Tag: Fundraiser

One Billion And Counting

I read today that the Harris campaign has raised $1 billion for the campaign….and the word is that it may not be enough….think about that for a moment.

In less than three months as a presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris has raised more than $1 billion—a historic pace. That’s more than her opponent, Donald Trump, has raised all year, per the New York Times. The Harris figure comes not from required campaign filings, the next of which is due later this month, but from multiple people who know of her operation. Despite the unheard-of fundraising rate, aides are concerned the Democratic campaign might not have money to win, the Washington Post reports. They’d also prefer the $1 billion figure not receive much attention. Their fundraising reasoning includes:

  • The short campaign: Entering the race long after Trump has meant Harris has to make her pitch to voters in much less time and has to rely on more sweeping, expensive efforts to reach them.
  • Battleground states: In all seven swing states, polls show no lead that isn’t within the margin of error. The Harris campaign figures it will have to spend big in all of them. “There have never been so many electoral college votes in play so late in the cycle, which means that our strong fundraising and volunteer enthusiasm are not guaranteed to be enough to fully reach voters everywhere they are,” one Harris person emailed the Post.
  • Perceptions: “Talking about this type of big money doesn’t convey the sense of urgency to do every single thing in all of the big and small ways,” another person involved said Wednesday.
  • The opposition: Trump pulled in $309 million through the end of August, and Harris reported spending about three times what the Republican nominee did in August. But super PACs, including Elon Musk’s, are helping narrow the spending gap to turn out GOP voters, per NBC News.

Does anyone see a problem with a campaign that has $1 billion and could still not be enough?

All these elections are getting out of hand….every year it takes more and more to fund a run for office.

That figure should have people starting to consider some sort of campaign funding reform.

Just a thought!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine–Musical Interlude

One of the most moving songs of my generation was John Lennon’s “Imagine”……I support of the fundraising efforts John’s song sings his father’s icon song……

Julian Lennon gave a public performance of his father’s iconic hit “Imagine” for the first time ever. Accompanied by guitarist Nuno Bettencourt and a host of candles, the 59-year-old son of John Lennon and first wife Cynthia “presented the cover version of his father’s ode to peace” during the Stand Up for Ukraine fundraiser, per the New York Post. Although he once said he would never sing the song unless it was the “end of the world,” Lennon wrote in notes accompanying the performance that “the War on Ukraine is an unimaginable tragedy. As a human, and as an artist, I felt compelled to respond in the most significant way I could.”

It was a “stunning” performance, according to NBC’s Today, which adds that Lennon wrote that as a “result of the ongoing murderous violence” and the plight of refugees, he is “calling on world leaders and everyone who believes in the sentiment of IMAGINE to stand up for refugees everywhere!” The performance, available on YouTube, was part of a wider social media rally by Global Citizen to provide “accommodation and economic security” for displaced Ukrainians. The organization says the campaign has netted over $10 billion in pledges and loans.

Listening to his version of this iconic song…..

We should all do what we can…..

Turn The Page!

“lego ergo scribo”

Another Brick In The Wall

Can you hear Pink Floyd?  Close your eyes…it’s there.

Well that is not what this is about……it is all about that wall that has been wanted by Trump…..first promise was that Mexico would build it, then it was a threat to shut down government if he, Trump, did not get the money for his wall, then a memo to cabinet members telling them to look for unused funds for the wall……none of these waffles have given him, Trump, what he wants…..”that big beautiful border wall”……

Now we have the next “brick ” in Trump’s wall song…….

President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to shut down the government over funding for his border wall. But as the question of money for his campaign proposal once again roils Congress, one man thinks he may have found a solution: Crowd-funding.

Brian Kolfage, a 37-year-old Florida resident who was severely wounded in the Iraq war, has started a GoFundMe campaign to complete Trump’s signature pledge. The campaign has raised over $2 million in the three days since it started, with an overall goal of $1 billion.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/19/trump-border-wall-gofundme-campaign-1070788

Who will fund the wall this time?

Will the raised funds actually go for a wall or will they fall into the abyss of of other Trump charities and Foundation stuff?

Mexico?  Russia even?  Or just gullible ignorant Americans that fell for the BS the first time?

And So It Begins Again

Just six weeks after reluctantly surrendering to Barack Obama in the brutal 2008 Democratic primary race, Sen. Hillary Clinton has begun raising money for what she says is her 2012 New York Senate reelection campaign.

Clinton still faces about $20 million in debts from her unsuccessful presidential effort this year. As part of a so-called “unity drive,” Obama has appealed to his supporters in recent weeks to give to Clinton to cover the costs that she incurred while raking him over the coals in a bare-knuckled bid to return to the White House. Some Obama backers have balked.

Ain’t politics great?  You can owe everyone in town a buck or two and still try to raise money for an election 4 years away.  This should start the salivating of Clintonistas.

Trade Unionists Picket McCain Fundraiser

This is a piece that I received in my inbox and wanted to pass it along to my readers.

WASHINGTON (PAI)--Chanting, singing, handing out flyers and waving signs
comparing GOP presidential nominee-designate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to
anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush, some 50 unionists demonstrated at the
site of an April 8 McCain fundraiser in downtown Washington. It looked like a
picket line.
But their expected nose-to-nose face-off against the Arizonan before he entered
the $1,000-a-plate bash in the historic Willard Hotel didn’t occur. The Senate
worked late, listening to top officials discuss Bush’s Iraq War, and by the time
the senator showed, the demonstrators had had to leave.
The demonstration, led by Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO President Jocelyn
Williams, is part of the federation’s nationwide campaign to define McCain
before he positively defines himself. The fed’s campaign concentrates on
exposing McCain’s record on workers’ issues, from his votes for job-destroying
“free trade” treaties, to support of the war, to opposition to raising the minimum
 wage to standing against workers’ rights.
That campaign includes protests at other McCain rallies and invitations, which
McCain has ignored so far, to talk about the economy--his weak point--with
workers.
And the marchers certainly were colorful about letting everyone know their
views.
For example, in a variation on the old union song “Everywhere We Go, People Want
To Know” about unions, the marchers sang: ”Everywhere we go, people want to
know, why he’s running, why he’s running. So we’ll tell them: Billionaire tax
cuts, union-busting, 100 years of war. We can’t take it any more.”
And turning their fire on the lobbyists arriving at the Willard’s entrance--who
walked through the demonstration to enter the hotel--the marchers chanted “Hey,
McCain, what’s to hide? Corporate lobbyists are inside.”
A third chant summed up their view of the senator: “McSame as Bush.”
 “We are here today to say that you can run but you can’t hide from working men
and women. Wherever you (McCain) go, we’ll be there to tell the American people what you stand for: Against overtime pay,
for mortgage foreclosures, against health care for all and for the Colombia Free
Trade Agreement, which is designed to take American people off of good jobs,”
Williams said in a short talk at the end of the protest.
“We will tell McBush, trading as John McCain, that we will not have more of the
same. We’ll save America from George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain. They’re
all of the same stripe,” he concluded.