Tag Archives: dirty tricks

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Environment, Health Care, San Francisco

October 29, 2007 Blog Roundup and Open Thread

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Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Let me know what I missed in comments, or just use this as an open thread.

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Still Burning

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Class And a Candidate Forum

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Immigration

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California

Dirty Tricks Initiative – Giuliani Campaign In Trouble?

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A top official of the effort to steal up to 20 electoral votes in California sent out an email to supporters of the Rudy Giuliani campaign asking them to sign petitions to get the measure on the ballot.  This could be a violation of federal election law, which prohibits coordination between Presidential campaigns and separate ballot issues.  Top of the Ticket has the latest.

The missive, obtained by The Times’ Dan Morain, is addressed, “Hello Fellow Rudy Supporter!” Its author, Tony Andrade, is a Republican activist who helped draft the electoral college initiative. Previously, he was among those who helped place the ultimately successful recall of Gov. Gray Davis on the ballot in 2003 […]

Chris Lehane, a Democratic activist who is organizing the campaign to block the measure, said of the Andrade e-mail: “It sounds like something that the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice will be very interested in seeing.”

Maria Comella, spokeswoman for Giuliani’s White House bid, previously has stressed that neither he nor his campaign has had anything to do with pushing the ballot initiative.

It’s unclear how Andrade would have gotten a list of Giuliani supporters in California without some form of coordination.  The initiative’s new backers, most of them connected to Giuliani in one way or another, are running from this as fast as possible.

Veteran GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who is overseeing the attempt to put the initiative before voters, distanced himself from Andrade’s note.

“None of us has anything to do with any [presidential] campaign; we understand the law very, very well,” Rollins said. Pledging to try to “make sure that [the e-mail] gets stomped,” Rollins added, “We need to be very sensitive to the fact that people have speculated that this is part of the Giuliani campaign.”

The email included a link to the petition and asks signers to get 10 other people to sign it as well.  A campaign confident in their ability to get the necessary signatures wouldn’t rely on an email ask, and they certainly wouldn’t come this close to violating election law.

This is not the first time that a link has been uncovered between the Giuliani campaign and the dirty tricks initiative.  In fact, almost every connection we’ve seen has gone in this fashion.  You’ll remember that the first incarnation of the measure was derailed when a murky donation from a shell group in Missouri was eventually traced to Paul Singer, Giuliani’s northeast finance director.

These are serious charges, and the Federal Election Commission needs to address them immediately.  Steve Benen has more.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Environment, Health Care, San Francisco

October 25, 2007 Blog Roundup and Open Thread

Today’s not-the-fires Blog Roundup is on the flip. I thought about doing the fun categorization thing, but (a) there aren’t all that many posts, and (b) I’ve gone through right around 1,000 posts just for blog roundup in the last 2 days, not counting any reading I’ve done on my own account. My eyes are a little glazed over. So, it’s just a link dump.

Let me know what I missed in comments, or just use this as an open thread.

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P.S. No new blog roundups until at least Sunday evening, maybe Monday.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, Environment, Health Care, San Diego, San Francisco

October 23, 2007 Blog Roundup and Open Thread

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Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Let me know what I missed in comments, or just use this as an open thread.

To subscribe by email, click
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Republicans Renew Dirty
Tricks Campaign While Socal Burns

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Dirty Tricks Gets Another Hand out of the Coffin

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From the AP:

An influential California Republican said Thursday he is attempting to raise millions of dollars to change the way the state awards its electoral votes — a bid to revive a campaign that stalled just days ago.

“I am making phone calls because I think this is a critically important issue in the presidential sweepstakes,” said Lew Uhler, president of the Sacramento-based National Tax Limitation Committee. (AP 10/4/07)

No rest for the weary I suppose.

Uncategorized

False Equivalence

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The New York Times decides to wade into the growing Rudy Giuliani scandal regarding his campaign violating election law to fund the Dirty Tricks initiative, but they wanted to be all fair and balanced, so they framed it as some kind of Rudy vs. Hillary battle royale, calling it a “taste of ’08” (apparently the primary season is over.  The NYT said so!).  Which I guess it is; the Democrats will marshal support legally while the Republicans will fight dirty:

Rudy versus Hillary, the West Coast edition – it’s on.

Supporters of Rudolph W. Giuliani and of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton are embroiled in their first major affray of the political season over a ballot initiative on presidential electoral votes some 2,500 miles from the pancake houses of Skaneateles, N.Y., and the fire stations of Queens.

Uh, no they’re not.  Rudy’s people financed a bid to rig the Presidential election, and the ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY fought  back.  Clinton was not even the first to officially denounce it.  That was Dodd, followed by Edwards.  No Democrat in their right mind was backing away from this fight.  By contrast, NO prominent Republican was affiliated with the initiative other than Rudy, and even he was doing it in a shady, back-channel way that is only now being revealed.

The weird thing about this article is that one senses Chris Lehane WANTS this to be set out this way, as if to push that Hillary Clinton’s team was the sole defender of the Democratic Party.  That may be a good clipping for him to use when he eventually joins the campaign, but it sells way short the combined efforts of the entire party apparatus, from the grassroots on up.

California

Giuliani Up To His Ears In Dirty Tricks

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Frank Russo has so far had the best coverage of Rudy Giuliani’s involvement in the Dirty Tricks campaign to steal a bunch of California’s electoral votes.  It appears that practically everyone associated with this campaign had a tie to Rudy Giuliani in some form or another.  We already knew that the lone funder, laundered through a hastily assembled LLC in Missouri called “Take Initiative America,” was actually the chair of Giuliani’s northeast funding operation named Paul Singer.  What we didn’t know was that this laundering, crafted to skirt the strict election laws in California, was part of a pattern of interlocking front groups that would hide who was behind this whole thing – perhaps even the candidate himself.  This quote is from Chris Lehane, who was running the opposition to the Dirty Tricks campaign and was in a position to delve pretty deeply into what was going on here. (I know not everyone here’s a fan of Lehane, but this sounds genuine)

“Virtually everyone who was involved in this at every level had a Giuliani connection, and no real connection to the other Republican candidates. Two of the partners at the law firm at the law firm that was responsible for this were Giuliani contributors, including Charles Bell who contributed $1300 days before the initiative was filed and he’s the deputy treasurer. You have Charles V. Hurth III, who does not have a history of political giving–I believe he had given a hundred dollars to a state senator prior to this and he gave $2,000 to Giuliani. You have John Wilcox, who was the spokesperson for Hurth, who comes out of the Bill Simon organization. Bill Simon is a Co-Chair in California for the Giuliani campaign as well as a policy advisor. Kevin Eckerly, the spokesperson for the effort is someone who has been quoted in the press being supportive of Giuliani and the Giuliani campaign. And again, when you went through all of these folks, each and every time, virtually every road ultimately led back to Giuliani.

“And, you know, I’ve said before, I’m originally from the state of Maine. You to bed at night, there’s no snow on the ground, you wake up and there’s snow on the ground. You can pretty safely conclude that it snowed. In an effort like this if everyone who is involved are connected to one Presidential campaign and they continue to gather signatures and you wake up the next day and find out that the person who in fact was funding it was indeed from the Giuliani campaign, I think one conclusion that one can safely draw is that it was the Giuliani campaign that was ultimately behind this.

“When you have a series of shadowy Nixonian front groups that are created to directly impact who the next President of the United States is going to be, then that’s something that is a cause for concern, not only of voters here in California, but all across the country.

I think it’s safe to say that the string-pullers in the Republican Party would be happy with Giuliani as a nominee, mainly because of his faux-moderate stances that play well outside the base, and his willingness to play as dirty as anybody this side of Karl Rove.  “Nixonian” is the key word.  This decade has been filled with ratfucking and voter suppression and all sorts of attempts to influence state and national elections.  The Republicans have time and again seized on the creakiness of the election systems, which vary from state to state, and used everything at their disposal to turn the system against Democrats and toward their own candidates. 

You can absolutely see that Giuliani’s core message that he wants played in the media is that he’s electable.  His strategy memo specifically lists California as one of the states which would suddenly become competitive were he the nominee:

More importantly, the Mayor puts blue states like Connecticut, New Jersey, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington in play. Pat Toomey, President of the Club for Growth, states that “If Giuliani wins the nomination, he would be a fascinating candidate in that he really re-draws the map.” Toomey points out that Giuliani could carry New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania ‘”so he changes the political calculus of the Electoral College dramatically.”9 And Mayor Giuliani may be the only Republican candidate that can now compete and win in Ohio against Hillary Clinton.

If that were the case, he wouldn’t need to finance a dirty trick from behind the scenes that would deliver 20-odd electoral votes to him.  If the states were truly in play, he would play by the rules.  No, this is an attempt to put this map-changing bug in the ear of the media so they’re not surprised by a victory in some blue state, whether it came about legally or not.  It’s the classic strategy of an ultra-confidence public veneer, combined with manipulating results behind the scenes.

There’s already an FEC complaint filed, along with a request to refer the matter to the US Justice Department.  But those investigations will go nowhere, even in the off chance that they are initiated.  This is something that will have to be investigated and dug up.  Take Initiative America was created in one day and suddenly received a $175,000 infusion of cash from a Giuliani fundraiser (and the date of this transaction was – and this is precious – September 11).  Considering that this initiative would impact the Presidential election, no agent of a campaign could contribute more than $2,300.  Furthermore, he violated disclosure requirements.  Here’s some highlights from the press conference following the formal FEC complaint.

So we would very much like the FEC to look into this, to determine what Mr. Giuliani knew, when he knew it, what conversations he and Mr. Singer had about the contribution, about Take Initiative America; how Take Initiative America was created, whose idea was it? Did Mr. Hurth talk to Mr. Singer? How did it come about that $175,000 was transferred the day that the corporation was established? There had to be some coordination there and we’d like the FEC to into it.

The other thing we’d like the FEC to ask is: Where did the $175,000 come from? Did it come from Mr. Singer personally” Or did it come from a corporation that he controls?

If it came from a corporation that he controls, then that too would be impermissible because Federal candidates prohibited under Federal law from soliciting or accepting a contribution from a corporation.

We’re also concerned that there may have been coordination between the Giuliani campaign and Californians for Equal Representation. In fact, Marty Wilson, the chief fundraiser for Equal Representation, who resigned just last week, was quoted in the press as saying that he had “heard” that the Giuliani people were interested in the effort in California, and that they were praying that it would commit–it obviously refers to the money.

This feels like one of those things that starts small and just balloons.  Paul Singer has a colorful past; he’s known as a “vulture,” someone who buys up debt from poor countries and demands payment at a substantial markup.  I’m certain more can be gleaned about this guy, his connection to the Giuliani campaign, and what Rudy himself may have known about his involvement with the Dirty Tricks campaign in California.  These are the kind of things that take down political careers.

Uncategorized

Odds and Ends

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A few stories of interest that I wanted to pass along:

  • Chris Lehane and the Fair Election Reform Group are calling for an investigation into the funding of the Dirty Tricks Initiative. Lehane and others allege possible violations of federal election law.
  • The Humane Society is gathering signatures for an initiative to regulate factory farming practices.  “The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act provides basic protections requiring that animals be able to turn around and extend their limbs. It will prevent the use of inhumane factory farming practices such as keeping animals confined in small crates or cages—specifically, veal crates for calves, battery cages for egg-laying hens, and gestation crates for breeding pigs.”
  • State Treasurer Bill Lockyer has some ideas for balancing the budget. According to Bill, they are just ideas and he doesn't necessarily endorse them. Good thing, too, because one of his “ideas” is totally cutting off the UC system from state money. Brilliant idea, there.  You know what else we could do? Charge the kiddos for public school, that would free up billions!
  • LA might need to pass a replacement phone utility tax if the current law is struck down in court.Villaraigosa is trying to get the measure declared an “emergency” to allow passage with a simpple majority.
  • Student leaders from across the state rallied for the California Dream Act in Sacramento yesterday.
  • LGBT organizations across the country are decrying Speaker Pelosi's decision to exclude the transgendered from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. I've heard that the Speaker, and her staff, have been getting in earful here in the district as well. Almost all organizations are standing together saying that they will not leave part of the community behind, except, that is, the Human Rights Campaign. I guess they need some achievements to justify that building they own by Capitol Hill. Too bad any passage of ENDA without the entire community would be a complete sell-out of those who they were supposed to represent. 
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Health Care, Prisons

Sunday Night Week In Review

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Here are some notes from a few stories I’d been meaning to get to all week.

• Frank Russo had a good recap of the initial hearing from the three-judge panel charged with finding a solution to California’s prison crisis.  This panel may result in the early release of thousands of prisoners to reduce overcrowding.  The panel does not appear to be able to be swayed by political expediency (unlike the Legislature for the past 30 years), saying  “This is a judicial and not a political process.”  It is clear that the torturous conditions in California jails and the inability to deliver even basic medical care violates the Constitution and will be dealt with swiftly.  Even the Correctional Officers union has come around to the point of view that reductions in the prison population are needed.  Only a cowardly, leadership-challenged political class refuses to face reality.

(more on the flip):

• Here’s a fun tale of health care at the Tribune Company, parent of the LA Times and local TV station KTLA:

The Tribune Company has come up with a new tactic to cut costs and annoy the hell out of its employees – again. It seems that everyone on the staff at the L.A. Times (and so I assume KTLA) has to prove that their spouses and children really are theirs, and thus eligible for medical benefits. Though wasteful and mildly insulting it sounds easy enough, but apparently it’s not. They call it a “Mercer Audit” and its demands have some staffers in an uproar.

They’re demanding documentation (a birth certificate or marriage license, I guess) with a deadline of days from actually giving employees notice.  I’m sure in the boardroom this is considered “sound business sense.”

• At our Calitics Quarterly event, I talked with Digby about her contention that the GOP is targeting California as the big blue state where Rudy Giuliani can break through and get the paradigm-shifting win they need.  It’s true that the big hitters in the state have all come out for him – although the Pete Wilson endorsement garnered all of three reporters to the announcement.

• Continuing on this theme, a new SUSA poll shows head-to-head general election matchups for all of the top three candidates on either side, and in California, it shakes out like this: against Romney or Thompson, all the Democrats win by between 15 and 33 points.  Against Giuliani, Clinton beats him by 20, but Obama wins by only for and Edwards by only 2.  Wow.  Of course, Giuliani is still riding the name ID coattails.  However, his clear penchant for wanting to be competitive in California is evidenced by the fact that the mystery fundraiser for the dirty tricks initiative was the chairman of Giuliani’s northeast fundraising operation.

• Rik Hertzberg had an interesting footnote to the possible demise of the dirty tricks initiative:

Why would Schwarzenegger want to shoot down a proposal that has the potential of delivering the White House to his party next year?

My guess is that he isn’t losing any sleep over the probability of a G.O.P. Presidential rout, which would make him the indisputably most important Republican in America. His current port tack, on issues like health care and climate change, suggests that he knows which way the wind is blowing.  Doubtless he would rather be swept along than swept away.

Then there’s this. Anybody remember the first Republican debate, on MSNBC back in May? I’ll bet Arnold does. He was in the front row at the Reagan Library when Chris Matthews asked the ten candidates if they would support changing the Constitution ever so slightly to make naturalized citizens eligible for the presidency. The vote onstage was eight to one against. (The one was Giuliani; McCain said he’d “seriously consider it,” which I count as an abstention.) Eight to one, in other words, in favor of crushing the ultimate and perfectly legitimate dream of the distinguished Governor of California.

If I were Schwarzenegger, I wouldn’t lift a finger to help these bozos.

• Finally, tonight at midnight, the UAW Local 2865 contract runs out.  While the United Auto Workers settled their contract dispute with GM, Local 2865, which covers over 12,000 academic student employees at UC campuses (TAs, for example) has made little headway with UC.  You can read all about it here.  The whole idea of student employee unions gets lost in the shuffle, but they are being royally screwed, and are planning to file lots of unfair labor practices charges, in addition to keeping negotiations going and reserving the right to strike.  We ought to support their efforts.

Uncategorized

Is it really dead? GOP talks about reviving Dirty Tricks

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At this point, it seems  a long shot, but some GOP activists are still going after some Dirty Tricks.  From MediaNews:

“The issue is so hot, it’s going to continue on,” said Tony Andrade, a Sacramento Republican who had actually submitted his own electoral vote initiative, but then deferred to Hiltachk’s effort. “People are lining up signing these petitions. There’s a lot of enthusiasm for this from a political point of view.” (LA Daily News 9/29/07)

Given the cost of gathering the signatures, it’s quite a longshot with the establishment seemingly ditching the DIrty Tricks Initiative, but, keep your eyes on the DIrty Tricks.