Democrats Finding Themselves Hung On Their Own Petard As The Campaign Financing System THEY Corrupted Starts To Work Against Them

Obama Democrats and the liberal mainstream media propaganda complex are eating their words on the Obama campaign’s boasted $1 billion fundraising campaign:

Other experts agreed that, compared to Obama’s $750 million campaign budget in 2008, $1 billion isn’t that much of a stretch.

“It’s a stunning amount of money,” said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. “But what we’ve seen over the past couple of election cycles is that the trajectory only goes upwards.”

Obama set the bar for expensive campaigns in 2008 when he became the first major presidential candidate to refuse general election public financing. This removed the cap on how much money he could raise.

[…]

With fundraising strategies that have yet to be matched, Canary and others said, Obama could be using the $1 billion figure to psych out the competition.

“It’s a coded statement to all potential challengers that says, ‘My team knows how to fundraise,’” Canary said. “It says, ‘Don’t get into this race unless you want to take on $1 billion.’”

The reliably leftist Daily Beast simply states matter-of-factly:

The first post Citizens United presidential election is already shaping up to be one of the most lucrative in history—at least in certain quarters. President Obama is expected to raise more than $1 billion, a record that would eclipse the one he set in 2008 when he collected $750 million.

It turns out Republicans have a “code” of their own – in the form of the middle finger salute.  It turns out that a growing number of Republicans are saying, “I don’t care how much it will cost; let’s get this stinking sack of Marxist feces out of the White House while there’s still some America left that Obama hasn’t ‘fundamentally transformed.'”

Obama has been the biggest political whore in the entire history of the human race up to this point:

Obama first U.S. politician ever to raise over $1 billion in campaign funds
By ANI | ANI – Wed 23 May, 2012.

Washington, May 23 (ANI): President Barack Obama has been found to be the first U.S. politician ever to raise over a billion dollars in the course of his career.

According to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, his lifetime total hit has been found to be 1,017,892,305 dollars in April, nine years after he began his 2004 race for Senate.

[….]

To help fund his re-election bid, Obama has turned to a series of big-names to join him at fundraising events, the latest being Bill Clinton.

Obama is the money-grubbing–cynical-political-pig-in-chief who has attended more fundraisers than the past five presidents – COMBINED:

Obama has held more re-election fundraisers than previous five Presidents combined as he visits key swing states on ‘permanent campaign’
By Toby Harnden
PUBLISHED: 07:41 EST, 29 April 2012 | UPDATED: 14:16 EST, 29 April 2012

Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.

Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.

The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.

Doherty, who has compiled statistics about presidential travel and fundraising going back to President Jimmy Carter in 1977, found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March 6th this year, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.

Since then, Obama has held another 20 fundraisers, bringing his total to 124. Carter held four re-election fundraisers in the 1980 campaign, Reagan zero in 1984, Bush Snr 19 in 1992, Clinton 14 in 1996 and Bush Jnr 57 in 2004.

Let’s also point out that this nuclear war over fundraising was started by none other than the cynical money-grubbing whore Barack Obama (again, from the reliably leftist Daily Beast):

In 2008, Obama’s record haul was made possible by the fact that he broke a campaign pledge and opted out of the public financing system. He was the first candidate ever to take that step, and he justified it with the prospect of hostile outside spending.

Let me put that another way: as the Daily Beast acknowledges, Barack Obama broke his word, which is to say he lied to the American people.  John McCain accepted the public financing system which had always been used previously.  Barack Obama saw his chance to rake in more money and said to hell with that public financing system and its limits, and exploded it for all time.  And the worst demagogue who has ever stunk of the Oval Office used as his deceitful ruse the threat that HE HIMSELF WAS ACTUALLY PERPETRATING: to raise giant sums of money from outside the public financing system.

And understand: the Citizens United case – which Obama demonized and undermined the Supreme Court for deciding – hadn’t happened yet.  And the only reason we probably ever GOT the Citizens United decision that Obama demonized the Supreme Court over is because Barack Obama broke his word and massively corrupted the political fundraising system to form the backdrop to which Citizens United came down.

You don’t like the Citizens United decision that opened up the fundraising floodgates even wider than Obama flung them open, Democrats?  You have yourselves to blame for it and for a whole hell of a lot of other things by electing an evil malignant narcissist as your president.  Because don’t you dare think that the Supreme Court didn’t look at the billion dollar whore who had ripped up all previously mutually agreed upon fundraising rules and standards and concluded that they might as well finish what Obama started.

And then there’s the fact that according to the Democrats’ “logic,” corporations – which are groups of people organizing to build a business – shouldn’t be counted as a “person,” but UNIONS – which are groups of people organizing to tear apart those same businesses – SHOULD BE counted as a “person.”  So unions raising hundreds of millions of dollars is good but corporations backed by elected boards and shareholders raising money is BAD.

Not that Democrats hadn’t already violated the fundraising rules in all sorts of sordid ways without Obama.  You know about that silly little limit of $2,500?  We know for a fact that Rachel ‘Bunny’ Mellon gave upwards of a million dollars to John Edwards campaign in an under-the-table transaction through third parties:

According to two sources close to Mrs. Mellon, her suspicions weren’t even aroused by the unusual method of payment: She was advised to write bank checks for “furniture,” made out to Bryan Huffman’s Monroe, North Carolina-based interior design business. Huffman in turn endorsed them over to Young, who then got the money to Edwards.

That “gift” then met with a request by John Edwards for another $3 million.  And if that wasn’t enough chutzpah, Edwards started asking for sums in the $30-40 million range.

John Edwards is one nasty whore, I believe it is wholly accurate to say.  But he is nowhere NEAR the whore that Obama has proven to be in terms of fundraising.

So it should surprise nobody that Republicans – who have had it past their eyeballs in Obama’s incredibly divisive and incredibly partisan and incredibly evil political games – to determine to finally beat Obama at his own twisted game and raise such a mountain of money that it will bury even “the billion dollar whore” once-for-all:

GOP groups plan record $1 billion blitz
By MIKE ALLEN and JIM VANDEHEI | 5/30/12 4:34 AM EDT

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.

That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections – twice what they had been expected to commit.

Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, proved its potency by spending nearly $50 million in the primaries. Now able to entice big donors with a neck-and-neck general election, the group is likely to meet its new goal of spending $100 million more.

And American Crossroads and the affiliated Crossroads GPS, the groups that Rove and Ed Gillespie helped conceive and raise cash for, are expected to ante up $300 million, giving the two-year-old organization one of the election’s loudest voices.

“The intensity on the right is white-hot,” said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. “We just can’t leave anything in the locker room. And there is a greater willingness to cooperate and share information among outside groups on the center-right.”

In targeted states, the groups’ activities will include TV, radio and digital advertising; voter-turnout work; mail and phone appeals; and absentee- and early-ballot drives.

The $1 billion in outside money is in addition to the traditional party apparatus – the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee – which together intend to raise at least $800 million.

The Republican financial plans are unlike anything seen before in American politics. If the GOP groups hit their targets, they likely could outspend their liberal adversaries by at least two-to-one, according to officials involved in the budgeting for outside groups on the right and left.

By contrast, Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting President Barack Obama’s reelection, has struggled to raise money, and now hopes to spend about $100 million. Obama’s initial reluctance to embrace such groups constrained fundraising on the Democratic side, which is now trying to make up for lost time.

Labor could add another $200 million to $400 million in Democratic backing.

The consequences of the conservative resurgence in fundraising are profound. If it holds, Romney and his allies will likely outraise and outspend Obama this fall, a once-unthinkable proposition. The surge has increased the urgency of the Democrats’ thus-far futile efforts to blunt the effects of a pair of 2010 federal court rulings – including the Supreme Court’s seminal Citizens United decision – that opened the floodgates for limitless spending, and prompted Obama to flip-flop on his resistance to super PACs on the left.

“We’re not making any attempt to match American Crossroads or any of those groups with television ads,” said Michael Podhorzer, political director for the AFL-CIO. Instead, much of labor’s money will be spent on talking directly with union members and other workers.

“Progressives can’t match all the money going into the system right now because of Citizens United, so we have to have a program that empowers the worker movement,” Podhorzer said.

Much of the public focus has been on how these outside groups will tilt the balance of power in fundraising at the presidential level. But POLITICO has learned that Republicans involved with the groups see the combined efforts playing out just as aggressively at the congressional level, in below-the-radar efforts designed to damage Democratic candidates for the House and Senate.

The officials said that if Romney looks weak in the final stretch, the vast majority of the money could be aimed at winning back the Senate. Republicans need four seats to do that, if Obama is re-elected.

Republicans have taken one big lesson away from campaigns conducted to date in 2011 and 2012: outside money can be the difference-maker in elections.

It was outside money from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson that single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich afloat against Romney. A super PAC spending surge fueled by Wyoming mutual fund guru Foster Friess was credited with powering Rick Santorum to an upset win in the Iowa caucuses. And outside money has helped lift tea party challengers past incumbents like Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) in this year’s primaries.

Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney super PAC, spent twice as much on the air as the campaign did in the thick of the primaries: Through March, the campaign had put $16.7 million into TV, while ROF shelled out $33.2 million.

In Florida, the super PAC outspent the campaign, $8.8 million to $6.7 million. (The campaign can get more spots per dollar because of more favorable rates.) In Michigan, it was $2.3 million to $1.5 million. In Ohio, ROF outspent the campaign, $2.3 million to $1.5 million.

Now Republicans are applying this approach – on steroids – to the remainder of the campaign:

—Groups affiliated with Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists who are among the biggest behind-the-scenes players in Republican politics, will spend the most of any outside outfit on either side: roughly $395 million for issue and political advocacy by groups they support – twice the amount they previously had been expected to commit.

“People are energized because the future of our country and economy is at stake,” said an ally familiar with the Koch effort.

The flagship group in the Koch network is Americans for Prosperity, which gets about half its funds from other donors.

— American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (GPS) plan to do about two-thirds of their spending on advocacy related to the presidential race, and the rest relating to House and Senate races. Crossroads (a super PAC) was founded in April 2010, Crossroads GPS (a 501(c)4 non-profit group) started the next month.

—The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a goal of $100 million, according to outsiders familiar with the plans. All of that will be focused on congressional races, with the House as the top priority – what organizers call “the first insurance policy” if Obama were to get reelected.

But the Chamber’s message, which includes attacks on Obama’s health-care plan, can be expected to help Romney in several states with competitive Senate races that are also presidential battlegrounds – Florida, Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada and Wisconsin.

—The YG Action Fund, the super PAC started by aides of the two self-styled “Young Guns” – House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — has a goal of raising about $30 million, including the YG Network.

—American Action Network, chaired by former senator Norm Coleman, raised about $30 million in the 2010 election cycle and is likely to try to at least match that amount in 2012, with most of that going toward congressional races.

—The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC supported by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other House GOP leaders, has reported raising $5 million so far.

—The pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, is likely to raise $50 million to $100 million for the general election. “They saw that the spending worked before, and with the race this competitive, it will be even easier for them to raise money now,” said a source close to the group.

Charlie Spies, co-founder and counsel of Restore Our Future, said: “While there are multiple other groups doing important work to assist Republicans up and down the ticket, ROF is the only group dedicated solely to electing Mitt Romney, and targeting every dollar that we raise towards supporting him. ROF will spend our resources fighting back against the Obama team’s distortions and smears.”

—FreedomWorks, the Dick Armey-led tea party outfit that has backed challengers in GOP congressional primaries, is expected to spend $30 million or more on issue advocacy, campaign ads and organizing — between its super PAC and 501(c)4.

—The Republican Jewish Coalition, a 501(c)4 group that works closely with the Crossroads outfits and the American Action Network, plans to spend more than $6 million on “the largest, most expensive, most sophisticated outreach effort ever undertaken in the Jewish community,” according to a source familiar with its plans.

—Club for Growth plans spending in congressional races but does not reveal totals.

It’s important to step back for a moment to understand the currents racing through the money chase right now. Republicans, back in the era of soft money, dominated fundraising, thanks in large part to big business donors. But when soft money was outlawed in 2002, a lot of business donors got uneasy about feeding their money through outside groups. Many sat out. At the same time, liberals got into the business of using tax-exempt and other groups to build their own web of think tanks, media monitors, vote-trackers and advocacy groups to influence politics. Rich liberals such as George Soros and union leaders funded much of it.

By the time 2008 rolled around, Obama and the Democrats were rolling over Republicans in the race for campaign cash raised in limited chunks, and Obama largely discouraged big-money outside efforts. Things have changed rapidly – and, in some respects, radically — since then.

First, Citizens United made it easy and less risky for rich donors to get back in the game. Second, a subsequent lower court case paved the way for the creation of super PACs, giving mega-donors arguably the most effective vehicle for funding ads in the modern campaign finance era. Third and perhaps most important, Obama scared many free-market millionaires into action with what they perceive as his outright hostility to capitalism.

So that’s the backdrop and that’s the outcome.  Just remember, it sure wasn’t Republicans who broke their word on the public financing system that had always worked before.  It wasn’t Republicans who then destroyed that public financing system and threw the political fundraising process into the sewer (probably for all time).  It wasn’t a Republican who became the first one billion dollar political whore.  It sure wasn’t a Republican who schmoozed huge sums of cash in secret through third parties from an elderly but apparently horny heiress.

Now Democrats are in a hell-hole of their own making: the fools who pissed on the public matching funds system are now forced to either match Republicans who are holy in their rage against an evil man, or to reach deeply into their pockets and somehow find a billion dollars to purchase the gold-plated turd a.k.a. Barack Obama.

And apparently it’s hard for Democrats to find their wallets given the fact that they have to hold their noses with one hand around their “messiah.”

Tags: billion dollars, campaign fundraising, Citizens United, public financing system, Republicans outraising Democrats