"Drag $100 through a trailer park and there's no telling what you'll find."
Posted on 05/13/2008 9:19:15 AM PDT by The_Republican
In the threadbare border towns of South Texas, one of the country’s poorest regions, enterprising locals like Candelaria Espinoza have long been paid to round up votes for candidates on Election Day. There is even a name for these electoral soldiers of fortune: politiqueras.
So when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign arrived in South Texas in February seeking an edge in its uphill battle against Senator Barack Obama, Ms. Espinoza was happy to oblige, for a price. The campaign paid her and seven other members of her family $100 to $200 each to knock on doors, deliver fliers and get voters to the polls for the Democratic primary on March 4, which Mrs. Clinton narrowly won.
“I’ve been a politiquera for 20 years,” Ms. Espinoza said in an interview last week outside her trailer in the town of Pharr. “The money the Clinton people gave me was about the going rate, more or less.”
The Espinozas were among at least 460 Texans, most of them rural Hispanics in South Texas or African-Americans in Houston, who received payments from the Clinton campaign for this kind of work, according to a review of Federal Election Commission records. The records show that Mrs. Clinton did something similar in Ohio, giving $38,300 to a state legislator, Eugene R. Miller, who says he used it to pay more than 200 people to get out the vote in predominantly black neighborhoods in Cleveland.
The payments, known in the political vernacular as “street money,” are a legal but controversial tool that Mrs. Clinton employed at a time when she was desperately seeking a victory after losing 10 consecutive contests to Mr. Obama.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
All the politician do this. No big surprise.
All the politicians do this. No big surprise.
I think it is a much more common practice with the Democrats in the inner-cities.
Correction: the Democrats do this, mostly in poorer sections of the cities, where a hundred bucks can motivate some people into grabbing people and making sure they arrive at the polls (at least once, but preferably multiple times)
Were any of these voters American citizens? Just askin’
"Drag $100 through a trailer park and there's no telling what you'll find."
I’d use the word “liberal”.
I first heard about individuals selling or trading their votes during the 2000 election.
I know of a liberal acquaintance that traded his vote for a Nader vote on the internet. He didn’t even understand why I felt this was immoral, unscrupulous or wrong. He didn’t get it and I couldnt explain it to him.
As a conservative, I wouldn’t sell, trade or give up my vote.
Street money is usually illegal in a federal election. It is an expenditure made indirectly through another person to the person aiding the campaign. It often intermingles state and federal campaign money in the same account. It is not reported legally. It is giving something of value in return for a vote. And it is often done in cash. So much for campaign reform and honest reporting of income and expenditures.
Yep every one. ;)
It's legal so I don't see what the big deal is. If this woman wants to prostitute herself to the highest bidder, that's her decision. It does seem dirty, but if there is a loophole in the law, people like the Clintons are going to drive a truck through it.
You got that right.
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