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Democrats are getting desperate. Even with all their pomp and circumstance and rhetoric about their dominance of the political arena, they are taking the steps of a desperate party. Case in point, their leveraging of relationships with nefarious characters and out-of-touch liberals to raise money for fledgling Democrat Senate campaigns across the country. Last week Politico reported that, “Los Angeles’ top liberal female activists are planning the political fundraiser for Sept. 27 at a private home.” According to the article, “The idea started with alums of the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee, a Reagan-era power PAC that included Jane Fonda, Kate...

WASHINGTON (June 25, 2008) – Obama’s decision to use only private donations for his campaign mandates that he be more transparent about his fundraising, the groups wrote. McCain’s continued reliance on private money until his party’s nominating convention also underscores the need for greater disclosure. The eight groups urge the candidates to disclose more complete information about donors to set a high standard of campaign funding transparency for future presidential candidates. Specifically, the groups ask the candidates to divulge on their campaign websites the exact amounts that bundlers raise for their official campaign committees and joint fundraising committees that benefit...

McCain Allies Find Finance-Law Holes Governors' Fund Recruits Big Donors; Bid to Catch Obama Allies of Sen. John McCain have found new loopholes in the campaign-finance law he helped write -- and they're using them to reel in huge contributions to help him compete with Sen. Barack Obama. In one method, a Republican Party fund aimed at electing governors has started marketing itself as a home for contributions of unlimited size to help Sen. McCain. His 2002 campaign law limits donations to presidential races to try to curtail the influence of wealth. The Republican Governors Association isn't subject to those...

Fairey’s $400k for Obama June 9, 2008 Back in January we posted on Shepard Fairey’s posters in support of the Barack Obama campaign. At the time, some comments cast doubt over how effective the posters would be. Not only is Obama now assured of the Democratic nomination but, we can reveal, sales of Fairey’s posters (shown above) raised over $400,000 to help him get there… Of course the posters in themselves, we assume, played only a very minor role in securing the nomination (although if anyone wants to conduct a poll on voter intentions versus coolness of poster design we’d...

President Bush is scheduled to stop in Houston to help raise money for Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson's opponent and the Republican Party's statewide campaign for the Nov. 4 election. Bush will be the featured guest at a July 18 fundraising luncheon at the River Oaks home of former energy pipeline executive Dan Tutcher, according to an invitation sent to potential donors.

Barack Obama sells the Democratic Party short. He talks about his fund-raising success as if his donors were part of a spontaneous movement of small-money enthusiasts who cohered around himself. In fact, Democrats have spent years building their donor network. Obama’s fund-raising base is bigger than John Kerry’s, Howard Dean’s and Al Gore’s, but it’s not different. As in other recent campaigns, lawyers account for the biggest chunk of Democratic donations. They have donated about $18 million to Obama, compared with about $5 million to John McCain, according to data released on June 2 and available at OpenSecrets.org. People who...

Dear Past Your Eyes, Republicans are placing a big bet on Karl Rove. Freedom's Watch, the secretive Republican attack group zeroing in on Democratic House candidates, has put its expected $200 million war chest in the hands of Karl Rove. They're handing him hundreds of millions of dollars to spend attacking our candidates with this year's biggest "Swift Boat" group. But, you and I can make sure Rove's new gig as the mischief-making maven of the GOP attack group Freedom's Watch is a total bust. Midnight tonight is your last chance to give before the June 30th FEC deadline- the...

Hillary Clinton hasn't forgotten that her defeat came not at the hands of voters but because of her opponent's ability to out-organize her in caucus states. By some measures, she equaled or surpassed Barack Obama in the popular vote. Nonetheless, Mrs. Clinton has officially rallied behind Mr. Obama in hopes of giving Democrats their best shot to win a presidential election since 1996. But she has a price. Mrs. Clinton showed up in Unity, N.H. for a symbolic event with Mr. Obama and the downpayment seems to begin with $10 million in cash – the amount her campaign still owes...

It has been a splendid week for the Bill of Rights at the Supreme Court. In addition to their landmark gun rights ruling, the same five Justices took another whack at Congress's attempts to limit political speech via campaign-finance limits. John McCain, call your office. In Davis v. FEC, a 5-4 majority overturned a portion of the 2002 McCain-Feingold law that exempted the political opponents of rich candidates from the usual fund-raising limits in order to "level the playing field." Known as the Millionaire's Amendment, the law saddled wealthy, self-financing candidates with burdens designed to help their opponents. Millionaires had...

“While the natural instincts of democracy lead the people to banish distinguished men from power,” Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, “an instinct no less powerful leads distinguished men to shun careers in politics, in which it is so very difficult to remain entirely true to oneself or to advance without self-abasement.” Some 170 years and 36 presidents later, the choice presented to the American people at this year’s presidential election does not merely confirm the correctness of the Frenchman’s assessment; it amplifies his verdict in an absurd, almost surreal manner. Among America’s presidents—many of them impressive and some great,...

As GOP attacks mount on the issue of Senator Obama’s ties to Political Action Committees and Lobbyists, Obama’s campaign has undergone little scrutiny on his long-standing ties to the financial and banking community. In Obama’s speeches across the country he has repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for allowing “evil” subprime mortgage lenders and investment banks to lead this county into our current mortgage meltdown. Obama’s rhetoric on the mortgage crisis has been pointed and blunt, as stated on his own campaign website, “Obama will crack down on fraudulent brokers and lenders…Obama has been closely monitoring the subprime mortgage situation for...

Supreme Court strikes down part of campaign finance law Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:15pm EDT By James Vicini WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court struck down on Thursday part of a U.S. campaign finance law that relaxes contribution limits for candidates facing wealthy, self-funded opponents, a ruling that could affect congressional elections in November. By a 5-4 vote, the high court declared unconstitutional the provision known as the "millionaire's amendment" that Congress adopted out of concern that rich, self-financing candidates would have a competitive advantage. It allows congressional candidates to accept higher contributions when they face opponents who spend large...

Farmer: Obama's Sellout On Funding Fuels Cynicism By JOHN FARMERGeorge Carlin, who died June 22, wasn't my favorite comedian, but he uttered an immutable truth when he said that if you scratch a cynic beneath the surface you'll find a disappointed idealist. That was never truer — at least about American politics — than it is at the moment. And the reason is Sen. Barack Obama, the self-styled reformer who pledged to bring a new kind of uplifted politics to Washington. Last week, Obama renounced his commitment to public funding now that he's awash in private cash. And there's more...

ABC News has learned that on a conference call with his national finance team this afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, asked his top contributors to help Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, retire her more than $10 million in outstanding vendor debt. He did not specify an amount. Clinton's debt has been a major point of contention as the two former rivals attempt to reconcile. Clinton will appear at an Obama fundraiser Thursday night in Washington, D.C., and the two will campaign together in Unity, NH, on Friday.

Barack Obama may want to rethink his position on public financing after all. Not only did he lose most of the contests over the last three months of the primary, his fundraising numbers declined during the same period. In just-released figures, Obama had his weakest fundraising month of 2008 in May, outraising John McCain by only a million: Democrat Barack Obama raised $22 million in May for his presidential campaign, his weakest fundraising month this year, and ended the month with $43 million cash on hand, the campaign reported Friday. That puts him behind McCain, after spending $5 million more...

Lots of people are understandably fearful of Barack Obama winning the Presidency, even more than they're afraid of the Democrats stretching their lead in Congress. And some of you are also justifiably skeptical of John McCain. Still, consider what an Obama adminstration would be like. We know he's the most liberal man since George McGovern to run for the office. We also know he'll readily lie about that to convince enough of the public to vote for him. So what can you do to help defeat him, even if you're not enthusiastic about McCain? Money. Donate it. As much as...

Give Barack Obama this: He knows when he can give his adoring fans the finger and get away with it. Once Obama realized he could probably out-fundraise John McCain by a factor of three to one, he would have been insane to accept public financing of his campaign – and with it, the resulting $84 million spending limit. His small problem was that he had vowed back in February to do just that. He even said he would personally meet with McCain to draw up parameters that both campaigns would agree to stick to. So, what would he say about...

(CNSNews.com) - Campaign finance analysts say that conservative or Republican-affiliated "527" independent political committees have raised far less money than such groups affiliated with Democrats. "The Democratic organizations, through the 15-month point, have raised more than three times as much as the Republican groups -- $87 million to $24 million," said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute. Malbin, whose nonpartisan group is affiliated with George Washington University and tracks campaign finances, said it was ironic that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) last week blamed his decision not to take public financing, in part, on the supposed need to...

WASHINGTON - John McCain raised almost as much money as Barack Obama in May, placing him virtually on the same financial footing as his Democratic rival — a level of parity that would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting raised $21.5 million last month. He had $31.5 million in the bank, up $10 million from the end of April. Obama had his weakest fundraising month of the year. The Illinois senator's campaign raised $21.9 million in May. The disclosure came a day after the Democratic candidate's reversal on the question of whether he would...

The following unsolicited bulk E-mail from Obama for America demonstrates Obama’s total contempt for the intelligence of the American voter by claiming that Obama is rejecting Federal election funding out of an idealistic desire to fix a “broken” campaign system. The truth is that his rejection of Federal funding frees him to accept unlimited six figure bundled contributions such as those enumerated below, without any limit on what he can spend to get elected. Since we announced our decision not to accept taxpayer funds for the general election, tens of thousands of people like you have come forward to declare...

Obama outspent Hillary 3:1 in PA, and lost by 10. He outspent her 2:1 in OH, and lost. He outspent her $75 million to $46 million in the primaries and the nomination was essentially a tie. May was Obama's worst fund-raising month of 2008. Maybe the bottom is falling out of the snake-oil market.

WASHINGTON — John McCain and the Republican Party won a fundraising round from Democratic rival Barack Obama and his record-setting money machine in May, together raising a total of $45 million, some $20 million more than the Democrats. But Obama, by raising $21.9 million, shattered the presidential fundraising record for the primary election season. In his first report to the Federal Election Commission since his precedent-setting decision to spurn public funding for the fall campaign, Obama disclosed that he collected $287.5 million since entering the race last year. President Bush held the previous primary-season record, raising $269.6 million en route...

Clinton Campaign $22.5 Million In Debt at the End of Last Month By Shailagh Murray Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, June 21, 2008; A06 Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to return to Senate politics next week, now that her run for the Democratic presidential nomination is over, but a campaign finance filing made plain last night that the effects of that losing effort will continue to weigh on her political future. Clinton's campaign was $22.5 million in debt at the end of May, $3 million more than a month earlier. More than half of the latest debt ($12.2 million)...

<p>O.K., she doesn't really matter anymore in this throw-away society. But we've got some news on Hillary Clinton's political money matters.</p> <p>First, although she's no longer running, her campaign debt has grown LARGER.</p> <p>According to finance numbers submitted by her campaign to the Federal Election Commission late last night, at the end of May the New York senator had a total debt of $22.5 million.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Democrat Barack Obama raised $22 million in May for his presidential campaign, his weakest fund-raising month this year, and ended the month with $43 million cash on hand, the campaign reported Friday. Though Mr. Obama has been the fund-raising leader in the presidential contest, his May totals are just slightly above Republican rival John McCain's fund raising for the month. Overall, Mr. Obama has raised more than $287 million during the past 17 months, while Mr. McCain has raised a total of $115 million. Mr. Obama, who is bypassing the public financing system in the general election, reported...

I was surprised (not really) by the lack of mainstream media reporting last night over the release of the Obama campaign's fundraising figures for May. There were no big press conferences, no Media fawning, Keith Olbermann was not crying tears tears of joy, for the most part there was sil. Why?? Barack Obama's campaign yesterday released...

For the first time in the campaign, Republican John McCain in May raised about the same amount of money, $22 million, as Democrat Barack Obama. McCain also closed the gap in the amount of cash in the bank the two parties’ presumptive presidential nominees have at their respective disposals as they enter the first phase of the general election. McCain reported having about $32 million in cash for primary related expenses at the end of May. Obama reported having $43 million in hand at the start of June—but about $10 million of that is dedicated to the general election. Obama’s...

Obama alienates the editors By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 6/21/08 7:07 AM EST For most voters, Barack Obama’s shift away from public financing is not as big a deal as the mounting death toll in Iraq, surging gas prices—or even what they’re going to make for dinner tonight. But Obama’s Thursday announcement that he would become the first candidate to opt out of the public financing program for the general election was a big deal for some of the nation’s most influential newspaper editorial boards that have long been ardent champions of campaign finance reform, and who’d thought they’d found...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6LtKDwVo-o    

Obama's Bundler, Osama's Enabler   By Ben JohnsonFrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, June 20, 2008 SHOULD A MAJOR PARTY CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT, WHO HAS PLEDGED HIS SUPPORT FOR OUR TROOPS, REJECT THE MONEY AND SUPPORT of an anti-American extremist who thinks Osama bin Laden had a “valid” argument on 9/11 and says she is currently acting “to undermine the war effort”? Barack Obama should be forced to make that decision about the ample funds he has received from Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans. According to Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen, Evans has “raised at least $50,000” for the Obama campaign. As long...

Quoted material is verbatim from the E-mail to which Barack Obama signed his name. Since we announced our decision not to accept taxpayer funds for the general election, tens of thousands of people like you have come forward to declare their independence from a broken system. The decision not to accept taxpayer funds frees Obama from Federal spending limits. This decision frees us to build a movement of millions of people giving whatever they can afford to a campaign that is truly reforming the way our political process works. It also frees us to take our campaign for change to...

BARACK OBAMA isn't abandoning his pledge to take public financing for the general election campaign because it's in his political interest. Certainly not. He isn't about to become the first candidate since Watergate to run an election fueled entirely with private money because he will be able to raise far more that way than the mere $85 million he'd get if he stuck to his promise -- and with which his Republican opponent, John McCain, will have to make do. No, Mr. Obama, or so he would have you believe, is forgoing the money because he is so committed to...

Obama says McCain is "fueled" by money from lobbyists and PACs, but those sources account for less than 1.7 percent of McCain's money.

Exclusive: MoveOn To Close Its 527 In Response To Obama's CandidacyBy Greg Sargent - June 20, 2008, 12:05PM MoveOn, the advocacy group supporting Barack Obama, has decided to permanently shutter its 527 operation, partly in response to the Illinois Senator's insistence that such groups should not spend on his behalf during the general election, I've learned from the group's spokesperson. MoveOn's decision, which will dramatically impact the way it raises money on Obama's behalf, is yet another sign of how rapidly Obama is taking control of the apparatus that's gearing up on his behalf. By shuttering its 527, MoveOn is...

So much moral good was expected from "campaign-finance reform" that Barack Obama's announcement yesterday that he will opt out of public financing for his Presidential run is an historic moment. Senator Obama is the first candidate since the law was passed in the 1970s not to take matching funds for the general election. Even candidate George W. Bush, flush with cash in 2000 and 2004, didn't do that. The campaign-finance law may have been on life support, but being the one who finally pulled the plug seems to have put the Illinois freshman in a churlish mood. "John McCain's campaign...

In a web video emailed to supporters Thursday, Barack Obama explained that he was opting out of the public financing system because John McCain is “not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.” Republicans can only wish that were the case. Obama’s alarmist prophecy — a bit of typical campaign rhetoric meant to scare his own donors into reaching for their credit cards — is wildly at odds with the flatlined state of conservative third-party efforts. The truth is that, less than...

The main reason Barack Obama has given for eschewing public financing of his campaign was based on a lie: "We've made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election," Obama says in the video, blaming it on the need to combat Republicans, saying "we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups,...

Back when he was still struggling to win the Democratic nomination against the Clinton juggernaut, Barack Obama pledged to accept public financing for the general election if he became the nominee. Now that he is the nominee and has the potential to raise three times as much money as his Republican opponent, Obama has broken that pledge. So what? Politicians break promises all the time. Sure, this was a little more flagrant than most: Last September, Obama checked “Yes� on a questionnaire that asked whether he would accept public financing. He stressed his long history of support for the idea,...

Washington, June 20 (ANI): New York Senator Hillary Clinton will have to bear the entire 11 million dollars loan she gave her campaign because the fund-raising has dried up. Hillarys push to retire her debt — more than 20 million dollars including her loan — is going so poorly that getting help to pay it down has become a major point of negotiation with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who wants Hillary to help smooth things with angry Clinton die-hards, sources have said. I have raised nothing since the campaign ended, The Daily News quoted a Hillary fundraiser, as saying....

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama today said he will opt out of $84m in public campaign financing – and its attendant spending limits. Here is how his campaign stacks up with Republican John McCain's: Total raised this election cycle, as of April 30: McCain: $100.4m Obama: $272.1m Raised in April: McCain: $18.5m Obama: $32m Cash on hand as of April 30: McCain: $21.8m Obama: $46.6m

...Small-dollar donations to Obama have surged this year, and those donors became crucial in the spring as the battle to secure the Democratic nomination intensified. ...Employees of investment bank Goldman Sachs, for example, have contributed more than $570,000 to his campaign. Another problem with asserting that small donors are an antidote to undue influence by wealthy contributors is that even small donors are almost certainly much richer than the average American. ..the Campaign Finance Institute found that more than half of donors earned between $75,000 and $250,000 a year. The median U.S. income that year was $46,000. ...big-ticket fundraising among...

Mr. Obama is the first presidential candidate to rebuff the public system’s restrictions for the general election since they were enacted after the Watergate scandal. In doing so, he pronounced the public system “broken” and turned away from his earlier strong suggestion — greatly applauded at the time — that he would pursue an agreement with the Republican candidate to preserve the publicly subsidized restraints this fall. That, of course, was before Mr. Obama discovered his prodigious talent to stir private donors on the Internet and ended up raising hundreds of millions of dollars in small-bore contributions. The feat is...

Although Barry said he would accept the money provided by the federal public financing system for his 2008 election if rival John McCain did, turns out yeah not so much. There have been reports indicated that McCain has taken the preliminary measures to accepting the funds, but no clear response from Camp Obama as to why the Senator has gone back on his word (aside from the fact that that is a regular practice and we should all be used to it / accept it). Camp Obama has been praised from every aspect of the media regarding his phenomenal fundraising...

The Illinois Senator makes the announcement Thursday morning in a video sent out to his supporters.

Republican National Committee: Obama's Hypocrisy - Why Has Obama Continued to Accept Money From Rezko's Fundraising Network?Wed Jun 18, 8:59 AM ET To: POLITICAL EDITORS Contact: Republican National Committee, +1-202-863-8614 WASHINGTON, June 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being issued by the Republican National Committee: Obama's Campaign Has Previously Claimed To Have Donated To Charity All Funds Related To Convicted Felon Tony Rezko: Obama's Campaign Has Previously Reviewed Donations And Claimed To Have Returned All Of Those Funds Connected To Tony Rezko. "'Our campaign directed a thorough review of these contributions and did our best to identify any received as...

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton plan to meet with some of her top contributors next week in an effort to calm donors who remain frustrated with Obama's presidential campaign. The meeting is set for June 26 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, several top Clinton fundraisers said Tuesday. The former first lady will introduce Obama to her financial backers. Jonathan Mantz, Clinton's national finance director, notified donors about the meeting by e-mail Tuesday and urged them to attend and to contribute to Obama, who clinched the Democratic Party's nomination on June 3. Two people closely involved with...

If money is the mother's milk of politics, then Senator John McCain seems intent on going on a hunger strike. Barack Obama has proved to be the most effective fund-raiser in the history of American politics, at a time when McCain seems to be doing all he can to make sure that he cannot raise enough in campaign contributions to stay competitive. If Senator McCain fails in his bid for the presidency, more than any other candidate in recent memory he will well and truly have been hoist on his own petard.

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention faces a possible shortfall of $15 million, complicating logistics for the August event and forcing it to abruptly postpone a media walkthrough of the site scheduled for next week. The Democratic National Committee has asked the cash-strapped panel to raise $40.6 million by tomorrow to finance the event. Last month, the committee said it had just $25 million in cash, and it has failed to meet each of several fund-raising deadlines since signing a contract with the DNC last year.

Republican National Committee WASHINGTON, June 14 -- RNC Press Secretary Alex Conant released the following statement today: "Barack Obama's campaign of hypocrisy and finger pointing continues this morning. While Obama and Democrats launch attacks on Republicans, their silence concerning fundraisers like Jodie Evans and Jim Johnson is deafening. Obama's hypocritical attacks undermine everything his campaign is supposed to be about." Jodie Evans Is The Co-Founder Of The Radical Anti-War Group CODEPINK And Has Committed To Raise At Least $50,000 For Barack Obama: Evans Is A Bundler For Obama's Presidential Campaign And Has Committed To Raising $50,000 To $100,000. (Obama For...

Continuing struggles to raise cash for the Democratic National Convention forced the suspension of a national media event scheduled for Thursday at the Pepsi Center, multiple sources said. The Democratic National Convention Committee announced Friday morning that it had postponed the Spring Media Walkthrough, a meeting designed to give the hundreds of media organizations that will cover the convention important logistical information. Because of the protracted Democratic nominating process, Denver's host committee responsible for raising $40.6 million in cash for the convention has fallen behind its schedule. The host committee and the DNCC have been looking for ways to cut...