Sunday, February 24, 2008
McCain + Lobbyist + New York Times = Internet Fundraising (also some fodder on Lawrence Lessig)
Chris Wallace just made an interesting comment on his show that the McCain camp responded to the New York Times article about the senators alleged favors given to a telecom lobbyist nine years ago by sending out an email to their contact list as part of a fundraising campaign. The campaign was successful and brought in the most revenue in a single day.
All week I have been hearing about how the unintended consequences of the liberal NYT's article could be to energize the conservative base to get behind McCain. I don't know the demographics of the donations -- whether they were from existing backers or new supporters -- but that comment alone explains what is wrong with our political system:
1) why would an externality change the opinion of a conservative to back a liberal-republican senator. As an American we should vote for the individual who we believe best represents our views and policy opinions. This whole thing reminds me of the kid's rhyme, "I'm rubber, you're glue, what you say to me, sticks to you." It's all media hype and a PR fight.
2) why donate money to a candidate that you don't support. Rush Lambaugh and Anne Coulter have been saying for months that they'd rather vote for Hilary than McCain but this past week they both through support behind McCain. WHY!?!? Just because a newspaper wrote an article that hinted something improper happened? This again is another reason why I strongly believe in public funding of campaigns.
Speaking of campaign finance reform, I was ELATED to see Lawrence Lessig announce that he is considering running for Tom Lantos' vacant seat in the House. I'm a big fan of Lessig. If he decideds to run, he will be a great addition to the House. Since I don't believe in donating money to candidates (like Lessig) but I do fully support throwing maven-support behind candidates I like, I joined the Facebook group to encourage Lessig to run. I sent it around to a few friends who I knew would be interested and got them to sign-up too (I'm a connector...woohoo!).
Well I was all over the map in this post. And to continue the random comments, I enjoyed class this past week. The guest speaker was dynamic and knew his stuff. The "Army of Davids" book is pretty good but I'm real far behind cause I'm moving this week to a new apartment. And I actually enjoyed watching the Texas democratic debates this past week. Obama is a funny guy calling Clinton's tactics about the plagerism "political silly season."
Fin.
All week I have been hearing about how the unintended consequences of the liberal NYT's article could be to energize the conservative base to get behind McCain. I don't know the demographics of the donations -- whether they were from existing backers or new supporters -- but that comment alone explains what is wrong with our political system:
1) why would an externality change the opinion of a conservative to back a liberal-republican senator. As an American we should vote for the individual who we believe best represents our views and policy opinions. This whole thing reminds me of the kid's rhyme, "I'm rubber, you're glue, what you say to me, sticks to you." It's all media hype and a PR fight.
2) why donate money to a candidate that you don't support. Rush Lambaugh and Anne Coulter have been saying for months that they'd rather vote for Hilary than McCain but this past week they both through support behind McCain. WHY!?!? Just because a newspaper wrote an article that hinted something improper happened? This again is another reason why I strongly believe in public funding of campaigns.
Speaking of campaign finance reform, I was ELATED to see Lawrence Lessig announce that he is considering running for Tom Lantos' vacant seat in the House. I'm a big fan of Lessig. If he decideds to run, he will be a great addition to the House. Since I don't believe in donating money to candidates (like Lessig) but I do fully support throwing maven-support behind candidates I like, I joined the Facebook group to encourage Lessig to run. I sent it around to a few friends who I knew would be interested and got them to sign-up too (I'm a connector...woohoo!).
Well I was all over the map in this post. And to continue the random comments, I enjoyed class this past week. The guest speaker was dynamic and knew his stuff. The "Army of Davids" book is pretty good but I'm real far behind cause I'm moving this week to a new apartment. And I actually enjoyed watching the Texas democratic debates this past week. Obama is a funny guy calling Clinton's tactics about the plagerism "political silly season."
Fin.
Labels: Barack Obama, John McCain, Lawrence Lessig, New York Times
// posted by Jason Langsner @ 10:00 AM 
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