OK, for those of us that are permanent members of DENSA (and naive to boot), what is really meant by the term "walk around money"?
I have heard stories of (mostly black) churches getting new roofs in exchange for backing a certain candidate. In one northern city, I believe that a mayor was indicted for pouring city concrete to rebuild private citizens' driveways, sidewalks etc.
To put such an announcement in the media, is this little more than a broadcast appeal to Philly "ho's" to collect some money from their Dem pimpmasters, and to let them know that the money is deep and wide this year?
How can the FEC allow such blatant disregard of the law? At the least, fine Hardball and their network and sue the man that made the offer.
Of course, this sort of thing would only happen in Philly, never in Texas! ;)
What law? There is no law forbidding the payment of election workers for GOTV.
Nor is it illegal to make charitable contributions to Churches, even as a quid pro quo for encouraging the congregation to vote, or encouragement to sit on ones hands. Both Republicans and Democrats do it here. How do you think Whitman won election in Jersey?
"OK, for those of us that are permanent members of DENSA (and naive to boot), what is really meant by the term "walk around money"?"
Its polite talk for a bribe. A campaign, or friends of a campaign give block captains a wad of cash, which is hard to trace. They use the cash in any illegal fashion you can image to get people to vote. The recent vote for crack is a good example.
The Dems use "walking around money" in Texas too, at least in S. Texas towns like San Antonio where I used to work in Rep. campaigns.
Generally, it is money paid to a local party chieftain who then distributes it as he or she sees fit. It is supposed to go to campaign workers, but a lot of it goes into the hack's pockets.
One of the reasons that the blacks were rumbling about the Kerry campaign having frozen them out was that the traditional black leaders weren't getting their walking around money as usual from the Kerry campaign, at least early in the campaign when they were using 527s like moveon.org for organizing.