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