MCCAIN-FEINGOLD LAW LEAVES WASHINGTON A DESERTED SMOKING RUIN-Campaign Finance Reform thread-day 33

Once Thriving K Street—Now A Ghost Town, Where All The Lobbyists Have Long Since Sought Honest Work By Whitglove Perisher, OBE

WASHINGTON, December 26 –Since the 2002 passage of the McCain-Feingold/Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Bill, Washington is a different city, a sadder city, but a much more honest city. According to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), “If you’re rich or represent a wealthy company or organization, well, we won’t even listen to you. It’s the law.”

Congress once gauged everything according to fundraising and the election cycle, but no more. There’s no longer any need to pander to potential campaign contributors, since elections are now a matter of “putting your facts and beliefs out there and letting the people decide,” said one former fundraiser.

And that means that today Congress just listens to the people. “When I’m considering legislation,” said former shakedown artist turned honest Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX), “I just ask citizens to line up and tell me what they think is good for the country.”

“I remember when money ruled this town,” says former K Street consultant Bart Widless, “but today it’s all about facts, sincerity and probity. They don’t need my kind anymore.” Widless works today as a cobbler in a humble shoe stall where, he says, “I may not have a fancy suit or a Lexus, but I at least have my integrity.”

No-Call List Is No Worry For Presidential Candidates

Jan. 12, 2004
By: Scott Hovanyetz
Senior Reporter

Politicians exempted themselves from compliance with the national no-call list, and they'll use that exemption to the hilt in this year's presidential primaries, political analysts said last week.
The Iowa caucuses, the first test for primary candidates, are Jan. 19, followed by the New Hampshire primary Jan. 24. Seven states then hold contests Feb. 3, a date that likely will mark the end of the line for many of the nine Democratic primary candidates.

Nonprofit calls, including those for candidates and political issues, are exempt from the no-call list. And though telemarketers have warned that many consumers are unaware of the exemption and won't take kindly even to legal telemarketing calls after they registered for the list, this is unlikely to deter candidates from calling, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Low voter turnout in primaries means the potential for backlash is limited. In the 2000 Iowa Democratic caucuses pitting Al Gore against Bill Bradley, only 61,000 people voted in a state with more than 2 million eligible voters.

Presidential races are about "big" issues, such as the U.S. military presence in Iraq and the economy, Sabato said. An annoyance like a telemarketing call is unlikely to change a voter's choice given such weighty topics, though such emotions might affect a local election.

The likelihood that a voter in Iowa would drive an hour to vote in a caucus to get back at a candidate in retaliation for a robo-call -- a recorded message distributed by mass voice broadcast -- is small, Sabato said. Given the odds, any candidate with the campaign funds probably will take a chance and call in the primaries.

"Here's the attitude," Sabato said. "Some people may get upset, but we're talking about a small universe of people."

Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, said that from personal experience he observed that in Iowa the breakdown of candidate calls has been split 50-50 between live and robo-calls. Squire said the only candidate he hasn't heard from yet is Al Sharpton.

"I can just attest from my own household that we get several calls a day," he said. "All the campaigns here are very anxious to mobilize voters and are using every device they have at their disposal."

Telemarketing calls are unlikely to change voters' minds about which candidate they support, Squire said. Voters are more likely to hang up on a candidate than to retaliate by changing their vote. Voters are saturated with calls by all the candidates, so it's hard for them to blame any one candidate for calling.

But the calls have been effective in motivating a candidate's supporters to get to the polls, Squire said.

Candidates typically call their supporters in the days just before a vote and then call repeatedly on the day of the vote, Sabato said. Some even offer rides to the polls for supporters who lack transportation.

New campaign finance rules may increase the volume of direct mail and telemarketing from political candidates, Sabato said. The McCain-Feingold rules ban special interest groups from running television or radio ads for a candidate 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election.

However, McCain-Feingold doesn't apply to direct mail or telemarketing, so expect interest groups to shift their ad money to those channels, Sabato said.

Direct Marketer News
http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=26129

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg	Freepers/Avg	Monthlies
20	Missouri	541.00	16	33.81	331	1.63	203.00	15

HOORAY For John!

Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob
Special to FreeRepublic | 17 December 2003 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

This is nothing like the usual whine by someone whose post was pulled. JimRob pulled my previous thread for a good reason. "If direct fund-raising were permitted on FR, it would soon be wall-to-wall fund-raising."

So, let's start again correctly. This is about civil disobedience to support the First Amendment and challenge the TERRIBLE CFR decision of the Supreme Court to uphold a terrible law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush.

All who are interested in an in-your-face challenge to the 30- and 60-day ad ban in the Campaign Finance "Reform" Act, please join in. The pattern is this: I'm looking for at least 1,000 people to help the effort. I will run the ad, and risk fines or jail time to make it work -- AND get national support.

But there should be NO mentions of money in this thread, and not in Freepmail either. This is JimRob's electronic home, and we should all abide his concerns.

Put your comments here. Click on the link above, and send me your e-mail addresses. I will get back to you by regular e-mail with the practical details.

This CAN be done. This SHOULD be done. But it MUST be done in accord with JimRob's guidelines.

Fair enough?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1042394/posts

Soros's Deep Pockets vs. Bush
Financier Contributes $5 Million More in Effort to Oust President
By Laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 11, 2003; Page A03

NEW YORK -- George Soros, one of the world's richest men, has given away nearly $5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa and Asia. Now he has a new project: defeating President Bush.

"It is the central focus of my life," Soros said, his blue eyes settled on an unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an interview, is "a matter of life and death."

Soros, who has financed efforts to promote open societies in more than 50 countries around the world, is bringing the fight home, he said. On Monday, he and a partner committed up to $5 million to MoveOn.org, a liberal activist group, bringing to $15.5 million the total of his personal contributions to oust Bush.

Soros's contributions are filling a gap in Democratic Party finances that opened after the restrictions in the 2002 McCain-Feingold law took effect. In the past, political parties paid a large share of television and get-out-the-vote costs with unregulated "soft money" contributions from corporations, unions and rich individuals. The parties are now barred from accepting such money. But non-party groups in both camps are stepping in, accepting soft money and taking over voter mobilization.

"It's incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it," Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson said. "George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party."

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