president inside the White House by a crew from the Democratic National Committee, according to a White House official who responded to RCP questions about the solicitation.
In the video, Obama tells supporters they can join him and Vice President Joe Biden for dinner if they win a contest offered by his campaign. "We're both really looking forward to it. Hope to see you soon," Obama says on camera. The script was written by the DNC.
The president's video is accompanied by a donor solicitation form in which supporters of the administration can check boxes donating from $5 to $700 to the Obama-Biden re-election effort. This may, or may not, constitute fundraising by a federal employee in a federal office building, a practice that is generally prohibited. Even if it is fundraising, the statutory barriers regarding the White House itself are vague.
In response to questions about whether the president and his political team had stayed safely on the legal side of the relevant statutes, White House officials made three arguments. First, they said, an open process for small donors to essentially win a raffle is not the kind of fundraising prohibited under the law -- and the president didn't make a direct appeal for donations, anyway. Second, they pointed to a longstanding advisory opinion from the Justice Department that differentiates between the residence portion of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. -- where the aide said Obama had been filmed -- and official rooms in the White House. Third, they said, Obama's approach is in keeping with the practices of his predecessors.
"It's no different than what happened under eight years of George Bush and eight years of Bill Clinton," the official explained, speaking on background.
This assertion appears to be half-true. Although the news accounts cited by White House officials do show that George W. Bush filmed political ads in the White House, they were not overt fundraising efforts. But directly raising money in the White House was indeed the context of the bitter controversy President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore provoked in 1995 and 1996 by aggressively raising millions of dollars in campaign funds during activities expressly designed to use the White House as a hook to attract donor interest.
Congress subsequently investigated Clinton's Pennsylvania Avenue courtship of donors, which included using the Lincoln Bedroom for donor sleepovers and offering intimate meetings and briefings with Clinton and other top officials inside the White House for the donors who could -- and did -- write big checks. Republican lawmakers, joined by some good-government advocates, howled that the president had sold White House access to raise money for his re-election.
Gore, who admitted that he solicited campaign cash from a telephone in his vice presidential office, famously argued during a West Wing briefing for reporters in 1997 that he had been operating within the law because there was "no controlling legal authority."
The Obama campaign video is a small part of an aggressive fundraising effort[1] being undertaken by Team Obama. It also comes on the heels of criticism that the president, who campaigned to change the way Washington works, was instead participating in some of its more questionable rituals, including a March 7 meeting with Obama arranged by the DNC in the Blue Room of the White House residence. The meeting, first described in a June 24 Politico story[2] about a list of attendees released by the White House, took place with business leaders who were former or current donors or fundraisers. White House press secretary Jay Carney told Politico the meeting was not "a fundraiser."
In the email message[3] that accompanies Obama's Monday video, however, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina explains to supporters that a minimum $5 donation is required to enter the campaign contest: "Make a donation today and be automatically registered for a chance to have dinner with President Obama and Vice President Biden together. We'll cover your airfare and the meal -- all you need to bring is your story and your ideas."
White House officials queried about the solicitation by RCP on Monday emphasized that the law permits Obama and Biden to conduct solicitations from select rooms inside the White House, including the residence, which is treated as the president's home and not his official workplace. That determination is based on an Office of Legal Counsel interpretation of the statute originating in the 1970s, a presidential spokesman told RCP before forwarding a copy of the opinion. A White House official repeatedly stated that the Obama dinner solicitation was filmed in the White House residence. If true, that would be a mitigating factor, but some observers who viewed the video believe it might be the Map Room[4], a venerated ground-floor office in the mansion that was used as a situation room for Franklin Roosevelt during the Second World War -- and where Obama himself often does official business[5]. A White House aide said Tuesday morning that he didn't think it was the Map Room, although he wasn't certain of the exact location.
The campaign's dine-with-Obama contest first began in mid-June and then added Biden to the prize this week. The campaign team is working intensively this week to solicit money from small-dollar donors to increase the size and composition of Obama's war chest prior to an important June 30, second-quarter deadline to report total campaign finance details to the Federal Election Commission.
"The web videos you're referencing don't ask for funds," the White House spokesman said. "However, even if we did it, the Office of Legal Counsel has determined that there are certain rooms in the White House in which you can do that."
He described Obama's campaigning from the White House as even more carefully scripted by the DNC than the filmed messages of Clinton and Bush. "We're going above and beyond what's required by law. The law would permit that in certain rooms. And we're not even doing what's permitted in certain rooms," he added.
To make the case that Obama acted in keeping with his predecessors, the White House sent RCP these references, as well as YouTube links:
2004: President Bush And First Lady Laura Bush Filmed Parts Of Their Campaign Ads In The White House Residence -- The Bush Campaign Pointed To 31 White House Images Used By The Clinton Campaign In 1996 For Precedent. "Bush and his wife filmed their parts of the ads last month in the White House residence. Campaign officials said both parties have used the executive mansion for political ads. By their count, President Clinton used White House images 31 times in 1996." [USA Today, 3/3/04]
2004: "The President's Reelection Campaign Filmed Mr. Bush In The White House During The Week Of Feb. 9 For Advertising To Be Aired In Swing States." "The president's reelection campaign filmed Mr. Bush in the White House during the week of Feb. 9 for advertising to be aired in swing states. Monday, it began the process of calling stations to inquire about purchasing ad time. The advertising campaign will emphasize President Bush's 'positive message' and present him as a man of 'steady leadership in the face of remarkable change,' Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said. He added that the advertising would show that the president has led 'with the strong leadership that challenging times demand.' " [CBS News, 2/11/09]
"This is not the Clinton coffees or the Lincoln bedroom," Obama's spokesman said. "This is something that was routinely done under Bill Clinton and routinely done under George Bush, so if you're going to start comparing this to those mega-scandals, you need to sort of back up and take a deep breath."
According to the advisory legal opinion on which Obama is relying as his re-election campaign begins, "Areas within the discrete private residence area included in the White House mansion, although not physically detached from areas formally given over to official office space or to areas used for ceremonial functions, may therefore reasonably be seen to fall outside the reach of the statute."
The statute governing campaign solicitations inside federal offices appears in Title 18, Section 607, of the U.S. Criminal Code and expressly includes the president and vice president. It states, "It shall be unlawful for an individual who is an officer of employee of the Federal Government, including the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress, to solicit or receive a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an officer or employee of the United States, from any person."
References
^ aggressive fundraising effort (www.washingtonpost.com)
^ Politico story (www.politico.com)
^ the email message (donate.barackobama.com)
^ Map Room (www.whitehousemuseum.org)
^ Obama himself often does official business (www.whitehouse.gov)
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Remember the DNC sponsored secret meeting in the White House?
Read the original here.
Politico.com
W.H. releases DNC meet names
By: Josh Gerstein and Matt Negrin
June 24, 2011 07:24 PM EDT
Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, former technology executive Bernard Schwartz and banking executive James Staley were among 30 well-connected figures in the business and finance world who met with President Barack Obama at the White House in March for an unusual economic discussion organized by the Democratic National Committee.
The White House released the names on Friday under a policy Obama instituted in 2009 to disclose nearly all White House guests approximately three months after they visit.
The March 7 meeting in the Blue Room of the residence has drawn attention and criticismbecause most of the attendees were donors or fundraisers and the session was arranged by the DNC. Good-government advocates said hosting the event at the White House was ill-advised.
“There’s a pretty clear line — or there should be a clear line,” Meredith McGehee of the Campaign Legal Center, which presses for tighter controls on campaign finance, recently told POLITICO. “I don’t have a problem with the president inviting Wall Street people to the White House to discuss policy, but why does it need to be DNC-sponsored? I think that’s what raises the eyebrows. Even if it’s not a fundraiser, it’s a cultivation.”
In addition to the Wall Street financiers and business executives, the session was attended by Andy Tobias, the DNC treasurer; Patrick Gaspard, the former White House political director and current DNC executive director; and Brad Thompson, a DNC fundraiser who works with high-dollar donors and bundlers in New York.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said last week the White House is “very transparent” about its DNC-sponsored events. White House officials have described the meeting as a chance for Obama to solicit supporters’ views on the economy. However, Obama aides have not responded to queries from POLITICO about which Obama aides accompanied him to the meeting.
At a House hearing this week, two Bush White House ethics lawyers said the session raised questions under the Hatch Act, the federal law limiting political activity on federal property and by government officials.
“It is unclear why the Democratic National Committee would have been used to organize a meeting to solicit advice on the economy. Indeed, this meeting seems to walk a fine line between official and political with all of the attendant Hatch Act concerns,” Scott Coffina, who served as an ethics adviser to the Bush White House, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I would never have agreed to having such a meeting going on in the White House itself, in any room of the White House,” said Richard Painter, who also served as an ethics counsel under Bush. “I know there’s controversy about that. But I would not want to see those meetings, quite frankly, going on on federal property. What the legal restrictions are is somewhat more ambiguous.”
Carney has said that the Blue Room meeting “was not a fundraiser” and that the DNC picked up the $68 tab for the event.
In addition, Obama aides note that the Democratic and Republican parties have sponsored events at the White House over the years. At least one of the annual Christmas parties is usually paid for by the DNC or Republican National Committee and attended by political guests, including donors. And in 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney hosted a reception on the lawn of his residence for top Republican fundraisers.
However, President Bill Clinton sparked controversy when he and Vice President Al Gore hosted dozens of DNC-sponsored policy discussions — often called “coffees” — at the White House with Democratic donors and other supporters. At least some of the guests were told they could attend if they gave a specific amount, such as $50,000, to the Democratic Party. The so-called coffees were part of a broader flap involving donors being hosted overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Several participants in the March 7 session declined to comment publicly when contacted by POLITICO. However, attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the meeting was entirely or almost entirely devoted to discussion of the sluggish economy.
“There was a lot of concern about the markets and how so far we’ve avoided disaster, but we’re really not out of the woods here,” one participant said Friday. “All I remember was very substantive stuff about what to do with economy [and] markets, how to get jobs growing — good solid policy stuff.”
The Blue Room event, first reported last week by The New York Times, was not on Obama’s public schedule. Obama aides have noted that the public schedule does not list every meeting Obama has and that he is the first president to pledge to disclose the names of nearly all White House visitors.
Here’s a partial guest list for the meeting (POLITICO added the affiliations and descriptions):
Thomas Bernstein, co-founder of Chelsea Piers, L.P., and chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington (appointed by Obama in September 2010); and his wife,Andrea Bernstein
Jon Corzine, former Democratic governor of New Jersey and former CEO of Goldman Sachs
James Dinan, founder of York Capital Management
Glenn Dubin, CEO of Highbridge Capital Management
Mark Gallogly, co-founder of Centerbridge Partners and a member of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Jeffrey Gural, chairman of the real estate firm Newmark Knight Frank
Michael Kempner, CEO at MWW Group and a member of the White House’s Council for Community Solutions
Sarah Kovner, longtime Clinton supporter and prominent New York liberal
Marc Lasry, co-founder and CEO of Avenue Capital Group
Margo Lion, of Margo Lion LTD, co-chairwoman of the Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities
Brian Mathis, co-managing member of Provident Group Ltd. and co-managing partner of Longship Capital Management, LLC
Richard Richman, runs real estate/investment banking/property management conglomerate The Richman Group; and his wife, Ellen Richman, a philanthropist and Pace University marketing professor
William Rudin, chief executive of the real estate company Rudin Management
Rick Schifter, partner at TPG Capital, formerly Texas Pacific Group
Bernard Schwartz, former CEO of Loral Space & Communications, philanthropist and backer of the Democratic Leadership Council
Jay Snyder, Democratic Party activist and philanthropist
James Staley, head of JPMorgan Chase’s investment bank
Zachary Abrahamson contributed to this report.
© 2011 POLITICO LLC
Politico.com
W.H. releases DNC meet names
By: Josh Gerstein and Matt Negrin
June 24, 2011 07:24 PM EDT
Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, former technology executive Bernard Schwartz and banking executive James Staley were among 30 well-connected figures in the business and finance world who met with President Barack Obama at the White House in March for an unusual economic discussion organized by the Democratic National Committee.
The White House released the names on Friday under a policy Obama instituted in 2009 to disclose nearly all White House guests approximately three months after they visit.
The March 7 meeting in the Blue Room of the residence has drawn attention and criticismbecause most of the attendees were donors or fundraisers and the session was arranged by the DNC. Good-government advocates said hosting the event at the White House was ill-advised.
“There’s a pretty clear line — or there should be a clear line,” Meredith McGehee of the Campaign Legal Center, which presses for tighter controls on campaign finance, recently told POLITICO. “I don’t have a problem with the president inviting Wall Street people to the White House to discuss policy, but why does it need to be DNC-sponsored? I think that’s what raises the eyebrows. Even if it’s not a fundraiser, it’s a cultivation.”
In addition to the Wall Street financiers and business executives, the session was attended by Andy Tobias, the DNC treasurer; Patrick Gaspard, the former White House political director and current DNC executive director; and Brad Thompson, a DNC fundraiser who works with high-dollar donors and bundlers in New York.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said last week the White House is “very transparent” about its DNC-sponsored events. White House officials have described the meeting as a chance for Obama to solicit supporters’ views on the economy. However, Obama aides have not responded to queries from POLITICO about which Obama aides accompanied him to the meeting.
At a House hearing this week, two Bush White House ethics lawyers said the session raised questions under the Hatch Act, the federal law limiting political activity on federal property and by government officials.
“It is unclear why the Democratic National Committee would have been used to organize a meeting to solicit advice on the economy. Indeed, this meeting seems to walk a fine line between official and political with all of the attendant Hatch Act concerns,” Scott Coffina, who served as an ethics adviser to the Bush White House, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I would never have agreed to having such a meeting going on in the White House itself, in any room of the White House,” said Richard Painter, who also served as an ethics counsel under Bush. “I know there’s controversy about that. But I would not want to see those meetings, quite frankly, going on on federal property. What the legal restrictions are is somewhat more ambiguous.”
Carney has said that the Blue Room meeting “was not a fundraiser” and that the DNC picked up the $68 tab for the event.
In addition, Obama aides note that the Democratic and Republican parties have sponsored events at the White House over the years. At least one of the annual Christmas parties is usually paid for by the DNC or Republican National Committee and attended by political guests, including donors. And in 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney hosted a reception on the lawn of his residence for top Republican fundraisers.
However, President Bill Clinton sparked controversy when he and Vice President Al Gore hosted dozens of DNC-sponsored policy discussions — often called “coffees” — at the White House with Democratic donors and other supporters. At least some of the guests were told they could attend if they gave a specific amount, such as $50,000, to the Democratic Party. The so-called coffees were part of a broader flap involving donors being hosted overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Several participants in the March 7 session declined to comment publicly when contacted by POLITICO. However, attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the meeting was entirely or almost entirely devoted to discussion of the sluggish economy.
“There was a lot of concern about the markets and how so far we’ve avoided disaster, but we’re really not out of the woods here,” one participant said Friday. “All I remember was very substantive stuff about what to do with economy [and] markets, how to get jobs growing — good solid policy stuff.”
The Blue Room event, first reported last week by The New York Times, was not on Obama’s public schedule. Obama aides have noted that the public schedule does not list every meeting Obama has and that he is the first president to pledge to disclose the names of nearly all White House visitors.
Here’s a partial guest list for the meeting (POLITICO added the affiliations and descriptions):
Thomas Bernstein, co-founder of Chelsea Piers, L.P., and chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington (appointed by Obama in September 2010); and his wife,Andrea Bernstein
Jon Corzine, former Democratic governor of New Jersey and former CEO of Goldman Sachs
James Dinan, founder of York Capital Management
Glenn Dubin, CEO of Highbridge Capital Management
Mark Gallogly, co-founder of Centerbridge Partners and a member of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Jeffrey Gural, chairman of the real estate firm Newmark Knight Frank
Michael Kempner, CEO at MWW Group and a member of the White House’s Council for Community Solutions
Sarah Kovner, longtime Clinton supporter and prominent New York liberal
Marc Lasry, co-founder and CEO of Avenue Capital Group
Margo Lion, of Margo Lion LTD, co-chairwoman of the Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities
Brian Mathis, co-managing member of Provident Group Ltd. and co-managing partner of Longship Capital Management, LLC
Richard Richman, runs real estate/investment banking/property management conglomerate The Richman Group; and his wife, Ellen Richman, a philanthropist and Pace University marketing professor
William Rudin, chief executive of the real estate company Rudin Management
Rick Schifter, partner at TPG Capital, formerly Texas Pacific Group
Bernard Schwartz, former CEO of Loral Space & Communications, philanthropist and backer of the Democratic Leadership Council
Jay Snyder, Democratic Party activist and philanthropist
James Staley, head of JPMorgan Chase’s investment bank
Zachary Abrahamson contributed to this report.
© 2011 POLITICO LLC
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Ending Business as usual in DC...
Oh wait. Maybe, by "ending" the President meant "continuing". Also, it looks like if you can bring money to the President, you can get a pretty cushy gig. That's what the millions of unemployed should do. Gather money for Barack Obama, and then cash in with sweet government job. Read the original here.
Top Barack Obama Donors Net Government Jobs - Fred Schulte, John Aloysius Farrell And Jeremy Borden -- IWatch News via Politico.com
Telecom executive Donald H. Gips raised a big bundle of cash to help finance his friend Barack Obama’s run for the presidency[1].
Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two other company executives collected at least $150,000 more.Continue Reading[2]
After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the Obama White House[3], helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then, in mid-2009, Obama named him ambassador to South Africa. Meanwhile, Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states — though Gips said he had been “completely unaware” that the company had received the contracts.
More than two years after Obama took office[4] vowing to banish “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors[5] have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events, an investigation by iWatch News has found.
These “bundlers[6]” raised at least $50,000 — and sometimes more than $500,000 — in campaign donations for Obama’s campaign. Many of those in the “Class of 2008” are now being asked to bundle contributions for Obama’s reelection, an effort that could cost $1 billion.
As a candidate, Obama[7] spoke passionately about diminishing the clout of moneyed interests. Kicking off his presidential run on Feb. 10, 2007, he blasted “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” who had “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.”
“We’re here today to take it back,” he said.
But just like other presidential aspirants, Obama relied heavily on megadonors to propel his campaign across the finish line, and many fundraisers have shared in the spoils of victory.
The White House insisted its appointees are eminently qualified. “In filling these posts, the administration looks for the most qualified candidates who represent Americans from all walks of life,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. “Being a donor does not get you a job in this administration, nor does it preclude you from getting one.”
The iWatch News investigation found:
• Overall, 184 of 556, or about one-third of Obama bundlers or their spouses joined the administration in some role. But the percentages are much higher for the big-dollar bundlers. Nearly 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took “key administration posts,” as defined by the White House. More than half the 24 ambassador nominees who were bundlers raised $500,000.
• The big bundlers had broad access to the White House for meetings with top administration officials and glitzy social events. In all, campaign bundlers and their family members account for more than 3,000 White House meetings and visits. Half of them raised $200,000 or more.
• Some Obama bundlers have ties to companies that stand to gain financially from the president’s policy agenda, particularly in clean energy and telecommunications, and some already have done so. Level 3 Communications, for instance, snared $13.8 million in stimulus money.
The Obama administration has tightened restrictions on hiring lobbyists[8], but the deference shown major donors contradicts its claims to have changed business as usual in Washington.
“Any president who says he’s going to change this is either hopelessly naive or polishing the reality to promise something other than can be delivered,” said Paul Light, a New York University professor and an expert on presidential transitions. “At best, it’s naive and a little bit of a shell game.”
Bundling is controversial because it permits campaigns to skirt individual contribution limits of $2,500 in federal elections. Bundlers pool donations from fundraising networks and, as a result, “play an enormous role in determining the success of political campaigns,” according to government watchdog Public Citizen.
When the new administration set up shop in the White House on Jan. 20, 2009, the money raisers soon followed. Visitor logs[9] show about 800 bundler visits during the formative early months of the administration, and overall, the top-tier bundlers tended to visit far more often than those at the bottom rung.Continue Reading[10]
Some are longtime friends of the first family, such as Chicagoans Cindy Moelis and her husband, Robert Rivkin, who as a couple bundled at least $200,000. Obama appointed Moelis to direct the Presidential Commission on White House Fellows. Her husband was appointed general counsel of the Department of Transportation and special adviser to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Rivkin, who worked as a lawyer with a Chicago risk management and insurance firm, had once served as general counsel to the Chicago Transit Authority.
Moelis told iWatch News that she and her husband were “highly qualified” for their jobs and that they “took pay cuts and made considerable sacrifice” to enter public service. “We truly believe in it,” she said.
Harvey S. Wineberg, a certified public accountant from Chicago who raised at least $100,000 and is Obama’s personal accountant, said his fundraising had “nothing to do” with his appointment to the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability in December 2010. Wineberg said he called a White House staffer, whom he declined to name, to ask about serving. “I thought I’d be good,” he said. He has since resigned.
The bundlers often went to the White House to see David C. Jacobson, then a special assistant for presidential personnel. Jacobson, a Chicago lawyer and himself an Obama bundler, served as the 2008 campaign’s deputy finance director. Jacobson, who departed in September 2009 to become ambassador to Canada, scheduled about 90 meetings with bundlers, according to an iWatch News analysis of visitor logs. Two-thirds of them had each raised at least $200,000.
Gips, who served as White House director of presidential personnel before taking the post in South Africa, saw more than a dozen bundlers. Other inner-circle White House officials, such as presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, also a bundler, met with more than 50 bundlers, mostly the heavy hitters.
Obama met with at least two dozen bundlers either privately or with another person, according to the visitor logs.
Ambassadorships have been the traditional payoff for big bundlers. But it’s not just the posts in foreign capitals that are attractive. Light, the NYU expert on presidential transitions, said that in recent years many have sought jobs with deep reach into the federal bureaucracy — and found a receptive ear in the White House.
“When they get a résumé from a bundler, that is a real signal of seriousness,” Light said. “It’s also a thinly veiled quid pro quo,” and it “goes without saying they will get considered.”
Public Citizen found in 2008 that President George W. Bush had appointed about 200 bundlers to administration posts over his eight years in office. That is roughly the same number Obama has appointed in a little more than two years, the iWatch News analysis showed.
Some bundlers said in interviews that they called the White House to ask for a position, while others said they were called and asked to serve.
Ted Hosp, an Alabama lawyer who delivered more than $200,000 for Obama, said he had no expectation of a job when he signed on to the campaign finance committee. But he did ask to be considered and said he met with then-White House Counsel Gregory Craig, also a bundler, to discuss a position at the Justice Department. “I was interested in exploring [a job],” said Hosp, who did not get a job in the administration. “I would have been interested in helping him [Obama] if the right opportunity arose.”
The cluster of appointments among top bundlers suggests that the size of the donation may have been a factor at least in getting a foot in the door. Less than one in five at the $50,000 level got an administration position. Half of $200,000 bundlers were picked for some post; 80 percent of the $500,000 bundlers were appointed.Continue Reading[11]
Michael Caplin, a Virginia consultant who assists nonprofit businesses, raised $200,000 for Obama and was appointed to the Commission on Presidential Scholars, a board that selects and honors promising high school students. He said he was contacted by a White House staffer asking him if he wanted to serve, though he saw plenty of other big donors angling for jobs and positions.
“Clearly, if someone raised a million dollars for your campaign, you tend to get a phone call returned,” Caplin said. But he also believes that many big donors who took positions were well qualified. “If that person is truly excellent but also raised money for your campaign, should that disallow you to serve?’”
The appointment of George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton illustrates how the administration has rewarded many top fundraisers.
Overton wrote in 2003 that the influence big donors wield in elections means that an “overwhelming majority of citizens are effectively excluded from an important stage of the political process.” Yet Overton bundled at least $500,000 for Obama. He was named to the Obama transition team and in February 2009 was appointed principal deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy. Overton visited the White House more than 80 times from January 2009 through the end of 2010 for events ranging from small meetings with high-level staffers to social and entertainment events, sometimes with his wife, records show. Overton resigned the $180,000-a-year job in July 2010. He declined to comment for this story.
Overton is one of seven campaign bundlers who took jobs at Justice, including Attorney General Eric Holder, who was a $50,000 bundler. Holder had been deputy attorney general in the administration of President Bill Clinton.
At the Department of Energy, four bundlers who together raised a minimum of $1.6 million have held staff jobs or advisory posts. Steven J. Spinner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capital adviser, took over responsibility at the department for parceling out more than $100 billion worth of stimulus grants and other energy-related loans. Spinner also has been a frequent White House guest, listed more than 40 times.
In March 2009, Obama appointed $500,000 bundler and law school pal Julius Genachowski to chair the Federal Communications Commission, an independent agency. Two other bundlers at the FCC are chief of staff Edward Lazarus, a litigator and former federal prosecutor, and William T. Lake, a lawyer specializing in communications and e-commerce issues who serves as chief of the media bureau.
Genachowski had previously served as chief counsel to the FCC chairman in the 1990s, but his close ties to Obama have raised eyebrows. He has turned up so often at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. that in March, congressional Republicans demanded an accounting of whom he has met with and what was discussed.
White House logs list Genachowski and his wife, Rachel Goslins, for more than 100 visits from early 2009 through March of this year. Goslins, a filmmaker, was appointed executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
Some of the biggest fundraisers end up serving in foreign capitals. Obama made a nod to this long-standing practice in a pre-Inauguration news conference, saying, “It would be disingenuous for me to suggest that there are not going to be some excellent public servants but who haven’t come through the ranks of the civil service.”
About a third of Obama’s ambassadors have been political appointees as opposed to career foreign service officers — about the same as other recent presidents. Obama, however, has nominated 24 bundlers to ambassadorships to date. Of those, 14 each raised at least $500,000. Six others raised $200,000 or more. Jacobson, now ambassador to Canada, is the only one listed at the $50,000 minimum, and he played a pivotal finance role in the campaign.Continue Reading[12]
The Obama record has disappointed the American Foreign Service Association, which believes these appointments should mostly go to career diplomats. The organization cites the 1980 Foreign Service Act, which states that political contributions “should not be a factor” in picking ambassadors, a rule presidents of both parties have all but ignored.
Passing over career diplomats in favor of megadonors amounts to “selling ambassadorships,” said Susan Johnson, president of the American Foreign Service Association.
Thomas Pickering, who served as ambassador to Russia and several other countries during a diplomatic career spanning four decades, said turning to bundlers adds a “new dimension” to what he termed “buying offices” through aggressive fundraising. “An individual can multiply their chances by going out and soliciting a lot of contributions other than just their own,” said Pickering, who chairs the American Academy of Diplomacy.
But White House officials dispute that characterization, saying several top ambassadorships went to people who were neither Obama bundlers nor career diplomats but were uniquely qualified for the posts, such as National Security Council official Dan Shapiro (Israel), former Rep. and 9/11 Commission member Tim Roemer (India) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (China), a Republican who had earlier served as ambassador to Singapore and is now considering challenging Obama for the presidency.
Yet few stories illustrate more vividly how friendship, fundraising, business and politics can intertwine at the White House than that of Gips, Obama’s choice for ambassador to South Africa.
In the 1990s, he wrote a report that later formed a blueprint for AmeriCorps. In 1998, Gips left government, where he had supervised wireless spectrum issues for the FCC and served as Vice President Al Gore’s chief domestic policy adviser. He joined Level 3, a budding telecom company that has received more than $100 million in federal contracts in the past decade.
There, at a 2004 fundraiser, he met Obama, who was then running for the Senate in Illinois. The two grew close: Obama asked Gips to help edit his campaign book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
Gips collected more than $500,000 for Obama. James Crowe, chairman of the Level 3 board, was an Obama bundler, too, raising at least $100,000. The firm’s vice chairman, Charles Miller III, bundled more than $50,000.
At the White House, Gips was a powerful force to decide who got coveted jobs. Obama appointed Crowe in October 2010 to chair the presidential advisory committee on telecommunications and wireless issues.
And Level 3 was awarded some $13.8 million in federal stimulus contracts, to extend broadband connections in rural areas of states where it had networks.
In a statement, Gips said he was not involved in Crowe’s appointment, which occurred after Gips left the White House. As for the recovery money, Gips said, “I was completely unaware of stimulus contracts awarded to Level 3 and have not spoken to the firm about them.”Continue Reading[13]
The iWatch News investigation confirmed that at least 18 other bundlers have ties to businesses poised to profit from the president’s political agenda through stimulus money, government contracts or other spending to promote clean energy technology or green development.
Oklahoma billionaire investor George Kaiser is one. A longtime Democratic donor, he is a big financial backer of a company that in March of 2009 won a $535 million loan guarantee from DoE for a solar plant in Silicon Valley. He had multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was awarded the contract. Kaiser did not respond to interview requests from iWatch News.
Steven Westly, a green energy entrepreneur who raised at least $500,000 for Obama, has seen four companies in his venture firm’s portfolio receive more than $500 million in loans, grants or stimulus money from the Energy Department under the Obama administration, iWatch News reported in March.
Some bundlers limit their role in the administration to serving on commissions to support their pet causes and hobnobbing with celebrities. Obama has appointed 22 bundlers to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities or to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Others have served on advisory groups that make recommendations to the president on critical matters ranging from the economic stimulus to policies to spur job growth.
Hyatt hotels heiress Penny Pritzker, Wall Street titan Robert Wolf and financier Mark Gallogly, for instance, all served on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Commission.
In late February, when he set up a new commission on job creation, Obama again turned to Pritzker, Wolf and Gallogly.
Pritzker, one of America’s richest women and a key fundraiser and adviser in the early days of the Obama campaign, has logged more than 50 visits to the White House, individually or with family members. Obama also appointed Pritzker to the Kennedy Center board and her husband, Chicago ophthalmologist Bryan Traubert, to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.
Pritzker told CNBC in May 2009: “I have no trouble having a spirited dialogue with the president, and that’s something that we do on a regular basis.”
When the reporter asked, “Do you get anywhere?” Pritzker replied, “Absolutely. The president is extremely open to hearing what people on his economic board have to say. And I think it’s absolutely informing some of his decisions.”
Fred Schulte, John Aloysius Farrell and Jeremy Borden are reporters for iWatch News.org[14], a website of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on investigative journalism.
References
^ Barack Obama’s run for the presidency (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ Obama White House (www.politico.com)
^ took office (www.politico.com)
^ biggest donors (www.politico.com)
^ bundlers (topics.politico.com)
^ Obama (topics.politico.com)
^ hiring lobbyists (www.politico.com)
^ Visitor logs (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ iWatch News.org (www.iwatchnews.org)
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56993.html#ixzz1PMoXpeu2
Top Barack Obama Donors Net Government Jobs - Fred Schulte, John Aloysius Farrell And Jeremy Borden -- IWatch News via Politico.com
Telecom executive Donald H. Gips raised a big bundle of cash to help finance his friend Barack Obama’s run for the presidency[1].
Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two other company executives collected at least $150,000 more.Continue Reading[2]
After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the Obama White House[3], helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then, in mid-2009, Obama named him ambassador to South Africa. Meanwhile, Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states — though Gips said he had been “completely unaware” that the company had received the contracts.
More than two years after Obama took office[4] vowing to banish “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors[5] have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events, an investigation by iWatch News has found.
These “bundlers[6]” raised at least $50,000 — and sometimes more than $500,000 — in campaign donations for Obama’s campaign. Many of those in the “Class of 2008” are now being asked to bundle contributions for Obama’s reelection, an effort that could cost $1 billion.
As a candidate, Obama[7] spoke passionately about diminishing the clout of moneyed interests. Kicking off his presidential run on Feb. 10, 2007, he blasted “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” who had “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.”
“We’re here today to take it back,” he said.
But just like other presidential aspirants, Obama relied heavily on megadonors to propel his campaign across the finish line, and many fundraisers have shared in the spoils of victory.
The White House insisted its appointees are eminently qualified. “In filling these posts, the administration looks for the most qualified candidates who represent Americans from all walks of life,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. “Being a donor does not get you a job in this administration, nor does it preclude you from getting one.”
The iWatch News investigation found:
• Overall, 184 of 556, or about one-third of Obama bundlers or their spouses joined the administration in some role. But the percentages are much higher for the big-dollar bundlers. Nearly 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took “key administration posts,” as defined by the White House. More than half the 24 ambassador nominees who were bundlers raised $500,000.
• The big bundlers had broad access to the White House for meetings with top administration officials and glitzy social events. In all, campaign bundlers and their family members account for more than 3,000 White House meetings and visits. Half of them raised $200,000 or more.
• Some Obama bundlers have ties to companies that stand to gain financially from the president’s policy agenda, particularly in clean energy and telecommunications, and some already have done so. Level 3 Communications, for instance, snared $13.8 million in stimulus money.
The Obama administration has tightened restrictions on hiring lobbyists[8], but the deference shown major donors contradicts its claims to have changed business as usual in Washington.
“Any president who says he’s going to change this is either hopelessly naive or polishing the reality to promise something other than can be delivered,” said Paul Light, a New York University professor and an expert on presidential transitions. “At best, it’s naive and a little bit of a shell game.”
Bundling is controversial because it permits campaigns to skirt individual contribution limits of $2,500 in federal elections. Bundlers pool donations from fundraising networks and, as a result, “play an enormous role in determining the success of political campaigns,” according to government watchdog Public Citizen.
When the new administration set up shop in the White House on Jan. 20, 2009, the money raisers soon followed. Visitor logs[9] show about 800 bundler visits during the formative early months of the administration, and overall, the top-tier bundlers tended to visit far more often than those at the bottom rung.Continue Reading[10]
Some are longtime friends of the first family, such as Chicagoans Cindy Moelis and her husband, Robert Rivkin, who as a couple bundled at least $200,000. Obama appointed Moelis to direct the Presidential Commission on White House Fellows. Her husband was appointed general counsel of the Department of Transportation and special adviser to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Rivkin, who worked as a lawyer with a Chicago risk management and insurance firm, had once served as general counsel to the Chicago Transit Authority.
Moelis told iWatch News that she and her husband were “highly qualified” for their jobs and that they “took pay cuts and made considerable sacrifice” to enter public service. “We truly believe in it,” she said.
Harvey S. Wineberg, a certified public accountant from Chicago who raised at least $100,000 and is Obama’s personal accountant, said his fundraising had “nothing to do” with his appointment to the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability in December 2010. Wineberg said he called a White House staffer, whom he declined to name, to ask about serving. “I thought I’d be good,” he said. He has since resigned.
The bundlers often went to the White House to see David C. Jacobson, then a special assistant for presidential personnel. Jacobson, a Chicago lawyer and himself an Obama bundler, served as the 2008 campaign’s deputy finance director. Jacobson, who departed in September 2009 to become ambassador to Canada, scheduled about 90 meetings with bundlers, according to an iWatch News analysis of visitor logs. Two-thirds of them had each raised at least $200,000.
Gips, who served as White House director of presidential personnel before taking the post in South Africa, saw more than a dozen bundlers. Other inner-circle White House officials, such as presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, also a bundler, met with more than 50 bundlers, mostly the heavy hitters.
Obama met with at least two dozen bundlers either privately or with another person, according to the visitor logs.
Ambassadorships have been the traditional payoff for big bundlers. But it’s not just the posts in foreign capitals that are attractive. Light, the NYU expert on presidential transitions, said that in recent years many have sought jobs with deep reach into the federal bureaucracy — and found a receptive ear in the White House.
“When they get a résumé from a bundler, that is a real signal of seriousness,” Light said. “It’s also a thinly veiled quid pro quo,” and it “goes without saying they will get considered.”
Public Citizen found in 2008 that President George W. Bush had appointed about 200 bundlers to administration posts over his eight years in office. That is roughly the same number Obama has appointed in a little more than two years, the iWatch News analysis showed.
Some bundlers said in interviews that they called the White House to ask for a position, while others said they were called and asked to serve.
Ted Hosp, an Alabama lawyer who delivered more than $200,000 for Obama, said he had no expectation of a job when he signed on to the campaign finance committee. But he did ask to be considered and said he met with then-White House Counsel Gregory Craig, also a bundler, to discuss a position at the Justice Department. “I was interested in exploring [a job],” said Hosp, who did not get a job in the administration. “I would have been interested in helping him [Obama] if the right opportunity arose.”
The cluster of appointments among top bundlers suggests that the size of the donation may have been a factor at least in getting a foot in the door. Less than one in five at the $50,000 level got an administration position. Half of $200,000 bundlers were picked for some post; 80 percent of the $500,000 bundlers were appointed.Continue Reading[11]
Michael Caplin, a Virginia consultant who assists nonprofit businesses, raised $200,000 for Obama and was appointed to the Commission on Presidential Scholars, a board that selects and honors promising high school students. He said he was contacted by a White House staffer asking him if he wanted to serve, though he saw plenty of other big donors angling for jobs and positions.
“Clearly, if someone raised a million dollars for your campaign, you tend to get a phone call returned,” Caplin said. But he also believes that many big donors who took positions were well qualified. “If that person is truly excellent but also raised money for your campaign, should that disallow you to serve?’”
The appointment of George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton illustrates how the administration has rewarded many top fundraisers.
Overton wrote in 2003 that the influence big donors wield in elections means that an “overwhelming majority of citizens are effectively excluded from an important stage of the political process.” Yet Overton bundled at least $500,000 for Obama. He was named to the Obama transition team and in February 2009 was appointed principal deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy. Overton visited the White House more than 80 times from January 2009 through the end of 2010 for events ranging from small meetings with high-level staffers to social and entertainment events, sometimes with his wife, records show. Overton resigned the $180,000-a-year job in July 2010. He declined to comment for this story.
Overton is one of seven campaign bundlers who took jobs at Justice, including Attorney General Eric Holder, who was a $50,000 bundler. Holder had been deputy attorney general in the administration of President Bill Clinton.
At the Department of Energy, four bundlers who together raised a minimum of $1.6 million have held staff jobs or advisory posts. Steven J. Spinner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capital adviser, took over responsibility at the department for parceling out more than $100 billion worth of stimulus grants and other energy-related loans. Spinner also has been a frequent White House guest, listed more than 40 times.
In March 2009, Obama appointed $500,000 bundler and law school pal Julius Genachowski to chair the Federal Communications Commission, an independent agency. Two other bundlers at the FCC are chief of staff Edward Lazarus, a litigator and former federal prosecutor, and William T. Lake, a lawyer specializing in communications and e-commerce issues who serves as chief of the media bureau.
Genachowski had previously served as chief counsel to the FCC chairman in the 1990s, but his close ties to Obama have raised eyebrows. He has turned up so often at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. that in March, congressional Republicans demanded an accounting of whom he has met with and what was discussed.
White House logs list Genachowski and his wife, Rachel Goslins, for more than 100 visits from early 2009 through March of this year. Goslins, a filmmaker, was appointed executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
Some of the biggest fundraisers end up serving in foreign capitals. Obama made a nod to this long-standing practice in a pre-Inauguration news conference, saying, “It would be disingenuous for me to suggest that there are not going to be some excellent public servants but who haven’t come through the ranks of the civil service.”
About a third of Obama’s ambassadors have been political appointees as opposed to career foreign service officers — about the same as other recent presidents. Obama, however, has nominated 24 bundlers to ambassadorships to date. Of those, 14 each raised at least $500,000. Six others raised $200,000 or more. Jacobson, now ambassador to Canada, is the only one listed at the $50,000 minimum, and he played a pivotal finance role in the campaign.Continue Reading[12]
The Obama record has disappointed the American Foreign Service Association, which believes these appointments should mostly go to career diplomats. The organization cites the 1980 Foreign Service Act, which states that political contributions “should not be a factor” in picking ambassadors, a rule presidents of both parties have all but ignored.
Passing over career diplomats in favor of megadonors amounts to “selling ambassadorships,” said Susan Johnson, president of the American Foreign Service Association.
Thomas Pickering, who served as ambassador to Russia and several other countries during a diplomatic career spanning four decades, said turning to bundlers adds a “new dimension” to what he termed “buying offices” through aggressive fundraising. “An individual can multiply their chances by going out and soliciting a lot of contributions other than just their own,” said Pickering, who chairs the American Academy of Diplomacy.
But White House officials dispute that characterization, saying several top ambassadorships went to people who were neither Obama bundlers nor career diplomats but were uniquely qualified for the posts, such as National Security Council official Dan Shapiro (Israel), former Rep. and 9/11 Commission member Tim Roemer (India) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (China), a Republican who had earlier served as ambassador to Singapore and is now considering challenging Obama for the presidency.
Yet few stories illustrate more vividly how friendship, fundraising, business and politics can intertwine at the White House than that of Gips, Obama’s choice for ambassador to South Africa.
In the 1990s, he wrote a report that later formed a blueprint for AmeriCorps. In 1998, Gips left government, where he had supervised wireless spectrum issues for the FCC and served as Vice President Al Gore’s chief domestic policy adviser. He joined Level 3, a budding telecom company that has received more than $100 million in federal contracts in the past decade.
There, at a 2004 fundraiser, he met Obama, who was then running for the Senate in Illinois. The two grew close: Obama asked Gips to help edit his campaign book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
Gips collected more than $500,000 for Obama. James Crowe, chairman of the Level 3 board, was an Obama bundler, too, raising at least $100,000. The firm’s vice chairman, Charles Miller III, bundled more than $50,000.
At the White House, Gips was a powerful force to decide who got coveted jobs. Obama appointed Crowe in October 2010 to chair the presidential advisory committee on telecommunications and wireless issues.
And Level 3 was awarded some $13.8 million in federal stimulus contracts, to extend broadband connections in rural areas of states where it had networks.
In a statement, Gips said he was not involved in Crowe’s appointment, which occurred after Gips left the White House. As for the recovery money, Gips said, “I was completely unaware of stimulus contracts awarded to Level 3 and have not spoken to the firm about them.”Continue Reading[13]
The iWatch News investigation confirmed that at least 18 other bundlers have ties to businesses poised to profit from the president’s political agenda through stimulus money, government contracts or other spending to promote clean energy technology or green development.
Oklahoma billionaire investor George Kaiser is one. A longtime Democratic donor, he is a big financial backer of a company that in March of 2009 won a $535 million loan guarantee from DoE for a solar plant in Silicon Valley. He had multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was awarded the contract. Kaiser did not respond to interview requests from iWatch News.
Steven Westly, a green energy entrepreneur who raised at least $500,000 for Obama, has seen four companies in his venture firm’s portfolio receive more than $500 million in loans, grants or stimulus money from the Energy Department under the Obama administration, iWatch News reported in March.
Some bundlers limit their role in the administration to serving on commissions to support their pet causes and hobnobbing with celebrities. Obama has appointed 22 bundlers to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities or to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Others have served on advisory groups that make recommendations to the president on critical matters ranging from the economic stimulus to policies to spur job growth.
Hyatt hotels heiress Penny Pritzker, Wall Street titan Robert Wolf and financier Mark Gallogly, for instance, all served on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Commission.
In late February, when he set up a new commission on job creation, Obama again turned to Pritzker, Wolf and Gallogly.
Pritzker, one of America’s richest women and a key fundraiser and adviser in the early days of the Obama campaign, has logged more than 50 visits to the White House, individually or with family members. Obama also appointed Pritzker to the Kennedy Center board and her husband, Chicago ophthalmologist Bryan Traubert, to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.
Pritzker told CNBC in May 2009: “I have no trouble having a spirited dialogue with the president, and that’s something that we do on a regular basis.”
When the reporter asked, “Do you get anywhere?” Pritzker replied, “Absolutely. The president is extremely open to hearing what people on his economic board have to say. And I think it’s absolutely informing some of his decisions.”
Fred Schulte, John Aloysius Farrell and Jeremy Borden are reporters for iWatch News.org[14], a website of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on investigative journalism.
References
^ Barack Obama’s run for the presidency (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ Obama White House (www.politico.com)
^ took office (www.politico.com)
^ biggest donors (www.politico.com)
^ bundlers (topics.politico.com)
^ Obama (topics.politico.com)
^ hiring lobbyists (www.politico.com)
^ Visitor logs (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ Continue Reading (www.politico.com)
^ iWatch News.org (www.iwatchnews.org)
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56993.html#ixzz1PMoXpeu2
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
More MoveOn drama...
This sounds like illegal campaign contributions to me. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Mr. Franken is taking the money. Illegal campaigning has become a sport for Democrats these days, if it's Mr. Fieger making reimbursements of donations to Sen. Edwards, or Mr. Hsu making reimbursements of donations to Sen. Clinton, or apparently, Mr. Franken taking money from the Star Tribune.
Newspaper Refunds Ad Money to Franken
Associated PressWASHINGOTN (AP) - MoveON.org has proven to be a headache for newspapers.
On Sunday, The New York Times said it erred in giving the liberal anti-war group a $77,508 prince break on a full-page advertisement attacking Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Now the Star Tribune, a Minneapolis newspapers, is refunding about $12,000 to Al Franken, a Minnesota Democratic Senate candidate, after undercharging Sen. Norm Coleman, for a full-page advertisement spawned by the one in the Times.
Franken is one of several Democrats vying to unseat Coleman.
The Star Tribune said it charged Coleman, R-Minn., around $20,000 for Tuesday's add, which criticized Franken for not condemning the MoveOne.org ad. Two months ago, according to the newspaper, it charged Franken around $32,000 for a full-page ad in the paper criticizing Coleman's record on the Iraq war.
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