(We’re still giving them the big bucks… But now they need to pay attention to what we have to say! Ya know, California’s about much more than just money. : ) – promoted by atdleft)
by Erik Love
April 15 was the deadline for the 2008 Presidential Candidates to submit their official first quarter fundraising reports. Those of us following ATM Watch, the Courage Campaign project that monitors visits to California from the '08 candidates, are not surprised to learn that California gave more dollars to the campaigns than any other state.
None of the major candidates in the race is originally from California, which makes our generosity all the more impressive. Californians donated some 20 million dollars to the presidential campaigns, with Democrats raising $8 for every $5 raised by the Republicans. No other state gave as much to the campaigns.
This is notable because it's been the pattern in presidential campaigns for so long — come to California for money, but go to Iowa for votes. ATM Watch's goal to to change all that — to make California not just a place for political donations, but also a place where the candidates must tell us about their positions on the issues that we think are important.
Check out this interactive map to see specific California donations for each candidate in the race, and be sure to join us at ATM Watch to hold the candidates to account as they continue to visit our state.
Over the past few weeks it's become quite evident that John Edwards is running for California…and he's running for it hard. The interesting thing about how he's doing it is that, against all conventional wisdom, he's managed to mount an inexpensive stealth campaign made up of campaign stops both conventional (rallies at colleges) and unconventional (an appearance at a Santa Monica Democratic club, a visit with Fresno farm workers and a recent Q&A with reporters in San Francisco, which I diaried with a link to video HERE) in between stops for California campaign cash.
More over the flip including some incredible new Survey USA numbers…
The latest sign that Edwards absolutely thinks California is within his grasp is the release today of the endorsement of John L. Burton, former CA Democratic congressman, assemblyman and, until 2005, president pro tem of the state senate. He is a beloved liberal who was described in the following way by The Los Angeles Journal upon his retirement in 2005:
"Gone will be the Senate's most vehement partisan for social services for the poor, the Senate's angriest voice against tax breaks for businesses and the wealthy, its loudest voice for protection of workers, its fiercest pro-labor advocate and its disciplinarian."
Sound like anyone you know?
Remarkably, Edwards's California strategy may already be paying off. According to the latest Survey USA Poll, out today, Edwards surged 7 points since the previous poll was released on March 6. Here are the numbers (3/6 results in parentheses.)
Hillary Clinton 43 (44)
Barack Obama 25 (31)
John Edwards 17 (10)
Bill Richardson 4 (4)
That movement is pretty stunning and, I'd argue, is not attributable exclusively to the positive response of "some people" to the courage and character John and Elizabeth displayed when they announced her cancer had returned. Edwards has his eye on California all right and it's beginning to look like California just might have its eye on him.
It’s official, Courage Campaign’s ATM Watch is live! With the help of Speaker Fabian Nunez, we’ve launched ATMWatch.org where all our blog posts and videos are aggregated and where there’s an opportunity for everyone to get in on the act.
What issues are on your mind? Ask the candidates a question HERE and we’ll get the questions to the candidates.
Have you seen a candidate and want to tell us about your experience? Blog it in our ATM Watch group HERE.
And of course, read the comings and goings of the candidates as they traverse California on the blog HERE. We update it every Friday.
Our goal is to start a dialogue between the candidates and every day Californians. In the coming months, we’ll be bringing you more live reports (which we’d like to be largely user-generated) and even video responses from the candidates and maybe even a townhall forum or two to really get the candidates in front of California voters. Gone are the days when California is merely an ATM for presidential candidates.
This is Clinton-Gore country — or it was once. Now, several of former President Bill Clinton’s earliest and biggest fund-raisers — such as Sandy Robertson, founder of investment bank Robertson Stephens and a partner at technology buyout firm Francisco Partners; and Steve Westly, an ex-eBay Inc. executive and former controller for California — have defected to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
The article cites several reasons for this movement away from Sen. Clinton, including fears that she is too ideologically rigid for their pro-business sensibilities, that she comes off as too “cold and calculating” to be electable and that Obama appeals much more to the newly wealthy under-35 Silicon Valley contingent.
More over the flip…
But interestingly, while many pro-business Silicon Valley Democrats have reservations about Clinton because they fear she will govern from too far to the left (umm, huh?), they seem to give Obama, clearly a more liberal Senator, a pass.
Sen. Obama’s supporters acknowledge their candidate is largely untested on policy matters, and there is no certainty that he would be more conservative than Sen. Clinton on health care, tort reform or fiscal policy. It is his persona, they say, that is generating excitement.
“No one’s calling me about Barack’s stands on business or tech issues,” says John Roos, the Obama point man in Silicon Valley and chief executive of the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. “This is a phenomenon of a … leader of a new generation who has the potential to bring this country together.”
In other words, as Frederick Baron, a lawyer and Obama fund-raiser who spent two years in the Clinton Justice Department, says:
“In the lexicon of high tech, Barack Obama is the next-generation solution.”
I guess we can add ideology to the list of barriers Obama transcends.
This does not mean, however, that we should be crying for Senator Clinton quite yet. She’s managed to build a whole new Silicon Valley base among female tech executives and despite the flight of some high profile Hollywood fundraisers to the Obama camp, she managed to raise $2.6 million at a gala event at the Beverly Hills home of supermarket magnate Ron Burkle on Saturday.
And then there’s Ron Brownstein’s editorial in yesterday’s L.A. Times, which argues that Obama’s appeal among upscale educated voters makes him the latest in a long line of Democratic losers who have had upscale appeal — Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, among them. For while Hillary may lose some of the upscale vote to Obama, there are no signs that he is making any inroads among the much more crucial Democratic constituency of blue collar voters. And certainly, while Obama’s appeal among African American voters is making him more competitive with Clinton than his predecesors would have been, Brownstein sees a trend that is in danger of cementing:
Among whites, Clinton so far is showing broader reach. She’s competitive upscale and dominating downscale, a combination that allows her to lead Obama in most early polls. In the latest nationwide Gallup survey, for instance, Obama led Clinton by 3 percentage points among white, college-educated Democrats, but she bested him by 23 points among whites without college degrees, and she led overall.
Could this discrepancy be due to the likelihood that more educated voters are by definition going to be more engaged politically at this early stage and thus more likely to be aware of Senator Obama? Perhaps it’s just a name recognition thing?
Could be. But Brownstein makes a compelling case that Senator Clinton’s blue collar appeal is what is driving her strength in polls throughout the country. So, how does Obama’s gaining on Clinton in Silicon Valley play into this dynamic? Certainly it is good news for fundraising, but it only reinforces this trend.
As Brownstein says:
Since Obama entered the campaign, the question he’s faced most often is whether he is “black enough” to win votes from African Americans. But the more relevant issue may be whether Obama is “blue enough” to increase his support among blue-collar whites.
This past Saturday, 12,000 of my closest friends and I gathered in Oakland to see (or in some cases, just hear…) Barack Obama speak. It’s nice to see Senator Obama giving the public some face time while he swings through our state to do what we know every presidential candidate must: make a withdrawal from the ATM that is California.
After the rally the senator headed off to the Mark Hopkins Hotel in SF for a fundraiser but not before wowing the crowd in Oakland. As one would expect, Obama gave a variation on his stump speech in which he rails against cynicism and offers something different, what he calls the politics of hope. And judging by the crowd’s reaction, at least those who were close enough to see the senator, hope is much more than just a buzzword…the optimism in the air was palpable. It felt almost celebratory. As Frank wrote HERE, this phenomenon is real.
Over the flip, my take with video of most of his speech and some photos. I think I can safely say that Saturday will go down as my most memorable St. Patrick’s Day ever.
Here’s a picture of the folks in the bleachers behind the stage. I know they look relatively calm but don’t be fooled…it was merely the calm before the storm.
And now witness the storm:
As you can see, he was greeted like a rock star. Talk about energy. It was incredible.
After some small talk about his family, Senator Obama got into the meat of his speech and immediately framed his candidacy as something larger than himself:
We are here today because the country calls us. We are here today because history beckons us.
He uses the first person plural to especially good effect to communicate, essentially, “we are in this together.” He speaks mostly about the domestic challenges we face — listen to how the crowd reacts when he talks about the economy and who is benefitting most — but then ends the section strongly with criticism of the war. I think it’s interesting who his first target of criticism is:
We are in the midst of a war that should have never been authorized!
Message: unlike my opponents, I never would have authorized it.
It really is a pleasure to listen to Obama’s speeches. In this next section, witness how he skillfully segues from the war to a meeting with a wounded veteran and his family to a discussion of how Washington has lost its way and, by extension, why he’s running for president:
Politics is not a game. The decisions that are made in Washington are not sport. And the reason that we have not been able to meet the challenges that we face….is because at some level we have been so consumed by cynicism and pettyness in Washington that we no longer recognize what’s at stake, we no longer understand what’s going on in the lives of that veteran…
This time, the “we” he’s referring to seems to be his colleagues in Washington.
In the next section, he continues to rail against cynicism and offers his prescription:
It is time for us to step up and meet these challenges and create the sort of politics that’s not based on division, that’s not based on hatred, that’s not based on fear, but that’s based on hope. And that’s the sort of politics that we expect to create in this election. If we change our politics, then we will change the nation.
He goes on to address the matter of his experience. Here he brilliantly turns his supposed lack of experience into an asset, not a liability. Watch the whole thing, it’s great.
The highlight of this next section for me is when Senator Obama talks at length about healthcare and makes a promise. Listen to the crowd on this one.
We can…make sure that every single American has basic healthcare in fact I want to be held accountable for that!We can have universal healthcare by the end of the next president’s first term. By the end of MY FIRST TERM!
He moves on to the topic of energy, during which he gives it up for California. Notice his continued use of “we” with the repeated (to nice effect) refrain: “We know what to do.”
We know what to do. We know what to do with energy. And if we set up a system like California has boldly decided it’s gonna set up, so we are capping the emission of greenhouse gases, it can actually generate jobs and industry. There’s no reason why we can’t create entire new sectors of the economy.
As he prepares to wrap up, he brings his speech back around to Iraq and reminds us all where he stood when it counted.
I am proud of the fact that I opposed this war from the start and I stood up in 2002 and said that this is a bad idea, that this will cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives and we don’t have a strategy for getting out.
Again, he runs against his opponents without overtly running against them.
Message: it’s about judgment, stupid.
He is perhaps at his best, though, when he talks about the troops and the responsibility we have to them when they come home. As passionate as his speech has been up to now, he reveals new heights of intensity when he says:
Don’t stand next to a flag and say you believe in supporting the troops when you forget them when they come home!
Nice.
He opens this final stretch of the speech with a statement that seems to crystallize the very essence of Obama’s candidacy:
We can do all of these things. But let me tell you this. I can’t do it on my own
He goes on to catalog the history of American progress, from the fight against British tyranny to the fight against slavery, to the fight to allow women to vote, to the fight for civil rights and for workers to unionize. It never happened from the top down, he says, rather the change has always come from the bottom up.
The enormous power of ordinary people…People have had the audacity, the boldness, to believe that something better is right around the bend, that something better is out on the horizon. That is how this country was built.
Which he then brings back, to rousing effect, to what he hopes to accomplish with his candidacy:
And so let me just say this today, Oakland, California, I can’t do this on my own. This campaign is a vehicle for you. It is a vehicle for your hopes, it’s a vehicle for your dreams. When a million voices join together, they can not be stopped!
Cue rapturous applause.
The thing about Obama and the reason he does seem to transcend party, race, religion, everything, is that he connects on a level that we’re not used to Democrats connecting on. Bill Clinton got you in the gut of course, but more recently we’re so used to getting laundry lists from candidates, it’s so refreshing to have a politician who appeals to something deeper in us and who gets that voting is not about making a rational decision based on facts, it’s about making a judgment call based on gut instinct. Obama is running on the idea that we should all vote for someone and something, not just against someone. And he’s also reminding us about the stakes of this election: the future of our country. It’s optimistic and yes it is audacious. But more than anything else, on some level it’s exactly what we need. I think the enormous crowds he gets wherever he goes are a testament to that, Oakland’s 12,000 strong not the least among them.
Once the speech was over, he worked the crowd a bit. Here are a few photos.
OK, so you probably know by now that I wasn’t able to see Mitt Romney on Friday in Dana Point. However, Jon Fleischman did. While I was out in the cold, he was in on all the action… And yes, Fleischman now has his account of the Romney fundraiser up on FlashReport.
Here are some of Romney’s “Greatest Hits” from Friday’s swanky fundraiser. For more videos, go to Jon’s blog.
More after the flip…
Romney on the “War on Terror”
Romney on the “Source of American Strength”
[And no, you commie-loving pinko lib’ruls, it’s not taxes or big guv’munt or ‘dem San Francisco values… hehe ; ) ]
California Romney Chairman Mike “Darth” Schroeder and OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh on why they love Mitt:
Jon: Well, what would you say to, because I’ve talked to a lot of conservatives who are concerned about the Governor’s proposal which he, again, says is mirrored after yours, when they pass a law that requires people to have healthcare insurance and kind of the idea that that flies in the face of the notion of individuals taking responsibility for their own action and kind of putting the state involved in putting mandates on people.
Mitt: Well, my proposal in Massachusetts was people either pay for their own healthcare and demonstrate their ability to pay by having a sufficient health savings account or other savings account or they buy insurance, because currently in this country if someone does not have health insurance and they don’t have money of their own, then they go to the hospital and they get free care. And that’s not an option that should be available to people who can afford insurance. So I agree that — and I want to make personal responsibility mean that people either pay for their own healthcare or they buy insurance, one or the other. But no more showing up and expecting other people to pay your way. That’s not personal responsibility. That’s the welfare state. And currently what we have, and I think this is something that people don’t often appreciate, currently what we have in most of America and in California, like Massachusetts, is a sick setting, where people don’t buy insurance, even those who can afford it don’t buy insurance and go get free healthcare. And that’s simply not personal responsibility.
To see the rest of the interview, and to see more videos, go to FlashReport. And thanks to Jon Fleischman for covering the event from the inside. : )
Why doesn’t the Republican Party like its own voters? Why won’t the GOP candidates talk to the people who will be making a huge decision next February? Why do the candidates only come to Orange County for the big money, and avoid everyone who could not possibly afford to join the big money at these extravagant fundraisers?
But what about all those Republicans who can’t afford these ultra-expensive fundraisers? (And no, not ALL Republicans in Orange County are ultra-rich.) What about the average voters who just want to ask Romney about his position on the Iraq War, or his tax policy, or what he thinks about immigration? Do they have to pay $2,300 just to ask Mitt that question?
When I arrived at the St. Regis yesterday afternoon, I was alone and afraid. I felt like a stranger in a strange land, as I was looking the other side of the driveway at all these glamorously rich people being escorted out of their Rolls Royces and Bentleys and Mercedes. I could not even approach the front entrance to the hotel lobby, as I was afraid that security would toss me out of there, and throw me so far that I’d land right in the middle of all the snarling traffic on PCH. I was out of my place, and I could see it and feel it all around me.
Yes, I know that I probably SHOULD HAVE FELT OUT OF PLACE at the St. Regis last night. I was one of those “commie-loving pinko Demonrats” who was hoping to ask Romney about his “kaleidoscopic view” of the war, as well as his flip-flops on such issues as choice, LGBT rights, and supporting “Demonrats”. OK, so I was hoping to stir up a little trouble over there last night…
But what about about all the middle-class Republican voters who might have the same questions that I do? Are they not allowed to question their own leaders? This problem is not just with Romney, but with the entireslewofRepublicans who come here for money, but never stay to talk to real people about real issues. On the GOP side, it seems like this race has become a type of “aristocratic primary” where only the rich and well-connected can participate, while everyone else is stuck out in the cold, alone and afraid, trying to look in.
I guess it’s somewhat like the way the GOP has governed this nation for the last six years. But will anyone be able to crash these gates and let the common folks into the GOP primary process?
As we know, the presidential candidates like to swoop in to California for money and often swoop right out again without speaking to voters who can't afford the 4-figure price of admission. Well, now, thanks to the power of the Internet, we can all listen in on what goes on inside those fundraisers.
John McCain held a $1,000/plate event at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, CA on Monday and who was there with videocamera in hand but right wing blogger Jon Fleischman (his You Tube channel.) Thanks to him for the insightful video.
In this first piece, McCain makes the case for his candidacy, not just as a candidate for president nationally, but as a candidate seeking California's support specifically. The most intriguing quote:
California must be in play if any Republican wants to be elected president of the United States of America.
Video and more over the flip…
And he's not just talking about winning the Republican nomination, he wants California's electoral votes in the general (notice how shamelessly he kisses California's ass…)
I believe that I can convince a majority of the people of this great state, of this incredibly great state, this HUGE state, that I am the best qualified to be the president of the United States
It's clear that McCain thinks he'd be of particular interest to California voters because he is from the west, Arizona. And as he says, somewhat laughably, it seems to me:
I understand water, I understand land.
But his point is clear — he's making his case by appealing to California's issues, exactly what we'd like all candidates to do. There's one big problem for ole' Johnny though: a little thing called Iraq.
In the next piece, McCain continues his war cheerleading and expresses frustration with having to return to Washington to, er, do his job (say it isn't so!) This line was particularly contempt-spewing:
I probably have to try to go back to the city of Satan in the next couple of days so we take up another resolution by the Democrats to somehow get us out of Iraq.
City of Satan, John, really? Well, he was among Orange County Republicans. The guy knows his audience.
But really, does anyone really think a Republican outside of the Arnold mold really has a shot in hell of winning California? After all, Schwarzenegger has made it abundantly clear where he stands on the war: diametrically opposed to John McCain.
I think a timeline is absolutely important because I think that the people in America don't want to see another Korean War or another Vietnam War where it's an open-ended thing. There should be a timeline.
Then again, McCain doesn't have to believe he can win California, he probably doesn't, he just has to make the money men in that room believe it, all the better to take their money and run. But I still can't help but smile at the premise of the case he's making, that to win the presidency any Republican is going to have to win California. To be true, that statement must presume that at the very least Ohio and Florida will go Dem next year. And while I'd like to believe that's true, it's sweet indeed to hear such desperation coming straight from the Republicans' mouths.
We here at ATM Watch will continue to track the candidates both in person and online as they come and go through our state in the coming year. ATDleft will be tracking Mitt Romney in Dana Point on Friday and I'm hoping to get up to Oakland on Saturday for Obama's rally. And if you have questions you'd like us to get to the candidates, feel free to submit them HERE.
It's our goal to make sure the candidates meet with every day California voters, not just the donors.
I’ll be in Dana Point on Friday to track down Mitt Romney as he hits up the big Orange County Republican donors for money. So how about you? It would be great if we had a Southern California group that tracks down these Presidential hopefuls as they visit the super-rich donors and spend time with them, and it would be even BETTER if this group were to ask these candidates why they don’t talk to all the rest of us about their plan to get out of Iraq, or about their plan to provide health care coverage to the 47 MILLION PEOPLE in this nation who have none, or simply why they spend all this time with a select few when ALL OF US plan to be voting next February as well…
(More after the flip)
So why don’t we start one ourselves? Can you join me in sending a message to ALL THE CANDIDATES that they need to pay attention to ALL THE VOTERS in California? And can we especially send a message to these GOP candidates visiting our fine state that we won’t support ANYONE next year who plans to continue this war in Iraq? We the people need to step up and make our voices heard, and I hope you can join me on Friday when we try to do precisely that.
I’d like for all of us to meet earlier in the afternoon to prepare to confront Romney. Do any of you in the Dana Point/Laguna Niguel area have any suggestions of nearby areas to meet up? I’d love for us to meet up beforehand, and finalize our plan of attack as we specifically confront Romney about his “kaleidoscopic view” of the war that he supports when it suits his purpose, yet refuses to send his own family members to fight in. I look forward to meeting up with many of you on Friday as we send a “very special message” to Mitt.
So can I count on you progressive activists in Southern California to join me at the St. Regis Resort on Friday to give this message to Mitt?
Here in California, we’re used to presidential candidates swooping in for fundraisers before taking off to Iowa or New Hampshire to engage with those states’ primary voters on our dime.
Well, now that our primary is moving up to February 5, 2008, things are changing, and as the candidates come and go, The Courage Campaign’s ATM Watch will be tracking them. It is our hope that in between fundraising stops, the candidates actually take some time to speak to California’s voters about California’s issues. And so far, no one is living up to this ideal more than John Edwards.
John Edwards came to California last Friday and stayed through Monday when he appeared at UCLA for the latest stop on his college tour. In between, in addition to a fundraiser or two, he spoke to Fresno farm workers, a Santa Monica Democratic club and Berkeley college students, none of which involved taking a withdrawal from the ATM that is California.
The fact that John Edwards is speaking to California voters whose attendance doesn't depend on a 4-figure donation is significant. It says that sure, he's coming here for money but he also cares about the issues regular California voters care about.
Here are some samples of news coverage of his events to give a sense of how John Edwards is embodying the way we'd like all candidates to treat California voters.
These workers are at the heart of why I want to be president of theited States," Edwards said, flanked by UFW President Arturo Rodriguez. "We need comprehensive immigration reform in this country, and that includes the ability of people to earn citizenship."
He's saying this in the heart of red California, mind you. In fact, at a nearby fundraiser earlier in the day:
Some guests also said they might attend receptions for Republican presidential hopefuls including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain, both of whom are expected to tour the valley."Most of us are Republicans, conservative folks," said co-host Joe Uremovic, a Fresno agricultural attorney.
Edwards continued to demonstrate his habit of speaking fearlessly and putting his money where his mouth is at his Berkeley rally on Sunday. Edwards doesn't just seek the support of labor, he earns it:
Edwards told the crowd that he appeared at the YWCA instead of on the UC Berkeley campus as a gesture of support for campus janitors in a labor dispute with the university. The janitors are members the powerful American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees.
“We are standing with these workers who are trying to get a decent wage and to be able to support their families,” Edwards said. “It is part of today’s march of justice and equality.”
And on the subject of the Democratic Party:
"I want to say something about my party," he said. "I'm so tired of incremental, careful caution. Where is our soul? Where is our soul? We are our most powerful when we speak from here" — he touched his heart — "and not from a poll."
Amen, Senator.
But perhaps the most moving testimony as to the impact Edwards's simply taking a few hours out of his schedule to speak to regular California voters came from the mouths of voters themselves:
“Being able to come here to see someone who is running for president was an amazing opportunity,” said sophomore Caroline Szymanska, a group leader for Cal Lobby Day
And…
"He came to listen to us, the farmworkers," said Angelina Zabala, a mother of six from Porterville. "I didn't think the candidates were going to take what we have to say into account but I see he wants to help. I'm thinking about voting for him."
Thank you, Senator, for proving that retail politics is possible in our unwieldy state and that our voters will, as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said prior to the vote to move the state primary up to February:
have an opportunity to look at the candidates square in the eye and say ‘where do you stand on the issues that I as a Californian care about?’
In addition to tracking the candidates, The Courage Campaign’s ATM Watch series will also be facilitating that conversation by collecting questions from voters and delivering them to the canididates.
This past Saturday, 12,000 of my closest friends and I gathered in Oakland to see (or in some cases, just hear…) Barack Obama speak. It’s nice to see Senator Obama giving the public some face time while he swings through our state to do what we know every presidential candidate must: make a withdrawal from the ATM that is California.
