Kerry Will Give Democrats Campaign Cash, Advisers Say

[bigtree]

By Ron Fournier The Associated Press
Published: Nov 18, 2004

WASHINGTON (AP) - Under friendly fire, Sen. John Kerry likely will donate a substantial portion of his excess presidential campaign cash to help elect Democratic candidates in 2005 and 2006, advisers said Thursday.

Party leaders, including some of Kerry's top campaign aides, said this week they were surprised and angry to learn that he had more than $15 million in accounts from the Democratic primaries. They demanded to know why the money wasn't spent to help Kerry defeat President Bush or to aid congressional candidates.

There were no easy answers to those questions, officials close to Kerry acknowledged Thursday, but they sought to assure Democrats in a series of telephone calls that the four-term Massachusetts senator was sharing his political wealth.

They argued that he donated $40.5 million to Democratic causes in 2004, including $3 million each to the party's House and Senate campaign committees. More than $32 million went to the Democratic National Committee, including $9 million targeted to state parties.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBK6R7IP1E.html

[Pacifist Patriot]

1. Oooo, someone needs to tell the state rep candidate in TX

Moonbeam mentioned. Maybe she can send her last minute bills to Kerry.

[indianablue]

2. The Rush spin....

Kerry knew he was not going to win and did not wan't to spin all the money on losing cause.

[JaneDoughnut]

3. Good place for the money.

I'm glad my donations weren't all in vain.

[Plaid Adder]

4. Well, as long has he's got $15 mil,

maybe he could help fund a couple of those RECOUNTS.

Jeez. $15 million still in the bank after the election's over? What the hell was he SAVING it for?

Sigh,

The Plaid Adder

[bigtree]

5. Did all of those candidates he gave to spend all of their money?

Do you think money gets everything done? 15mil is a drop in the bucket, an ad or two, a transportation bill . . .

I wonder where folks who think the money would have made a difference would have had him spend it and why they are so certain the money would have made a difference? This is back seat second guessing. Scapegoating grousing. Our individual efforts didn't get the job done, yet. One one hand some folks want to put Kerry down on a level beneath their own efforts and competence, then suggest he would be elevated by their own prescription for success.

He failed, so far. We failed. The argument over the money is a grousing, fingerpointing, second guessing sideshow.

[ClintonTyree]

6. Actually.................

15 mil is a drop in the bucket compared to the total money spent by both candidates. It could have been last minute donations, pledges that were late in arriving. I'm willing to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt on this one. Nothing else mind you, just this one.

[leftchick]

7. "The Real Deal" ??

is more like a fucking raw deal to me... :grr:

[hedda_foil]

8. Does everybody understand ....?

When a politician funds other politicians, he's buying their support for his own future run. Kerry's using our money to build a powerbase for himself after abandoning the people whether or not the votes were counted correctly and despite huge evidence of voter suppression that his lawyers should be suing the hell out of the Repubs for ... in addition to getting recounts everywhere possible.

I can't tell you how little I think of this man.

[GodHelpUsAll2]

9. I don't think most do understand

after all 15 million is a drop in the bucket. I could write a check for that right now and not even miss it. How about you?

<strong sarcasm>

[bigtree]

11. Are you running a national campaign?

The expenses are often beyond the candidate's control. Do you really think Kerry is controlling this money with a pocket passbook? The mindlessness of the grousing here is amazing.

[bigtree]

10. this is uninformed scapegoating

You likely can't present ONE scrap of evidence that Kerry is doing what you say. Show me one scrap of evidence that he has abandoned anyone.

You know, I never heard Kerry, Clinton, McCalliffe, or any of our party's leaders who get savaged here blame and scapegoat any of their would-be supporters. But many feel free to hurl anything and everything at these folks, often without a shred of evidence to back up their rhetoric. If you have anything that comes anywhere closer to what I've posted here that factually outlines Kerry's actions or efforts then, by all means, come out with it.

[Eloriel]

14. Instead, the recount effort is left to We The People, entirely

to finance THAT too -- which we are doing and need to continue to do. Kerry, meanwhile, finally woke up and uttered some noble-sounding words about fighting for election reform, etc.







Everyone, if you have donated to help with the recounts, please do so -- hedda_foil's own 527 formed specifically to help fund the recounts, in conjunction with her National Ballot Integrity Project:

www.helpamericarecount.org

www.ballotintegrity.org/

[theboss]

12. At least he's not John Glenn

Glenn might still be trying to pay off his '84 campaign.

[blm]

13. Leftover cash ALWAYS gets distributed within the party. Why is this such a

big deal? Maybe because it's being spun so there is MORE piling on the last Dem leader, just as they did to Clinton and Gore.

Some Dems will never learn. They can't seem to figure out when Rove's minions in the press are using them.