Free Republic

For Jeb Bush's loyalists, the first moment of palpable panic - and there would be more than they ever expected in the months to come - built over four days last May when their not-yet-presidential candidate struggled repeatedly to utter a one-word answer - No - to an utterly predictable question: Should the U.S. have invaded Iraq? -snip- From the start, the campaign hired extensively and paid handsomely. That money, though, couldn't come from Right to Rise, which had pulled off a record $103 million haul in six months. The campaign needed to raise the cash itself. It couldn't keep...

As a U.S. senator, John Edwards, a staunch defender of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, decried "a system in which huge amounts of money continue to flow unregulated into the campaign process and ordinary people feel their vote makes no difference anymore." Last week, a federal grand jury indicted the North Carolina Democrat for allegedly violating federal election law by funneling nearly $1 million in campaign contributions - in violation of the $2,300 federal campaign contribution limit per election - to conceal an extramarital affair while he ran for president in 2008. Edwards denies any guilt. "I did not...

The scene is the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut . The year 2000. The congressman has $100 chips stacked high, having a grand time at the crap table. He likes to gamble and isn't afraid to show some temper when he loses. Along for the ride are his campaign manager and one of the two biggest lobbyist handing out campaign money from various Indian tribes who was also a 20 year friend of the legislator. By now we've all heard about the money J.D. Hayworth received from an Indian tribe by way of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was one...

The Presidential election process is spinning further out of control with each passing election cycle. The present “2008” electoral process, as we all know too well, actually commenced last year (in 2006) as candidates began to organize and announce their campaigns in order to start raising money and to get a jump on the perceived competition. A temporary factor clearly driving the unprecedented length of the 2008 campaign is quite simply: hatred of George W. Bush. Democrats and the leftist groups that make up their "base" passionately detest him, the mainstream news media loathe him, and his own Republican Party...

The party of systemic political corruption was elected on the promise to end political corruption? The Democrat Party is the official juggernaut of political soft money, those funds coming from often unknown institutional investors in American politics, with all sorts of allegedly illegal special interest strings attached. So what are the chances that the party funded primarily by soft money will be the party to eliminate soft money in American politics? Soft money now comes in several forms. Here?s the official Top Ten list of U.S. institutional political investors between 1990 and 2006, how much they invested, and with whom...

US Muslims Gear up for Nov. Elections DALLAS — American Muslims have set up voter registration booths in mosques across the United States to encourage fellow Muslim voters to sign up for the November mid-term elections. "We have set up booths in 150 mosques across the country in the past two weeks," Mukit Hossain, a political consultant to the Muslim American Society which is championing the drive, told Reuters Saturday, September 30. American Muslims have also established a website to enable Muslim voters to register online. Hossain said about 10,000 were estimated to have been registered to date, expecting "tens...

This is the time of year when we hear a lot about election reform. You know the mantra: special interests, too much money in politics, negative ads, public financing, etc. The problem with election reform is the same one inherent in most tax reform; namely, every time either system gets reformed, it gets worse. Each “simplification” of the tax code creates a few hundred more indecipherable pages of regulations, and each move to “clean up” politics makes our system more unwieldy and unresponsive. The whole move to limit campaign contributions has had at least three unintended consequences (unintended, but predictable)....

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Vermont's limits on contributions and spending in political campaigns are too low and improperly hinder the ability of candidates to raise money and speak to voters. In a fractured set of opinions, justices said they were not sweeping aside 30 years of election finance precedent but rather finding only that Vermont's law — the strictest in the nation — sets limits that unconstitutionally hamstring candidates. The majority took issue with Vermont legislators for "constraining speech" by telling candidates and voters how much campaigning was enough. President Bush's two appointees to the court — Chief...

Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday on a Vermont law that would curb the flow of campaign money.The role of money in elections is one of the most volatile fault lines in American politics. Liberals generally favor limits on how much gets raised for campaigns. Many conservatives want few if any restrictions. Tuesday, the US Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about a Vermont law that goes a step further than limits on campaign contributions. It also restricts how much candidates can spend. It's that limit on spending that makes the case, Randall v. Sorrell, so closely watched. The high...

For the record, Jack Abramoff, and any one else who has committed such crimes should go to jail. But in the wake of the Abramoff lobbying scandal, various members of the US House and Senate are jockeying to be the first to introduce (and have their names attached to) legislation regarding lobbying reform. Those that can’t be first will no doubt try to top the others with more stringent versions of the legislation. In other words we’re about to be treated to another version of that favorite Beltway game, the reform follies. This is a game where the participating politicians...

What issue could possibly draw conservative Republicans and the Congressional Black Caucus into a legislative alliance? This morning, the Washington Times reports that the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's provisions on campaign limits hit sour notes with both groups, as traditional African-American outreach efforts got starved in favor of the massive influence of George Soros' 527 strategies in 2004: Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are teaming up with conservative Republicans to push for the first major changes in the 2002 campaign-finance reform bill, most admitting that they made a mistake in voting for the bill three years ago....

CAMPAIGN-FINANCE reform has been an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a "mass movement." But don't take my word for it. One of the chief scammers, Sean Treglia, a former program officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts, confesses it all in an astonishing videotape I obtained earlier this week. This is an amazing story. I combined part of Ryan Sager's editorial and the transcript of the tape. The tape — of a conference held at USC's Annenberg School for Communication in March of 2004 — shows Treglia expounding to a...

In this issue of "Perspective, the Star-Ledger Editorial Section, there was a feature called "Campaigns, Codey, and Corzine" The newspaper threw out the following question: "The so-called Swift Boat ads raise an issue that applies to both parties. The president(sic), whose candidacy the Swift Boat faction (sic)is supportin, says he doesn't think their ads are appropriate. Butdoes the structure of our election laws provide an invitation for a cabdidate to take the high road and let a theoretically unaffiliated group be his attack dog? KEAN: Yes. The law is not sufficient. These ads by these unaffilaited groups raising money to...

How does the Campaign Reform Law crafted by McCain/Feingold threaten jail or massive fines for this simple grandmother writing a book to her precious granddaughter? Will Grandmother really dare to continue her lambasting and "smears" of Democratic candidate John Kerry, even beyond the 60 day limit for negative ads? Read a grandmother's warning to her granddaughter that she should run, not walk, away from any politician offering to help reform political speak. When in the end, as you shall read, clamping down on any political talk only benefits incumbents. Click Here

My GOODNESS! Venting first on Kerry. WTH is going on these days? Let's see, a billion flip flops served on just this one topic. Vets coming out of the woodworks like some bad Platoon or Full Metal Jacket remake. Lawyers in the wings waiting to snatch up and destroy the veterans that John Kerry wanted to relate too. The madness is a bit frightening? It's just baffling me how anyone can see the flailing, kicking and back stabbing Kerry is trying to dish out and still want to support him? It's as if stupidity is the norm on the left...

Choose or Lose: 20 Million Questions for John Kerry Special MTV - Music Television Airing Time: Tue 3/30, 10:30PM (30 minutes) Categories: News, Special, News/Public Affairs, Special/Other Future airings of Choose or Lose: John Kerry Special: • Wed 3/31 11:00 AM MTV - Music Television Wed 3/31 8:30 PM  MTV - Music Television (Satellite) Fri 4/2 12:30 AM  MTV - Music Television (Satellite) And airing other times. Kerry gets 30 minutes to tell his lies to the youth of America. I wonder if they will also give President Bush his own "Choose or Lose" Special?

In its be all things to everyone philosphy, Amazon.com has a link to make campaign donations to all the announced candidates for president. G. W. Bush is in the lead with about 17k. Kerry is a 2.5k. If you want someone elected, you have to give them some $ to run a campaign.

<p>Previous "reforms" taught us there's nothing certain about campaign-finance rules: New law produces unpredictable and unintended consequences. But these "reforms" will almost certainly give us campaigns that are less competitive, less controlled by candidates and their parties and involve fewer voters than the typical recent campaign.</p>

<p>Washington, May 2 (Bloomberg) --- A three-judge federal panel struck down part of a new U.S. campaign finance law.</p> <p>The judges invalidated part of a ban on unlimited ``soft money'' donations to political parties from companies, labor unions and wealthy individuals. The court also struck down a ban on direct contributions by children.</p>

The 1st half an hour of John McCain's SNL episode will be re-broadcast in the national capital area on October 26th, starting at 11:30pm. Here's the url: http://www.nbc4.com/nbc4/1733496/detail.html