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Friday, July 14, 2006

Will This Post Get Me an $8K a Month Job?

Posted by on July 14 at 10:46 AM

Earlier this week, I Slogged about the fact Maria “I Don’t Accept PAC Money” Cantwell was dinged by the GOP for making a TV ad with money from the Washington State Democratic Central Committee (DCC) which received over $177,000 in PAC money in the 2005-2006 cycle. The GOP also wanted to know how much of the $3 million raised from PACs by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (the DSCC) has gone to Cantwell.

I think these are legit questions. Of course, I was jumped by a couple of local Dem bloggers for posting about this. They said it was a non-story & that I shouldn’t be led around by the nose by GOP press releases. (Of course, they failed to mention that in the same post, I debunked the third claim in that GOP press release which had accused Cantwell of being bought by AT&T.)

I was happy, however, to second the reasonable first two assertions by the GOP that Cantwell was hedging on her “No PAC Money” pledge.

I called the Cantwell campaign before I posted, but they didn’t call back. Yesterday, however, I got a call from an angry Cantwell campaign staffer in D.C., Michael Meehan, who told me—repeatedly, in an escalating voice— “The Senator has stood by her pledge!” as if that answered the question. He added that McGavick has taken at least $90K in PAC money (thru the first quarter) and that Sen. Murray has taken $1.7 million. Again: As if that answered the question. (Neither McGavick nor Murray ever pledged not to take PAC money.)

In addition to lecturing me on McCain/Feingold, which Cantwell helped pass, Meehan finally explained that Cantwell had only pledged that her campaign committee would not take PAC money. She can’t control what the DSCC or the state DCC does, he told me. Meehan was angry…and didn’t really let me talk much.

I was able to tell him that I thought he was playing semantic games and offered him an analogy: If Cantwell had pledged to be a vegetarian, she could certainly avoid non-Vegetarian meals even though she couldn’t control what’s sold at the grocery store or in restaurants. In other words, sure she can’t control who the DSCC gets its money from, but she can avoid DSCC money. She made a pledge. She set herself up to be judged by a higher standard. She can’t then just turn around and complain that not taking PAC money from the DSCC is too difficult a proposition.

Look, this really isn’t a huge scandal or anything. It’s a Slog post about a Democratic senator who pledged to do something, and there are questions about wether or not she is living up to that pledge.

Note to Cantwell: I’ll shut up about this if you’ve got another campaign job available.


CommentsRSS icon

Josh, why the obsession with Cantwell? Is this your dark-haired female politican thing kicking in again (hello, Judy Nicastro)? I don't think Cantwell is exactly the biggest threat to the state of the union out there today. Let her be...

Josh,

Meehan is correct, of course. Cantwell cannot promise that the DSCC will not take PAC money. She cannot even force the DSCC to stop making advertisements in support of her/against McGavick. That ain't the way it works.

And, the vegetarian analogy is deeply flawed (okay...maybe not "deeply," but flawed nonetheless). The correct analogy would be vegetarian Cantwell going to a restaurant with a non-vegetarian friend. Sure, she might try to encourage her friend to go vegetarian, but the friend might still order a T-bone with a Wings appetizer.

But Darryl: the friend's t-bone order goes into the friend's belly. The DSCC's t-bone order goes into Cantwell's belly.

Josh,

How are you qualified to do voter outreach for Maria? Mark obviously has skills, he's been running an insurgent campaign statewide, and probably has tons of contacts from friendly groups (to him) that Maria may lack. Perhaps he can convince her how to call for our troops to come home soon, and say it in a way that reaches the people who backed him?

Seriously, dude, the job is at most from July to November. Only $8000 a month for four months of pay, which works out to $32,000 (half of median income in our county), and the guy (Mark) probably has campaign debts or loans from himself he needs to pay off.

Bush thanks you for helping him elect more ultra-right fascists ... I'm sure Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Karl Rove would, but they're busy being sued for Treason.

oh, and Judy N is hot, so it's ok if you're obsessed with her. Just don't stalk her, ok?

"But Darryl: the friend's t-bone order goes into the friend's belly. The DSCC's t-bone order goes into Cantwell's belly."


Not really...the t-bone goes to the DSCC's belly. In other worlds, the DSCC is about promoting their own agenda.


Proof: if Cantwell lost in the primary election, or if Cantwell did not run, the DSCC would still run ads for the Democratic Senatorial candidate.


The DSCC isn't going to risk their own agenda because Maria won't take PAC money!

Josh, you're right about one thing: this isn't a huge scandal or anything. You're just being a dick.

Josh said, "They said it was a non-story & that I shouldn’t be led around by the nose by GOP press releases."

It is a non-story and you are being led on by GOP press releases so as to create a story.

Meanwhile, you folks at The Stranger really have to get over the fact people make more money than you do.

Unfortunately campaigns aren't cheap, and campaigning costs money - and we're not talking nickels and dimes.

Josh, I think you are being a bit obsessive. Perhaps it's mincing words, but if her campaign personally doesn't accept PAC money, then I'm not going to get too worked up if the DSCC does. I'm not a Maria appologist, I just don't see this as a big deal.

This reminds me a little of Dan Savage's obsession with the minutia of Jamie Pedersen's campaign.

hope this helps you realize that the left has no monopoly on strident, self-serving, condescending, self-important lectures about their own perfection.

How are you qualified to do voter outreach for Maria? Mark obviously has skills, he's been running an insurgent campaign statewide, and probably has tons of contacts from friendly groups (to him) that Maria may lack. Perhaps he can convince her how to call for our troops to come home soon, and say it in a way that reaches the people who backed him?

You had me, Will. You had me. And then your last question had me laughing.

Don't kid yourself. Maria's only using him to get reelected. She could give a fuck less what policies he wants. She doesn't even care what her constituents want. Tell them what they want to hear, get reelected, go back to legislating for the interests of the highest bidder. Sounds pessimistic, but it's steeped in more fact and reality than a hopeless coming of age fantasy that a campaign worker can change her mind about Iraq.

Darryl,
You make it out like the ad is an independent expenditure. This is not the case. The ad is on Cantwell's web site, and she approved it. In other words, she directly took money from the Washington State Democratic Central Committee for a Cantwell ad. This was not an independent expenditure from the Democrats that just happens to hype Cantwell. If it was an independent expenditure, you'd have a point. But I stand by my analogy. The t-bone is going to Cantwell.

Gomez,

Yeah, except I wrote a letter to her campaign, and all I'm saying is September's going to be a fun month.

Okay, here's the analogy, but it's pretty icky, and it's your fault:

Cantwell (a vegatarian) and the DSCC (a confirmed meat-eater) go to a steakhouse. Cantwell gets the big salad, and the DSCC gets a giant bloody T-bone steak with a side salad.

Later in the evening, Cantwell gets hungry. Always in a mood to help, the DSCC takes a giant shit in her mouth. Now, Cantwell knows there's some salad in there, and she knows there's some steak in there, but she can't tell what's what because it all tastes like shit. But she's hungry, so she doesn't care; she just keeps swallowing.

Have a nice day. (The T-bone goes into Cantwell's belly, by the way.)

yuk... although I don't know what is more gross- Erostratus' lovely description, or the state of political financing in the good ol' USA. In either case, it smells like poo.

Josh, together you can do better. You can't seriously claim she broke her pledge, because she didn't -- and you have the information resources (ancient history) to confirm what the pledge was, and whether she complied.

What's your real issue? Perhaps you believe she should have pledged something other than she did. Or perhaps -- without believing she should have taken the pledge (you're not suggesting anyone else should have pledged it, after all) -- you think that if she took any pledge at all, she should have taken a pledge that would be easier to interpret.

Start over from one of these points of departure, and we could have a reasonable discussion of what good intentions might motivate such a pledge, and whether these ends are served by a particular variation, and whether the arguable deficiencies of that variation amount to a huge scandal ... or anything.

RonK:

Josh's real issue is that he hasn't done any real reporting today, so he throws shit like this against the wall so that the gullible might believe that he has.

Ivan - That's a shame, because there's a good think-piece in there somewhere.

It wouldn't take any "real" reporting ... just a peruse of 6 yr old news items.

Instead, he falls for the old chase-the-stick game, and not even real chase-the-stick. The GOP keeps playing fake-out chase-the-stick.

They faked a throw and fooled Josh into thinking Meehan had the stick, and Josh dutifully runs up and stands woofing at Meehan. (Crediting his perspective, I suppose that counts as "real reporting".)

Long time back, my brother-in-law had a dog named 'Josh'. A retriever. Fun dog. Fun game while it lasted, but he caught on after a while.

Josh -- you make several good points. The question is not neccessarily whether $8,000 is excessive, unless you want to speculate whether there's a shakeup brewing in the Cantwell camp -- $8,000 is almost as much as Cantwell campaign manager Matt Butler is making.

Another good angle would be the out-of-state talent running Cantwell's campaign, and whether they need a local guy like Wilson to make this a "local" campaign in the truest sense.

Finally, this latest shit-storm is fogging up Cantwell's re-election bid; of course all of her supporters are going to say "nothing to see here folks." But as Postman said yesterday, there is a story here -- and it's a damn interesting one at that.

Hello Liberals.
I love it when you cannibalize one of your own. Let me make sure I understand all of you Maria defenders out there...
Maria says "I promise not to take PAC money." Then, she takes PAC money. I didn't see any footnote to the pledge that says 'well, I'll take PAC money but only if its filtered first.'
So, like George Bush I, who famously pledged 'read my lips, no new taxes' the chicken now comes home to roost on our lame junior senator.
JF: keep doing your job (being a REPORTER) and continue to ask uncomfortable, tough questions. Leave the apologizing to the professionals.

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