campaign finance
Oh man, Karl Rove. Here we all were in 2008 thinking that he’d finally leave the highest ranks of presidential politics and probably go to jail or pick his nose under the railroad tracks all day or something. Instead, here we are with the 2012 presidential election and Rove is running the Republican side yet [...]
A chilling new report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that this member of Congress’s campaign committee and PAC paid out a total of $304,599 in salaries and $48,742 for services during the 2008 and 2010 election cycles to his daughter, daughter’s mother-in-law, brother, grandson, granddaughter [*PAUSES FOR BREATH*] another granddaughter and [...]
The Democratic primary result in Ohio’s 2nd District this week presents us with another fine case study in how the federal campaign finance code, post-Citizens United, is now just a scribbled one-line note reading “just do whatver who cares haw haw.” The winner was William R. Smith, who narrowly defeated a candidate, David Krikorian, who’d [...]
The Massachusetts Senate race between Democrat and Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Scott Brown kind of did the opposite of heat up Monday, with both the candidate and incumbent saying very lovely, faux-humble things about how they hope to compete on the basis of their own ideas (money) rather than the ideas (money) [...]
Republican fringe-moderate candidate Jon Huntsman sent out an e-mail to supporters the other day announcing that he would match any donations received until midnight on January 4, that being the first day of the rest our lives following tonight’s roll in the Iowa hay. While perfectly legal — there’s no limit to the amount of [...]
What do Democrats and Republicans have in common these days, besides a total disinterest in governance and a massive crush on Twitter slapfights? They both love those sweet-tasting Koch bucks printed on paper made of ground orphans. DSCC Chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray called up Koch Industries and left a voicemail asking for the Kochs to renew [...]
“Callista Gingrich, was employed by the House Agriculture Committee until 2007, according to public records. She listed a ‘revolving charge account’ at Tiffany and Company in the liability section of her personal financial disclosure form for two consecutive years and indicated that it was her spouse’s debt. The liability was reported in the range of [...]
According to former U.S. Senate candidate-witch Christine O’Donnell, her troubles over her fundraising reports are due to “inadvertent errors” in the software that was used by her campaign. Computers, you see, are dumb, and Christine O’Donnell is smart. Does this explain how the computer decided to rent out a townhouse for her on the campaign’s [...]
Christine O’Donnell’s lawyer has told the FEC that she will be going through O’Donnell’s campaign spending records to “fix” things. So the FBI really doesn’t even need to investigate her, because all of the money spent on her daily stock of Lean Cuisines will suddenly be moved under some innocuous-sounding part of the records. Everything [...]
When Michele Bachmann lost her bid to join the Republican House leadership last month, an idiot or two decided this meant her increasing crazy-fueled political power had finally hit a wall. (Or a glass ceiling. Or a wall made out of brick and abortion-blood mortar. Etc.) But perhaps the reason she lost isn’t that her [...]
The field for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination is getting very crowded with good candidates! The first step, of course, is to set up a Political Action Committee so that you can funnel money to your future campaign and to other politicians you want to buy, and now our pal Michele Bachmann has just done [...]
RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen dropped a line to members of the party’s budget committee yesterday just to let them know Michael Steele has hidden about $7 million in debt from him lately. This made the RNC’s “war chest” (boobs) look bigger than usual, so this was a job well done by Mike. However, that is [...]
Sarah Palin’s long sartorial nightmare is over, as the Federal Election Commission finally decided that the bazillions of dollars spent on her pacifiers, Italian couture jackets, and Victoria’s Secret lingerie were legal. Palin’s clothes did not constitute “personal use of campaign funds” because the funds in question came from the RNC instead of the McCain/Palin [...]
