The Sunlight Foundation has an interesting little project up and running that allows you to produce a postcard showing how different candidates' campaigns for Congress have been funded. You can even have the postcard mailed to friends or family before the election. Pictured is the postcard for NC-5 which features Virginia Foxx vs. Billy Kennedy:
Here's Foxx only:
And here's Kennedy only:
I'm interested to know what you think after reading the following caption from a picture taken on the campaign trail in Alaska:
Alaska Dispatch founder and editor Tony Hopfinger sits with his hands cuffed in a Central Middle School hallway after being arrested by private security, left, while he was trying to ask U.S. Senate Republican candidate Joe Miller questions as Miller was leaving a town hall meeting on Sunday. An Anchorage Police Department officer, second from right, gathers information from the scene.
I don't know about you but this just plain pisses me off. A private security detail "arresting" a reporter doing his job. Thankfully other reporters were there covering the event, and this NPR story provides an overview:
The editor of Alaska Dispatch, was grabbed, handcuffed, and detained by private security guards working for Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller at an election rally in Anchorage, Alaska. Tony Hopfinger was trying to interview Miller after the event when the guards grabbed him, handcuffed him and held him in a hallway for about 30 minutes. They told him he was "under arrest." And they threatened other journalists with the same treatment if they spoke with Hopfinger.
From the Alaska Daily News who also had a reporter there:
The editor of the Alaska Dispatch website was arrested by U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller's private security guards Sunday as the editor attempted to interview Miller at the end of a public event in an Anchorage school…
Hopfinger has not been charged but the owner of the Drop Zone, the private security firm that's been providing Miller's security, accused Hopfinger of trespassing at the public event, a town hall sponsored by the Miller campaign. The owner, William Fulton, also said Hopfinger assaulted a man by shoving him…
Hopfinger, who was holding a small video camera, said he was attempting to draw out a statement from Miller on why he was disciplined by the Fairbanks North Star Borough when Miller worked there as a part-time attorney. After Miller walked away, Hopfinger said, he was surrounded by Miller supporters and security guards and felt threatened, so he pushed one of them away.
Fulton said the man shoved by Hopfinger was not hurt…
One of the guards grabbed Hopfinger's video camera. Later, Hopfinger said that when he got the camera back, the segment covering the span of the arrest was missing. An Anchorage police officer offered to take the camera into custody and have it examined in the crime lab to investigate whether evidence had been destroyed, but Hopfinger declined. He said he needed the camera and the remaining video for his work.
While Hopfinger was still in handcuffs, the guards attempted to prevent other reporters from talking to him and threatened them too with arrest for trespass. A Daily News reporter interviewed Hopfinger anyway. No other reporters were arrested, though a few shoving matches and chest bumps ensued as the guards attempted to cordon off Hopfinger and block photographs and videos from being taken of the bizarre school scene.
Is it just me or are we living through the looniest political season in modern American history?
Anyone familiar with the publishing business and/or the rubber chicken circuit will be thoroughly unshocked by this revelation:
Mitt Romney boosted sales of his book this spring by asking institutions to buy thousands of copies in exchange for his speeches, according to a document obtained by POLITICO…
The hosts ranged from Claremont McKenna College to the Restaurant Leadership Conference, many of whom are accustomed to paying for high-profile speakers like Romney. Asking that hosts buy books is also a standard feature of book tours. But Romney's total price — $50,000 — was on the high end, and his publisher, according to the document from the book tour — provided on the condition it not be described in detail — asked institutions to pay at least $25,000, and up to the full $50,000 price, in bulk purchases of the book. With a discount of roughly 40 percent, that meant institutions could wind up with more than 3,000 copies of the book — and a person associated with one of his hosts said they still have quite a pile left over.
Billy Kennedy, the Democrat running for the seat in NC-5 against incumbent Rep. Virginia Foxx, has recently picked up two endorsements. The first was from the Winston-Salem Journal, which isn't surprising since they'd probably endorse a cardboard cutout over Foxx. The second, and in my opinion, more important endorsement came from Zach Galifianakis. Don't know Galifianakis? Well, he's the one-man wolf pack from The Hangover and native of Wilkesboro. From Mark Binker's post at the News & Record about the endorsement :
So why does Galifianakis care? He’s from Wilkesboro, for starters. His parents still live there. He owns property in the county. And he has deep family ties to the Democratic party. His uncle, Nick Galifianakis, served in the N.C. House and the U.S. House, and ran unsuccessfully against Jesse Helms for U.S. Senate in 1972. In fact, it was Nick Galifianakis’ Greek heritage that prompted Helms’ famous slogan: “Jesse Helms: He’s One of Us.”
Earlier this week the two candidates for Congress from North Carolina's fifth district debated each other. Here's what their respective campaigns sent out via email afterwards.
First, from incumbent Virginia Foxx:
Foxx Wins Congressional Debate
But the debate also exposed how out of step her opponent, Billy Kennedy, is with North Carolina voters. He supports big government programs like the trillion dollar health care bill, a job-killing energy tax and the failed stimulus program.
The choice this election is between strong conservative values or Washington’s failed liberal policies. Unfortunately Virginia’s liberal opponent would be a rubber stamp for big-government policies that mean more government, more debt and less freedom. In fact, Kennedy can't stop talking about all the new spending he supports. North Carolina simply cannot afford to send big spenders like Kennedy to Washington.
Virginia is working to keep America the land of the free and a country of opportunity for everyone. And she isn’t afraid to take on the liberals who run Washington. As today’s debate made clear, Virginia Foxx is a conservative voice that North Carolina families and small businesses can depend on.
I think it's cool that all one needs to do to win a debate is to declare yourself the winner. I need to remember that in the future.
Now from Foxx's challenger Billy Kennedy:
October 13, 2010
Dear Friends,
Do you want to know how badly Billy Kennedy beat Virginia Foxx in last night's debate?
Click here to see one outstanding exchange.
Last night Billy showed voters he is up to the task of representing us in Congress, and he very clearly demonstrated why we are so proud to stand beside him.
The stakes couldn't be any higher. Want you join us with a contribution of $10, $20, or $30 dollars?
Our grassroots campaign is gaining traction everyday. With an enthusiastic endorsement from the Winston-Salem Journal and a resounding win in last night's debate, we have the momentum to surprise all those Washington insiders who say it can't be done.
Early voting starts tomorrow and we are only 20 days away from the election. Your contribution will help us share this message with voters from Watauga to Winston-Salem.
Billy came out swinging at last night's debate. The standing-room-only crowd agreed that Kennedy had won the night.
The incumbent seemed genuinely shocked that the audience was not with her. The greatest shock, no doubt, was that she found herself completely undone by a farmer from Bethel.
Join with us now. We need you.
All best,
Jaret Glazer
Billy Kennedy for Congress
Finance Director
Once again I like the self declaration of victory, but I have to award style points for the headline, which referenced a line of his during the debate. Anytime the "liberal" candidate can preempt the "ultra-conservative" candidate with a reference to God you have to give him props.
Who knew that winning or losing was subjective? Oh wait, it's politics; everything's subjective.
Live in D.C. long enough you'll realize that there's a fairly standard playbook for the ambitious:
One guy I knew worked for a Republican senator, left working for him to partner with a couple of guys in a new lobbying firm, and his first year was close to earning seven figures. I heard through the grapevine that subsequent years were even better, but I lost touch over the last few years so I have no idea how the rise of the Democrats in 08 affected his business. I suspect it wasn't good, especially after seeing this research (found via Freakonomics blog)about the direct correlation between influence and income of ex-staffers from the Hill. From the summary:
While there is no scarcity of anecdotal evidence, direct econometric evidence on the extent to which previous ocials are able to convert political contacts into lobbying revenue remains, to the best of our knowledge, non-existent. In this paper we provide such evidence. In particular, we study how the lobbying revenue of congressional sta ers turned lobbyists depends on the power of the congressional politicians for whom they have worked in the past…
Our main nding is that lobbyists connected to US Senators su er an average 24% drop in generated revenue when their previous employer leaves the Senate. The decrease in revenue is out of line with pre-existing trends, it is discontinuous around the period in which the connected Senator exits Congress and it persists in the long-term. The sharp decrease in revenue is also present when we study separately a small subsample of unexpected and idiosyncratic Senator exits. Measured in terms of median revenues per ex-sta er turned lobbyist, this estimate indicates that the exit of a Senator leads to approximately a $177,000 per year fall in revenues for each aliated lobbyist. The equivalent estimated drop for lobbyists connected to US Representatives leaving Congress is a weakly statistically signi cant 10% of generated revenue. We also nd evidence that ex-sta ers are more likely to leave the lobbying industry after their connected Senator or Representative exits Congress.
Here's a nice synopsis of the research:
If you want to distort a point it's hard to beat graphs as a tool.
Only the city that keeps electing Marion Barry to public office could pull this off:
Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty lost the Democratic primary, but the city's Republicans want him as their candidate.
The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics announced Friday that Fenty won the Republican primary as a write-in, but Fenty has said repeatedly that he has no interest in being the GOP candidate in November. The Republican party was not running any candidate in the mayor's race, but a total of 822 Republicans wrote in Fenty's name.
On a totally separate note, why didn't the Tea Party come up with a candidate in DC?
Greenwald's reaction to the O'Donnell reaction is spot on I think:
You want to know why it's so unusual for a U.S. Senate candidate to have what Rove scorned as "the checkered background" of O'Donnell, by which he means a series of financial troubles? In his interview with me earlier this week, Sen. Russ Feingold said exactly why. It's not because those financial difficulties are rare among Americans. This is why:
"It's not a new thing; it's been going on for a couple of decades. If you look even in the Senate, I'm one of the very few people in there who doesn't have a net worth over a million dollars; my net worth is under half a million dollars, after all these years. "
And as poor as Russ Feingold is relative to his colleagues in the Senate, he's still a Harvard Law School graduate who owns his own home and has earned in excess of $100,000 as a U.S. Senator for the last 18 years. People with unpaid Farleigh Dickinson tuition bills and home foreclosures just aren't in the U.S. Senate. And there are a lot of people — those who see nothing wrong with the U.S. Senate as a millionaire's club and as an entitlement gift of dynastic succession – who want to keep it that way.
If you don't feel like clicking through to Greenwald's column I can summarize it for you: he disagrees with much of what O'Donnell says and stands for, but he thinks a big part of the establishment reaction to her is the fact that you're more likely to find her at WalMart than at Macy's. I think he's right.
Today I received the following message from our kids' high school:
West Forsyth families… this message is to inform you that President Obama will be giving a back-to-school speech on Tuesday, September 14 at 1 p.m. He gave a similar speech last year in which he encouraged students to work hard, stay in school and graduate.
The school system will be showing the President's speech again this year. If you would prefer your student not watch the speech, please send a note with him or her on Tuesday.
Thank you.
I truly, truly, truly don't get this. What have we come to when a back-to-school speech from the President is treated like sex-ed? And I don't say this just because it's this President. I'd say it if we were talking about either President Bush, President Clinton, President Reagan, President Carter, etc.
What's even more troubling is that these are high school kids we're talking about. I can't believe parents feel like their kids aren't mature enough to take what they hear from the President, evaluate it, discuss it and then make their own judgments.
For the record I don't really blame the school administrators; they're obviously reacting to feedback they received last year and are putting a system in place in anticipation of a similar reaction from parents this year. I'm just supremely disappointed that some members of my generation feel like they've raised kids who aren't smart enough to figure out for themselves whether or not a speech from the President is an innocuous message of encouragement, or some sort of "liberal propaganda" disguised as a back to school speech.
Befuddled 