Romney: Campaign Is Advising Against A "JFK Speech" | Home | Finally! Thompson Rolls Out A Big Conservative Endorsement »
Parties Building 527 Groups — MoveOn Head To Run One Of Them
The party nominations haven't been settled yet, but the party organizers themselves are already busy creating the independent fundraising and advertising groups that we'll be seeing on our TV sets through the general election.
The Washington Post reports that Democratic strategists are preparing to have at least two large organizations in 2008, similar to the Media Fund and America Coming Together from 2004. Tom Matzzie, currently the director of MoveOn, is leaving his post there to head up a new, not yet named outfit, while former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta is involved with a new 527 called the Fund For America.
In the wake of McCain-Feingold and its limits on contributions to the parties, these 527 groups enable wealthy donors to contribute more and money money outside of the official campaigns and party organizations, and end up taking over much of the ground-level work of the campaign.
I don't know if this passes campaign finance laws or not, but what I'd like to see are 527s that are more regionally or state based than national. I was in NM in '04 and while canvassing ran into ACORN, Sierra Club, ACT, and at least one other group in the same precinct at the same time, not to mention the campaigns themself. It ticked me off because it was a huge waste of time and money to have such dramatic redundancy. Plus, you'd hear at least one in ten complaining about it. It's nice to hear from one or two people, but 5 in one day?
Progressives need to be smarter. In fact, the resources should go to the party structure and everyone should be encouraged to work within well-run local parties where knowledge of the area is better. It also gets rid of absurd redundancies.
November 12, 2007 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
over time we will learn how to play the republicans game and have a great ground game as well. right now we are still a tad behind them. but thats only cause they have 20 years of experience.. we are newbies.
thanks to the internet and very inspired people we have been able to catch up. and also thanks to wealthy donors like George Soros.
everyone needs to work hard next year to make sure we win it all again!
November 12, 2007 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"In fact, the resources should go to the party structure..."
The problem is that the DNC party structure is incompetent.
Need proof? Look at the dive the potential Democratic nominees are taking in Florida as a result of the DNC-led ban on campaigning in that key swing state with 27 electoral college delegates.
November 12, 2007 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually Democrats are better than Republicans at the 527 game and it is Republicans who are trying to catch up.
I thought this McCain-Feingold law was supposed to take the money out of politics. Now we just have more money in spent for politics with the parties and the candidates trying to create a phony front of being independent of the 527s being created on their behalf.
The more things change, the more they stay the same except for getting more complicated.
November 12, 2007 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink