Kerry and 527's-We make beautiful love together

Seems Newsmax was able to find a lot more linking John Kerry and the 527's than a common donor and a flyer.

"Movin' to the music together

Examples...

*The same site still posts a letter to MoveOn members from John Kerry, dated June 17, 2003.

*The East Bay for Kerry/MoveOn House party on December 7th combined the forces of two grass-roots organizations based in San Francisco East Bay Area. We had 200 guests eating, drinking, and watching the MoveOn Documentary Uncovered featuring Joseph Wilson and Rand Beers from the Kerry campaign.

*The Democratic Party is partnering with MoveOn.org, People for the American Way, Campaign for America's Future, and dozens of other groups representing millions of Americans to organize a massive public mobilization.

*From the liberal Minneapolis Star Tribune: Sam Kaplan, one of Kerry's biggest and earliest fundraisers in Minnesota, said he plans to continue raising money working with Americans [sic] Coming Together. (Hint to the Star Tribune: That pro-Kerry group calls itself America Coming Together.)

*As NewsMax.com reported Sunday, Kerry refuses to fire Zach Exley, a campaign staffer who was a director for MoveOn.org.

*And, of course, Jim Jordan, formerly Kerrys campaign manager, continues his work at the pro-Kerry Media Fund.


Oh, man... I think this quote sums it up best.


We aren't talking about some accidental coordination. It is clear, and documented amazingly enough, on the DNC's own website.



Nick

No the difference is that when Bush finds out about it, the campaign forces that person to resign. There were two examples cited where the persons should have resigned but have not been forced to do so.

Nick

Events held together.

Sponsoring activities and actions together.

Kerry sending letters to and attending Moveon.org events.

How much more incriminating and together do you get?

Nick

Brussell and Faust,

I do see your points about the former and understood that when posting them. The point is to show a tight relationship between the two groups. There were other points that illustrated that better, but I included those as well.

With regard to the Bush campaign and 527's, the initial reports I read did not indicate that the person was a paid worker or advisor for the campaign. They indicated he was a volunteer and would not be allowed to volunteer while being associated with SwiftVets. I'll look into it more, but for tonight, I'm tired. You're welcome to post anything you find. I'll read it in the morning.

Nick

Thank you faust. You looked up what I did not, and I appreciate that.

So my point was going to be (once I was more sure about the information) that a volunteer is not the same as a campaign manager or a director. I'm sure we could go back and forth between the two all day and not convince each other of the difference/importance. However to me managers actually know important information about campaigns and are obviously in touch with the key decision makers (and in fact are a decision maker themselves) and likely remain so even when not "working" for the campaign any more.

I seriously doubt that this volunteer had any high level information regarding the Bush campaign with regard to ad buys, literature, and other such information.

Nick

But you believe an unpaid campaign volunteer would be able to coordinate on the same level as a paid campaign manager (even former?)

Nick

I believe I said we could argue all day on this and still disagree. I don't see it like you do, and we will have to leave it at that.

Here is a great blog entry that sums of the whole 527 situation very well in my eyes.

Captain's Quarters


Nick

Actually what is preposterous is to claim that Bush would have had something this effective under his control and that he would a) only devote half a million to it when he could commit much more than that and b) that he would wait until now to bring it against Kerry when he could have basically shot him down with it before he got out of the gate and gained enough momentum to match him or best him in national polls.

We really need some better left wing portrayals of right wing evil conspiracy/ineptness.

Nick

Actually 527's aren't allowed to endorse a candidate. Only work against a candidate.

So I suppose you would want a comparitive analysis of 527 spending against each candidate right?

You also know that Open Secrets can't break that down because 527's are supposed to be non-partisan issue oriented groups.

Nick

Well there are these people who have these things I like to call money, time and research assistants. They go to these groups, research which way they lean, see what they have spent via published documents, and draw conclusions.

This... came from a source that did that. If you don't believe they did that or care to question the source, that is fine. (if fact it is pretty much standard practice around here when people don't like the message)

But the reality is that I don't have time to do that. That is why I, like you often look at and frequent sources that do have time to do that. If you cited the N.Y. Times and I didn't like their conclusion, I couldn't expect you to go do the research yourself. Well I could, I just doubt you would be willing to spend the time and money to do so.


I don't have an exact dollar number. I can tell you (and you can tell this at Open Secrets as well) that all the largest 527's are Democratic leaning and also appear to give large donations to each other, likely to dilute some very, very large donations by a few individuals. Peter Lewis and George Soros are the biggest names who appear to have sprinkled at least $25 million or so among the various 527's who have then donated it to each other in various regards.

Here's the list of the 20 largest donors.

You tell me how many of those look like they lean right? If you want to take the time assign them left and right and total the amounts.

Here's a list of the top fifty 527 committees. The first one I would consider right learning in that group is the College Republican National Committee with expenditures of close to five million. The total expenditures of all the left leaning groups above that group total $150 million.

So we can argue that X% vs Y% might have been spent but the reality is it isn't even in the same league. The entire budget of the largest right leaning group isn't even a big as the donation of Soros to Moveon.org

Think about that for a second. The entire budget of that largest right leaning 527 doesn't even match the Soros donation to Moveon. Now when you consider Lewis also made a five million dollar donation, when you consider they also donated up to $10 million more to other 527's, etc. It just isn't in the same league. Even it were matched up for time frame and every other variable, it couldn't be in the same league.

Now we look up Bush and fund raising.

Bush disclosure

We see Bush has raised $240 million dollars. Do you honestly think that if he controlled the SwiftVets that he would have given them so little money or started them off so late? It just doesn't make sense. I mean there isn't a way to prove common sense, but the point is that this group has got Kerry on the run and no one would have underfunded or held off a resource like that. It would be like having video of Bush snorting coke and giving a couple people who sold it to him $100k to go advertise the fact after Bush is already up by 10 points. You would give them millions and have then hit before there was any momentum.

BTW, can you sort out the Kerry page for me? I would love to know what all that "other" is about.

Kerry

I mean since you support him, I can ask you to do the research right?

Nick

Republicans mastering 527's

Pretty good article on how large a lead the Democratic leaning 527's have and how the Republicans have come late to the party with regard to learning about how to use these 527's after the changes in election law. They are now using them (for better or for worse depending upon your view, worse from mine) as the Democrats are using them. Of course they don't have the head start or the same amount of money, but are making up ground fast.

Wouldn't all this just be easier with no limits, and full disclosure of donations?


I wonder how they are going to sharpen and enforce these definitions.

Perhaps this will be the answer.


I say scrap all this nonsense about donations and limits. All campaign limits ever do are allow rich self-financed candidates, or incumbents to have an edge.

Nick

You do understand how ironic it is that you post that statement while discussing John Kerry, a man who came back home and called into question many veteran's service for their country.

Talk about having it both ways.

Nick

Look it can't be both ways. I'm a little sick of the Kerry defenders claiming that attacking one vet is attacking all vets, then they attack SwiftVets, etc.

We also get this little bit of backass reasoning on the whole war attrocities issue. Kerry accused his fellow vets of atrocities. The spin, no he didn't, he merely read off a list of accusations that others made about themselves. Of course the people that made THAT list have been fully discredited in a number of ways including official investigations and even including proof of identity theft from dead vets.

Did Kerry ever correct his claims about that list he read? Did he ever apologize for implicating people based off hearsay?

As for my priorities, I know that they work just fine. You folks are the ones trying to have it both ways. Kerry the war hero (but who committed atrocities) but who only read a list of atrocities (even though he claimed first hand knowledge) and implicated not just the occasional nut job on patrol, but the highest levels of command. (But not his command)

They guy is a fabricating fake. It's been proven with the medals, it's been proven with Cambodia, and you just get pissed because Kerry can't change the subject because they he would have to actually talk about what he has done in the SENATE which would have the net effect of exposing his true agenda, and make him unelectable.

Nick


That is why I keep this statement as my sig. You can't hide from it. He claims millions, he claims himself. He claims first hand information and claims it to be systemic.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

First do you deny that in my sig, Kerry admits to committing atrocities himself?

How about we start with this...


I'll go find some more after my work today.

Nick