Election Central Morning Roundup
Obama Holding Press Conference Today
Barack Obama is holding a press conference today at 12 p.m. ET in Chicago, his third press conference as president-elect. He'll probably face some big questions about the economic crisis, about his cabinet picks -- especially Hillary Clinton at State -- and who knows, maybe the dog issue will come up again.
Report: Obama Will Also Officially Name Budget Director
Barack Obama reportedly will name Peter Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget at today's press conference. Orszag currently serves as director of the Congressional Budget Office, and his appointment to the OMB has been expected since last week.
Menendez Named As New DSCC Chairman
In a widely-expected announcement, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was officially named this morning as the new chairman of the DSCC. Menendez served as DSCC vice chairman over the past two years, and was groomed to follow the very successful Chuck Schumer in the wake of Schumer's amicable resignation yesterday.
NYT: Big Turnover From GOP To Dems On K Street
The New York Times reports that prominent Republican lobbyists are quickly stepping down as heads of their firms, as the K Street labor market deals with the new demand (and low supply) of a different creature: Democrats who can more effectively lobby the new Dem-dominated Capitol Hill. "Republicans are going to be to some extent almost irrelevant in the next two years," said former Louisiana GOP Congressman W. Henson Moore, who himself just recently retired as head of a trade group.
McCain Holding Press Conference, Too
John McCain will be holding his own press conference today, at 1 p.m. ET in Phoenix. It's not quite clear exactly what McCain will be discussing.
WaPo: James Lee Witt Could Return To FEMA
The Washington Post reports that James Lee Witt, who had a successful tenure as head of FEMA under Bill Clinton, could be called upon to come back and head up the agency for six months to a year. If Witt were to return, his central mission would be the same as it was under Bill Clinton: Fixing an agency that was universally regarded as broken.
Study: Obama's Small-Donor Base Not As Small As We Thought
A new study from the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute finds that Barack Obama's percentage of money from donors giving $200 or less was actually the same as George W. Bush's in 2004. The key differences are that he brought in even more money than Bush did, and thus more money from small donors, and that many people who initially gave very small amounts kept coming back to give more over time, thus putting them over $200 in total.
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November 25, 2008 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fun with statistics.
It's not just the percentage of the total amount of money that came from donors giving less than $200.
It's also the total number of donors who gave less than $200, and the percentage of all donors who were those who gave less than $200.
Let's not fall into the many, many traps set by the RWAs for claiming that Obama is no different from or better than Smirky/Darth.
Let's keeps those distinctions clear, bright and loud.
November 25, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amen!
November 25, 2008 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Careful with those campaign finance statistics, Eric. I had to read your summary three times plus follow the link and read that a couple times more before I figured out what you were saying.
What the study showed is that the percentage of total money given by people who donated $200 or less in total over the course of the campaign was the same as for Bush. If someone gave $200 five times, they were counted as one of the "big" $1,000 donors for the purposes of the study, and their total contribution wasn't counted in the under-$200 percentage figure. USA Today's comparison that "Forty-eight percent of Obama's total take came from donors of $1,000 or more, compared with 56% for John Kerry and 60% for both Bush and John McCain" is misleading. Obama's small donor base claim isn't off at all. It doesn't debunk the Obama campaign's claim that, "91% of our contributions were in amounts of $100 or less."
I'm not saying you're trying to mislead us, Eric, but I think your summary and headline could have been clearer. Technically, I suppose "Obama's Small-Donor Base Not As Small As We Thought" is true, but I'm not sure that it conveyed what the study and you were trying to say.
November 25, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
What are the chances that McCain is holding a press conference to apologize for putting the country at risk by picking Palin?
November 25, 2008 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
The chance lies somewhere between the chance of Limbaugh and Hannity proclaiming their eternal love for each other on the air and vowing never to speak again and a recount determining McCain actually won.
November 25, 2008 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Between zilch and nada.
November 25, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
A snowball's chance in. . .
Oh, wait, that whole global warming thing and all.
November 25, 2008 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
The chances are Slim and None, and Slim has left town.
November 25, 2008 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Eric, Not too important but this will be Obama's 3rd press conference since becoming prez-elect.
November 25, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's keep in mind that this was a very LONG campaign, too. I'm definitely a small donor, but I ended up giving more to the Obama campaign than I have to any other politician (more than I could afford, to tell the truth). This was such an important election - and we had such a great candidate - that I just couldn't resist donating "one more time."
The article compared Obama's donors to Howard Dean's, but that's really misleading. I gave to Dean, too, but he didn't last long enough to get more of my money.
November 25, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
The spin on the obama campaign contributions is ridiculous and distorts reality. How about some reality. His campaign totally changed the way things are done and the spin demeans the accomplishment.
1. 52% of the funds were raised from people who gave $1000 or less. That's $331,760,000. More than kerry or bush in 04.
2. Speaking of kerry and bush in 04, they relied on bundlers to combine contributions for a bigger overall take and in turn for the bundlers to buy influence. Obama did not. See below.
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1835
3. The spin in the article, by admission, does not take into account the thousands of people that contributed $25 or $50 at a time, by forgoing going out to dinner and such, when the total reached over 1000 and even the maximum. The point of the campaign was that people were donating in small increments. They weren't buying influence. They gave because they wanted to contribute for the good of the country.
4. 1/4 of all funds raised, $156,000,000 came from people who gave less than $200 TOTAL. That amount came from a total of 3.4 million individual contributors. When did that ever happen before?
5. Only 580,000 contributors gave greater than $200, total, notwithstanding the incremental contributions.
6. No lobbyist contributions. No bundlers. No attempts to buy influence. That was the point of the manner in which funds were raised.
Bottom line, the article is a distortion of the contributions, the way they were done, and what was reported. And the author has the audacity to refer to obama's fundraising as a "myth." Once again the sole purpose of the article was to demean the accomplishment and all the contributions of the 3.9 million people who contributed to obama's campaign. Pathetic.
November 25, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amen (again)!
November 25, 2008 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
The bigger story in campaign finance are the number of McCain donors who ended up contributing $100k+ by splitting their donations between various Republican committees and 527s. Those are the real people trying to buy the election, not the middle-class supporters who gave 200-1000 dollars.
November 25, 2008 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
...you forgot the part about no other candidate ever recieving contributions from a Palistinian refugee camp either...ground breaking!
November 25, 2008 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good point. I also forgot to mention all the neo-nazis and KKK members that committed to your heros as well. I guess a good number of them will be at rambo's rallies in georgia screaming their racist rants and threats at the president elect. How patriotic.
November 25, 2008 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, but with any luck, this spin will blow back on Republicans, and they'll take it as further evidence they don't need to change anything they're doing!
November 25, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
What? K Street...I thought Obama was gonna get rid of lobbyists? I mean he wouldn't let the unassaiable Max Clelland attend an event with him in GA cuz he's a lobbyist...
November 25, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
He never said he was going to get rid of lobbyists. He said he would end their influence dominance and their ability to set the agenda and policies. They will continue to have a chair at the table, but now they won't be the only ones at the table.
November 25, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's the President, not the Godfather. He can't stop lobbyists from setting up shop in Washington D.C. if they want to.
Wait a second, why am I bothering replying to you? I think I'll go do something more productive like read the National Enquirer.
November 25, 2008 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's also that pesky First Amendment, which guarantees us the right to petition our government for redress of grievances. No lobbyist exception there, it turns out. The key, as you note, is that lobbyists get a seat at the table, not all the seats.
November 25, 2008 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, that Max Clelland who was horribly wounded while choppering into Khe Sanh by a gung ho wacko, probably a republican, who dismantled the safty devices on his handgrenades. But that Max Clelland is a traitor, commie, pinko, terrorist sympathizer who is faking his injuries. Yeah, right.
November 25, 2008 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Articles, posts, analysis, legislation, and campaign attacks on campaign fundraising and finance have been ireelevant to voters for as long as there have been campoaigns. The spin is truly just that, spin. I have never seen campaign finance issues or stories truly effect an election. Campaign finances do, stories about the subject do not.
November 25, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
McCain will announce he is suspending his term in the Senate in order to spend more time with the missus. He may also, depending on time constraints, do some premarital counseling with Bristol and Levi.
November 25, 2008 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
The thing that seems to have been greatly overlooked is that the small donors like us donated more often in response to republican stupidit and attacks so the more they got hateful and lied the more we reached deeper to donate. I suppose it can't be proven and that is why it hasn't really been covered.
Did President Elect Obama find a role for John McCain? Is that why they have corresponding press conferences today? Curious...
November 25, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is curious, but I think obama needs mccain in the senate as a republican vote on issues like the environment and immigration and such. I do think mccain will help obama to try and revive his legacy.
November 25, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Regarding Obama contributions . . . the most amazing thing to me is the number of people who contributed more than $200, in fact up to the limit, by making planned monthly payments. These were people like me who could not afford to offer $2,300 in one contribution but believed in Obama enough to go on line once a month to contribute.
So I now agree with the Supreme Court: my contributions are a form of free speech and the little guy can out-shout the monied class by sheer numbers. Sure is nice to have friends!
November 25, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Makes sense that the McCain press conference would be announced on Halperin's web page. Some sort of loser-to-loser protocol.
November 25, 2008 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mmmm . . .ratfood, I would like to bite your head off. No, wait! I mean, I totally agree with you.
November 25, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
At some point most of it got cropped off. Not much more than a morsel left... just enough to whet the appetite.
November 25, 2008 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, even a nibble is nice. But seriously, it's funny to watch guys like Halperin stay in the tank even after the tank has been drained and disinfected.
November 25, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Poor Halperin, so hopelessly deluded that even his Beltway colleagues now laugh in his face... and they're not exactly the sharpest crayons in the box.
November 25, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink