General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUS elections 2016: ‘The system is rigged, the government coin-operated’
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/10/nation-on-the-take-wendell-potter-nick-penniman-extract?CMP=Share_iOSApp_OtherOn the other side of the big money equation the fundraising side the nonstop scramble for campaign cash is distracting and exhausting our elected officials as never before, and perpetually repelling good people from office. Members of Congress simply dont spend as much time thinking about us as they once did. They spend most of their time thinking about how to get enough money from wealthy individuals, lobbyists, and political action committees to get re-elected its what political operatives refer to as a permanent campaign mentality.
In January 2013, newly elected Democrats in the House of Representatives were being given an orientation session by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee about how they should spend their time serving in the House what was once referred to as the Peoples House. Among the materials they were presented with was a model daily schedule. That schedule provided for four hours of call time, one to two hours of constituent visits, two hours of committee hearings or floor votes, one hour of strategic outreach, and one hour of recharge time. You have no doubt already guessed what call time and strategic outreach are: fundraising.
Which means that new representatives are expected to spend half of their time either dialling for dollars or attending fundraising events.
Who are they calling? Probably not you. Certainly not us. Mostly, very wealthy donors in the richest cities in America. And whos throwing the daily fundraisers for them? Often, the very industries they are supposed to be regulating, based on their congressional committee assignments.
C Moon
(12,221 posts)They sure seem to be scrambling to get him out of the pictureand are obviously failing.
Could still be interesting.
LittleGirl
(8,291 posts)The Congress critters:
"There are also few members of Congress who, upon leaving the Hill, have any interest in starting a poor peoples political action committee. In 1974, around 3% of former members became lobbyists. Now, half of them pass through Washingtons revolving door and stroll from the Hill down to K Street, many of them to lobby for the industries they once oversaw, based on their congressional committee assignments. Served on the Finance Committee? Become a bank lobbyist. As the New York Timess Mark Leibovich observed: In some sense, [they are] living proof of the thing that most voters loathe about Washington: the notion that membership in its political class guarantees a win-for-life lottery ticket.
This is what the people don't understand and again, a foreign newspaper has wrote this, not our lousy MSM in the states.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)They already send enough letters as it is.
It's not like they are going to start representing me if I send them $50 a month.
I've mostly lived in Republican districts anyway.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)I said, in the current climate, you needed to be a highly effective telemarketer, because you were going to spend half your time calling people you've never met, begging for money.
I ran in 2004, and I can say it was the most demeaning thing I have ever done. You spend every "inactive" minute on the phone. You have someone driving you around the district, so you spend all your time in the car making calls. I spent a week on Capitol Hill looking for fundraising sources, and you look at the little fenced in park in front of the Capitol, and all the benches are filled with Congresspeople dialing for dollars.
I started out with some donor lists from a Senator that was so old, some of the people I was calling had been dead for 3 years (I wonder if they still voted ). You get promised the world by the DCCC, but if you haven't raised enough on your own already, they forgot you before you got out the door. Then they don't return your phone calls either.
After 3 months of this crap, I quit.
I managed another campaign in 2006. After many months, I couldn't get him to keep making calls if I stood over him with a baseball bat. You can only spend about 2 minutes per call, but it's unfair to both the potential donor, and the candidate who really cares about explaining the issues.
My candidate was a health care professional, and the pharma lobbyists said they'd give us all we needed, if we'd just quit talking about single-payer healthcare.
We beat our DLC ordained "moderate" opponent by 10 pts in a 3- way primary, but just couldn't get enough money to run an effective general campaign. No thanks to DWS, then Chair of Red to Blue, who endorsed our Republican opponent.
And you wonder why we're stuck with party filled with Third Way Corporatists and New Dems.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)A corporatist President will maintain corporatist control of the Party and they will continue to fund corporatist candidates, recruit corporatist candidates, and deny funding to progressive candidates.
We must change the Party leadership at the DNC to one that supports progressive candidates. With Bernie we get a Party Chair and. New Party leadership that will support progressives.
With HRC we get another decade of corporate consolidation and control of the Democratic Party. We simply can not afford that for so many important reasons.
surrealAmerican
(11,363 posts)Legislating is just a sideline.
How are we going to change this?