Just whose Senator is Scott Brown? This paragraph from today’s Globe story on the “moneybomb” that flooded his campaign with millions of dollars in cash in the final days of the campaign caught my eye:
Although Brown’s campaign could not say how much of the fundraising came from outside of Massachusetts, it’s clear his victory was fueled in large part by a national fundraising push.
Why can’t they say? They certainly know to some level of detail, because information about the donor’s name and address is required for campaign donations, and they have had plenty of time to process the money.
So “don’t want to say” rather than “could not say” is probably more accurate, whatever protestations they may make to the contrary (there’s just so much paperwork, we’re swamped, we can’t spell Massachusetts — oops, that was our side). AP reporter Steve LeBlanc gave them a pass.
The most likely reason Brown’s team doesn’t want to say where his money is coming from is because it will show that he is primarily funded by out of state donors, which will feed the Sarah Palin/teabaggers = Scott Brown narrative, which has enough truth in it to make it dangerous for Brown’s re-election. More to support this theme from the Globe:
Other out-of-state groups that supported his campaign were the Virginia-based Americans for Job Security, which spent $460,000 on an ad campaign; the California-based Tea Party Express, which spent $348,000; and the Iowa-based American Future Fund, which spent $618,000.
Eventually, the details about how much of Brown’s money came from out of state will probably come out. In the meantime, his advisors can delay. Smart politics.
johnk says
telling supporters that “we did it together”. It is very obvious that some of these extreme right groups funneled a ton of money into the Brown campaign.
dcsurfer says
They make federal laws that effect the whole country! So, it is only right for the whole country to care about Senate elections. There should be more, not less, national fund raising and national attention on US Congressional races.
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p>On the other hand, state legislatures make laws that effect only their state (and the whole state), and city and town officials effect only their town. The whole point of state and local governments is that they are the best suited to know the values and priorities and assets and run their own lives. Local elections should not be influenced by out of state groups, state reps should not be allowed to accept money from out of state.
stomv says
the US Congress certainly effects people in other nations…
State governments certainly effect people in adjacent states (or more)…
Local governments certainly effect people in adjacent towns (or more)…
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p>I agree with your sentiment, but no jurisdiction is an island.
dcsurfer says
Yeah, as far as “effect”, the butterfly in my backyard effects the everything else in the world. What I should have said is “They make federal laws that legally control and apply to everyone in the country. There is probably a legal term for being under the authority of a jurisdiction but I can’t think of it. So of course the laws and government of one jurisdiction affect other people outside of it, but not everyone is speaking through or under the authority of local governments.
laurel says
NOM (Nat’l Organizations for Marriage) does not divulge their donors, and in fact is part of a very large movement fronted by attorney James Bopp to get camapaing finance reporting requirements deemed unconstitutional. Bopp and associates has multiple federal lawsuits pending. A partial list can be found here. I’d love to see someone push Brown for the data and see who jumps in to rescue him from disclosure.
laurel says
here
christopher says
Aren’t there still enforceable limits on how much a PAC can contribute to a campaign?
paulsimmons says
However, beyond a certain point, focusing on campaign contributions in isolation begs a number of questions, all involving the thirty-year field vacuum in Mass Democratic politics.
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p>The Brown campaign, like the Ed King, John Silber, Bill Weld, Mitt Romney and Deval Patrick campaigns before them merely took advantage of the crickets chirping at the grassroots level, while their opponents focused on top-heavy media-driven campaigns.
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p>The party and ideological differences are moot: it was a simple case of following the O’Neill Rule.
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p>Media, netroots, “framing” (I hate that term, since it almost translates in the real world as infantile pseudo-spin) never work in Statewide races, except as an adjunct to a co-ordinated ground game.
shillelaghlaw says
I’m not convinced Coakley would have won that election even if Brown had less money or if she had more money.
laurel says
has nothing to do with who won. don’t you want to know what interests he’s fronting for but doesn’t want to divulge?
david-whelan says
Did Martha get money from out of state and if so how come she lost? Did Ted Kennedy or John Kerry ever get out of state money? Man, it does seem like you Dems need to get over it. Regroup and fight another day. This time nominate someone that actually tries.
michaelbate says
But in Brown’s case, the massive influx was unprecedented. It seems that every right wing extremist group in the country “invaded” (their words) our state.
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p>The Globe article (which apparently you didn’t read) directly addressed Martha’s fundraising, including how much of it was from out of state.
david-whelan says
I wonder if Democrats are asking the right question. Instead of complaining that lots of out of state money funded Brown, maybe you should be wondering why someone from out of state would even write a check. I wrote Brown a check because he asked and because I wanted him to win. Now why would someone in Iowa write Brown a check?
af says
Probably because they saw him as enabling the Republicans to defeat any health reform bill for one, and pretty much anything else in the Senate by threatening to filibuster. If you are a conservative, or just a Republican, two things would motivate you, first to help anything that might help you defeat the Democratic agenda, and second, to defeat any Democrat who was trying to get elected to the seat that Ted Kennedy held for so many years. Next to actually beating Kennedy, this had the benefit of beating his legacy, health care reform.
david-whelan says
It was a rhetorical question.
mollypat says
I would agree that it’s not a major reason why he won. It’s all about looking at his voting record and his re-election campaign in 2012. We’re looking forward here, not griping about this past.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Of course he raised money. Where the hell do you think it came from?
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p>For every right wing nut given to Brown a thousand socialist left wing nut have given to one of BMGs favorite liberal pols.
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p>Please stop allowing Scott Brown’e election to destroy any credibilty you people have with me and the rest of us normals in the outside world.
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p>You have no idea what petty, sore-losing, cry baies you have been coming across as since the election.
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p>By doing so you hurt your credibility which hurts your popularity which means less people read my stuff.
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p>Rememeber, the world revolves around me and it appears you guys are not doing your part.
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p>Please Stop It Now!
bob-neer says
Will be a very, very strange day in Massachusetts. As to being cry babies, Scott Brown’s victory was the BMG equivalent of a shin injury in the women’s downhill. We’re playing through pain for the gold. Try to keep up.
topper says
The better analogy would be that Brown’s victory was the BMG equivalent of the guy on the luge track. Deal with it.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
even the women don’t cry about the shin and play through the pain stoically. And they’re gurls.
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p>So let me re-phrase. Stop crying about the shin injury as you play through it. It just makes you look like wussies.
smadin says
Or comment threads? Specifically – please provide links. Where is the “crying” you’re talking about? I’ve seen a lot of posts on the theme of “OK, so, what exactly happened? Why did we lose, and how can we win next time?” Does that count as being a “cry baby” in EB3-World?
paulsimmons says
…because she ran a campaign where the institutional campaign culture and the candidate’s character reinforced each other and repelled most traditional Democratic (and Democratic-leaning) base voters.
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p>Brown simply picked up the pieces. In particular, Brown picked up a majority of union voters (and their families) angered by the cultural and class bigotry collectively radiating from the candidate, the campaign, and the Democratic State Committee.
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p>Forget problems with Kansas: Republicans can sidestep economic issues with middle and working-class voters because progressives radiate condescension. Simply put, many grassroots labor liberals despise progressive campaigns; and many vote Republican for rational reasons (“enemy of my enemy”).
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p>That’s what happened this time. It was predictable, observable, and fairly amusing.
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p>The Republicans ran an adequate campaign, but nothing any competent Democratic operation should have feared.
smadin says
I agree pretty much completely with that assessment, but that wasn’t what I was actually asking: I want to know where EB3 sees the “crying” he’s talking about.
edgarthearmenian says
af says
has prompted me to change my voting pattern several times, but never has it made me do a 180 flip. Enemy of my enemy insured that I would vote for Coakley, in spite of her flaws because Brown was my enemy due to his positions and claims. Choosing to vote for someone who is your political polar opposite, for questionable reasons, is not the result of rational thinking, it’s the result of a knee jerk, emotional response.
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p>As for condescension, conservatives may see it in their political opponents, but it doesn’t mean that it’s there. It does make for a steady complaint, though. Class bigotry, again the same thing. From my perspective, using the plain brown Republican coat against Democrats is no different, except that it’s delivered from the other side.
david-whelan says
Bob, you guys win all the time. Stop acting like a spoiled child. Pathetic!!!
bob-neer says
The funniest comments by far on this thread are those from the Fox News set weeping about all the whining. A running comedy.
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p>I guess we’d better ask Howie Carr to call the whaambulance again to whisk everyone off for a nice tea party with Earl Grey and little sandwiches at his Wellesley estate.
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p>The Massachusetts teabaggers remind me of young children on Christmas morning who are told by a mean older cousin that Santa Claus — in this case, their vision of Senator Brown — isn’t real.
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p>I guess my post cut to the bone.
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p>Sorry for the discomfort.
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p>Anyway, as I said, when the extent of outside support for Brown becomes clearer as the filing are made, the narrative that he is a Sarah Palin teabagger who is not what he seems will gain strength. In the meantime, dodging the question is good politics by Team Brown, who are devilishly skillful.
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p>I agree Coakley ran a piss-poor campaign. Heck, is there anyone on earth who wouldn’t have loved to go to that Bruins game in Fenway Park. How freaking awesome would that have been? I rest my case. And, Ernie, I’ll take the criticism from you because I know that you can see through freshly-pressed Brown as accurately as anyone.
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p>Here is a Friday night beer on me to anyone sorry enough to have read this far through the comments on this post.
paulsimmons says
…and to the institutional structure of the State Party.
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p>Based on the political demographics of Massachusetts, I felt – and still feel – that the primary should have been a no-heavy-lifting dynamic for a competent Capuano operation, bringing together the Steve Lynch lunchpail Democrats and the Barney Frank progressives; and thus finally resolving the forty-year pissing contest between the two factions.
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p>Alas, relative to resources, Capuano ran the second-worst statewide Democratic campaign (after Roosevelt/Massie ’94) I’ve ever seen in Massachusetts.
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p>I did not, and do not, have any respect for Coakley; however blaming her for January’s debacle is mistaking the symptom for the disease.
kbusch says
What was wrong with Capuano campaign?
paulsimmons says
Using Boston as an example there was no organic field whatsoever; in particular no voter identification nor get-out-the vote apparatus. While there was a presence, it was limited to the field offices with nothing tangible in the precincts.
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p>As a result, the player dynamic was one of amused disinterest with a background of crickets chirping at the grassroots.
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p>As in the case of Coakley, I’m more inclined to blame the consultants, rather than the candidate. Nevertheless the Gertrude Stein Rule applied: There was no there, there.
paulsimmons says
Clone Kate.
kbusch says
Would you say that the problem, then, was lack of time (the special election was compressed), lack of state-wide Democratic infrastructure (as you imply elsewhere), or an error of emphasis on the part of the candidate?
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p>Lack of organic field can have a number of causes.
paulsimmons says
In an even more compressed cycle, with a horrible act of terrorism on background, turnout was higher in the 2001 Special for Moakley’s seat.
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p>The structural problem to which I referred involves the care and feeding of consultants over person-to-person contacts on the ground; strategically it involves prioritizing media over field.
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p>In contested races this works to the advantage of Republicans because Democratic media consultants are not all that good as a class, and Democratic pollsters are subject to false consensus effect, which adversely affects their models.
christopher says
…I was quite impressed by all the “Open Mike” events that were held throughout the state. It felt to me like no candidate made more of an effort that that to reach as many voters right where they lived.
paulsimmons says
There was no comprehensive notification on Capuano’s part to broaden the contact universe beyond activists and pre-existing supporters. Most people knew nothing about them, and to this day, never heard about them. The Open Mikes were what we call self-licking ice cream cones: great for candidate morale and consultant ego, but of no tactical or strategic benefit whatsoever. Indeed, at the Boston operative level (which tends to pragmatic agnosticism) it reinforced structural neutrality during both the primary and general elections.
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p>This was reflected in the urban precinct-by-precinct turnout numbers statewide. The under-utilization of progressive supporters (like Barney Frank) in the suburbs and Western Mass aside, the lack of any urban GOTV croaked Capuano in his demographic base.
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p>Capuano’s campaign had the same institutional and structural flaws as Coakley’s.
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p>The difference is that I give a damn about Capuano.
bob-neer says
Interesting reading!
mizjones says
Don’t you have anything useful to contribute? Like constructive? Something other than NO?
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p>Ho hum…
petr says
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p>But since Massachusetts is socialist left wing nut central, we can be pretty certain that those donations to Martha Coakley came from in state. I don’t think, in general, the practice of out of state donations rises, all that often, past a few percentage points of all receipts for state races: i.e. a small fraction of the total.
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p>As far as the specific case of out of state donations to Scott Brown, I would counter that both the timing and the amounts would suggest some unholy coordination.
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p>
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p>If you have to feel responsible for our credibility, can you at least do without the passive aggresion? Just asking… tnx.
bob-neer says
That was really a rather tender post for EB3, don’t you think? I worry for the man, sometimes.
drwh0 says
Hmm. Brown’s money came from carpetbaggers, teabaggers and moneybaggers.
joets says
rather than the money? Money can’t vote.
paulsimmons says
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p>Perhaps not in an election, but it has been known to…influence public positions and Congressional votes.
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p>The biggest problem, though is when lobbyists become the sole or primary information sources to incumbents. The in-house influence on policy (to which contributions open doors) is, IMHO, more dangerous than campaign contributions in isolation.
stomv says
If Scott Brown relied on a surge of cash from out-of-state, he’s going to be struggling in 2012 to raise the same cash — not only will there be 33+ senate races and 465 house races, but also a POTUS race. He won’t be the only thing going on, and so he won’t get the moneybombs.
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p>The flip side, of course, is that Dems in MA won’t be able to export their campaign financing to other parts of the country as we usually do on POTUS years; instead, we’ll keep more of it in MA funding the Dem senate challenger to Brown.
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p>
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p>So Brown’s got about 18 months to raise serious cash before the 2012 election heats up. After that, he’ll lose ground big time.
christopher says
I’m assuming a typo on your part, but there are 435 House seats, not 465 – just saying:)
stomv says
I’ve gotten in the habit of touch typing numbers and not doing a good job of it.
lodger says
it’s that ring finger thing. made me think of that old joke. “there are thee kinds of people in the world, those who can count and those who can’t”.
sabutai says
david-whelan says
A head start!
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p>
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p>http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
fever says
Brown is a superstar and will raise cash with ease. He’s already being discussed as being a top GOP contender for the 2012 election. He’ll have more experience than Obama by that time and if you haven’t noticed, even the bluest of blue states just elected him. It means he’ll probably carry Massachusetts in 2012 and pick up several other liberal states in the process. starvethemachine.net
stomv says
he’s currently a one hit wonder. He’ll need more hits before he becomes a superstar… and he’ll have to do it as a freshman in the minority party, while many other elections are happening at the same time, all the while with a regional target on his back.
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p>
Ah yes, the IOKIYAR argument. He’ll have nine months more experience as a US Senator. The Right Wing lambasted Obama for being too green, but those nine months (almost certainly entirely in the minority party) are all the difference. Uh huh.
christopher says
Obama – elected to Senate in 2004, elected POTUS in 2008 (four years)
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p>Brown – elected to Senate in early 2010, POTUS election in 2012 (just shy of three years)
comment-planet says
The reporting deadline to the Federal Elections Commission is February 18, 2010.
This will all be known shortly.
See:
Special Election Report Notice – Federal Elections Commission (Massachusetts Senatorial Committees, November 2, 2009)
historian says
Scott Brown website still under construction.