24thState

Does Russ Carnahan Deserve A Glitterbomb?

Sorry about that.  I just had to work "glitterbomb" into the title.  Russ Carnahan is out begging for money from the gay community - pushing a really poorly designed flyer out to his constituents asking them to come "Show their love for Russ."  As pathetic as it is to throw yourself a party and announce to the world that it's a party thrown for you, it's actually quite insulting that Carnahan is reaching out for money from the GLBT community.

What has he done for them?  Nothing.  Don't ask me - ask the largest gay group in New Jersey what they think.

Largest Gay Group in New Jersey stops donating to Democrats.  Ouch.  That has to hurt.  In an election cycle that is already made challenging for Democrats, it's got to sting to realize that the groups who march in step with Democrats are waking up and realizing that voting in a block isn't helping them.

My goodness - can you imagine in groups of Democrats in the city of St Louis realized that the Carnahan family has done nothing for them either?  Why - it's enough to make you write a flyer where you attempt to scare gays into giving you money.

Oh, wait. 

His likely opponent, Ed Martin, is a conservative Republican who opposes GLBT rights.

That's interesting.  I'm not aware of any statements Martin has made that would support such a statement.  Is it that he's a conservative Republican?  oohhh, scary!

Using your opponent's name in a fundraising flyer isn't what a confident campaign in a safe Democratic district does.  Just how bad is it over at the Rubberstamp Headquarters? 

Maybe it's his staff.  Picking a frozen vodka bar for a fundraiser the day after Valentine's Day is pretty weak.  Is that supposed to be a slap in the face to gay marriage proponents?

Why not throw a fundraiser on Valentine's day?  Or better yet, have your candidate show up to any number of groups throwing events in and around Valentine's day to show your support of GLBT issues.

And if you can't show up in person, how about a single statement - just one - somewhere on your government or campaign site showing your support for these issues?

At some point, support for your constituents has to mean more than simply appearing at fundraisers and events where you get your picture taken.  But homosexuals shouldn't feel bad about it.  He's not singling them out.  He treats all of the voters like this.  So shut up and give him money.  Otherwise, a scary Republican might get elected in your district and work to improve the economy.  And really, who needs jobs and fiscal sanity these days?  We should be focusing on what is important - dividing Americans by their sexual identity so they vote the right people into office.

Those windmills aren't going to build themselves.

Fascinating: Non-Violent Civil Rights Activists Used Guns For Safety

This is really fascinating.  Ask just about any American how Civil Rights was won for blacks in the South, and you'll hear about the doctrine of nonviolence as practiced by Martin Luther King and Gandhi.  It's an uplifting story about the use of justice and fairness to overcome the tyranny of evil men.

But it's not the full story.  While nonviolence was a potent media weapon, providing images of civil rights activists being attacked by police officers for daring to sit down in white cafes, it was only a portion of the fight.  In this story over at the Volokh Conspiracy, John Salter Jr, once known as Hunter Gray, tells how the use of weapons was an important and untold story.

I was beaten and arrested many times and hospitalized twice. This happened to many, many people in the movement. No one knows what kind of massive racist retaliation would have been directed against grassroots black people had the black community not had a healthy measure of firearms within it.

When the campus of Tougaloo College was fired on by KKK-type racial night-riders, my home was shot up and a bullet missed my infant daughter by inches. We received no help from the Justice Department and we guarded our campus -- faculty and students together -- on that and subsequent occasions. We let this be known. The racist attacks slackened considerably. Night-riders are cowardly people -- in any time and place -- and they take advantage of fear and weakness.

Later, I worked for years in the Deep South as a full-time civil rights organizer. Like a martyred friend of mine, NAACP staffer Medgar W. Evers, I, too, was on many Klan death lists and I, too, traveled armed: a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver and a 44/40 Winchester carbine.

The knowledge that I had these weapons and was willing to use them kept enemies at bay. Years later, in a changed Mississippi, this was confirmed by a former prominent leader of the White Knights of the KKK when we had an interesting dinner together at Jackson.

Salter is a strong guns rights supporter in addition to being a left socialist, a community organizer (spent a lot of time in Chicago), and what most conservatives would consider a radical.  In retrospect, this should have been obvious.  Gun restriction laws in the United States were originally intended to strip blacks from the ability to defend themselves. Some people point out this is still the case in cities like D.C., Detroit, and Chicago. 

Though it's a nicer story to hear about good intentions and the practices of Gandhi as being the driving force behind Civil Rights, one should remember the role of the Second Amendment when the cameras were gone.  And one should wonder what other hard truths our education system fails to teach.

Robin Carnahan Staff Continues Coordinated Campaign Against Blunt

They aren't even trying to hide it anymore.

The Vote Vets Action Fund is a 501 (c)4, which means it's a privately funded operation that works on the fringes of the political world without regulation or scrutiny.

VoteVets is one of the main action members of the America Votes coalition, which as seen last month is coordinating third party attacks against Republican senators in swing states. 

They are listed as a national partner for AmericaVotes, at the very time that Robin Carnahan's Campaign Manager, Mindy Mazur was their Missouri State Director.

They're launching another round of attacks against Republican Senatorial candidates, this time using footage from the US Cole bombing to somehow claim that a vote against Cap and Trade is equivalent to letting Al Qaeda terrorists kill American soldiers.

Got that?  Not giving Goldman Sachs your money through a giant government tax is the same as letting terrorists attack soldiers.  No mention is made of drilling for domestic oil resources, adding nuclear power capacity to prevent the burning of oil for electricity, or maybe taking terrorism seriously around the world before they fly planes into our buildings. The ad being aired even pretends that the soldiers featured are interested in energy independence because they found out the Underpants bomber tried to attack us on Christmas. 

Underlying the ad is the false assumption that if we just didn't used foreign oil, there would be no terrorism. 

So where did it come from?  The ad is part of an ongoing attempt to give Democrats national security credentials.  Earlier incarnations include Operation Free, a bus tour of vets who drove around the country making this same argument last August, and cutting ads like First Hand.  Operation Free was a project of the Truman  National Security Project and VoteVets, whose express purpose was to take away the advantage the Republicans have in national security. Sitting on their board include progressive notables like John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, who sets up think tanks to generate progessive propaganda lapped up by the media.

Michael Evans of Arnold, Missouri was in the "First Hand" version of this ad.  He's part of Operation Free.  

Operation Free matters because Robin Carnahan just mouthed these talking points on January 20, 2010 at Washington University for an Operation Free event.  In this speech recorded by ShowMeProgress, she makes the claim that foreign energy dependence puts our soliders at risk.

Let's once again connect the dots.

Robin Carnahan speaks at a VoteVets event, using the language of the VoteVets ad.

15 days later, VoteVets action fund runs $600,000 worth of ads against Roy Blunt in Missouri. 

All we're missing is FiredUp posting the ad and pretending they got it from elsewhere. (They did that again in September, posting the ad the morning it came out). 

Robin Carnahan's campaign manager ran the state organization where VoteVets Action Fund is a partner.

A former deputy director for Robin Carnahan, Paula Hodges, is the state coordinator still working for America Votes, where VoteVets Action fund is a partner.

On January 10, 2010, Robin Carnahan came out whining about the Supreme Court hearing on corporate funding.  And yet at no point has anyone asked her directly about the now $1.35 million dollars spent on her behalf in the state of Missouri.  In her recent discussion with the Springfield News Leader, she says third party attack ads shouldn't be used in Missouri.

Let's  take a look at those numbers.

Third Party Attack Ads going after Robin Carnahan. $0

Third Party Attack Ads going after Roy Blunt, coordination by former Robin Carnahan Staffers and her campaign manager. $1,350,000.

The only funny part of this ad is the stations in running on.  Adult Swim on Cartoon Network ran these on Saturday, prior to Bleach. That's some mighty fine demographic targeting.

Russ Carnahan Attacks His Future Self In 1990 Campaign

Google's newspaper feature should be a cause for delight among citizen journalists.  All those microfiche copies of newspapers are going online, including this wonderful little nugget on Russ Carnahan's first attempt to go to Congress. The Southeast Missourian in September of 1990 reads:

" Russ Carnahan is trying hard to portray Bill Emerson as a "Fat Cat" politician, a carpetbagging lobbyist who moved back to the district in 1979 solely to run for Congressl as someone who is tried to special interest groups and big corporations, and is out of touch with the working people of a district."

Of course, those with a sense of irony will note that Russ was running in the 8th district, but after failing, he moved to St Louis where he ran for a Missouri House seat, and then eventually won a narrow 10 -person primary to replace Richard Gephardt in the 3rd district.  Funny enough, during both campaigns, he was accused of being a fat cat politician and carpetbagging lobbyist who moved into the district in solely to take over Richard Gephardt's seat. 

DSCC Gives One Hell Of A Suspicious Cash Donation To Carnahan

Make what you will of this. 

I don't know if the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has been taken over by Andrew Sullivan's Christianists, but somebody over there is making a funny.

On the same day they gave $3000, they wrote an additional check for 666 dollars.  I wonder if their nickname for her can now be "The Beast!"

I didn't make any of that up. Check it for yourself. As for different reports, I'll let you make your own decisions about these graphics.

Step One:

 
 

Thomas Carnahan Gives Money to MACPAC, a (Missourians for Accountability and Change PAC)  in October 2008.

MACPAC reports that donation and another from Lisa Carnahan.  

 
Robin Carnahan gets $5000 from MACPAC for her Senate campaign on 3/18/2009 (in addition to $4800 each from Thomas and Lisa for her general and primary).

But I'm sure the $5000 from Tom Carnahan to MACPAC was a totally different $5000 than the $5000 MACPAC gave to Robin just a few months later.

Why, he probably gave them a check from his bank account, and they wrote an entirely different check from a different bank account.

Nate Silver Can't Figure Out Why Obama's Ratings Dropped

Nate Silver has a head-scratching post over at 538.com trying to analyze why Obama's approval ratings dropped from 65 to 48 last year.

Using complicated stasticial analysis and a broad-based search of stories and headlines, Nate comes to the conclusion there aren't any pure fits to explain the major drops which occurred from the inauguration early March, and then May to Mid-August.

One was the period immediately following his inauguration until about the first week in March; Obama's ratings fell by about 5 points over this interval. The other was a longer period from the end of May through mid-August, during which time Obama's approval declined by 9 points or so. Those two periods collectively account for about 14 points of the roughly 17-point decline that Obama has experienced.

It's as I said a well-researched post, full of potential, but ending with a shoulder shrug of "we don't know, must be the economy.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to give you any one incredibly satisfying answer here. The most basic reason for the decline in Obama's numbers, almost certainly, is that people's expectations for what he ought to have been able to accomplish on the economy have accelerated faster than his ability to do so. But beyond that, things are a little murky.

It's only Murky to Nate because he's wearing ideological blinders filtered through the media.  Ask anyone associated with the Tea Party and they'll tell you the stimulus bill was their first wakeup call.  The orgy of spending to start off total Democratic rule woke a lot of us up, and we started getting educated.

 
Here's one example.  Call is a point of light among thousands. This is the sitemeter for 24thstate in 2008.  I averaged 1300-1400 visitors/month as I wrote two years ago.  And in February I jumped up to 2200 visits because of the tea party on the Arch steps.

Now I'm just one little blog in Missouri.  If you looked at the sitemeters of other tea party affiliated blogs across the country - you'll see the same results.  It wasn't just the fall off of the honeymoon - it was recognition early on that Obama wasn't who he promised, and the beginnings of the resolve to do something about it.

That's clear from my 2008 sitemeter, but let's look at 2009.

 

February looks mighty different in this graph, despite it being the best month of the 12 previous.  Here we see another jump in April, coinciding with the Tax Day Tea Party which brought out over 1,000,000 people nationwide to complain about the spending.  This was the real start of the influence of the Tea Party movement.  The people who came out started talking to their friends and neighbors, sharing their thoughts, and as the media attacked us, the awareness of the Tea Parties grew.  From May-August, you see a a doubling then another doubling of traffic of regular traffic. This wasn't just healthcare. It was Sotomayor followed by Gate followed by Cap and Trade and then followed by Healthcare.

Local tea party groups brought attention to stories that weren't available to the average voter through the mainstream media. The grassroots nature of what we were doing led to a lot of personal conversations, increased blog traffic, and eventually, disapproval of what Obama/Pelosi/Reid were planning to take the country.  As awareness grew, so did disapproval.

Robin Carnahan/America Votes RoundUp

I'm on Dana Radio in a few moments.  Here's what we have so far on the Carnahan/America Votes/LCV coordination story.

Paula Hodges, Missouri State Political Director for America Votes, worked in Sec State office.

Carnahan Chief of Staff and Campaign Manager Mindy Mazur ran America Votes Missouri. 

Third Carnahan staffer working at America Votes (scrubs online profile after story runs).

Carnahan campaign/staff and America Votes in Pictures. 

FiredUpMissouri publishes and credits anti-Blunt stories before they exist. 

LCV ads target Blunt for Senate race, prove coordination.

Fake Letters To Newspapers A Misdemeanor In California

Looks like Mike Dalton dodged a bullet.  Late last year I reported on the false letters that were to be used to bolster the case for e911 services in Jefferson County.

Forefront Organizing recognized that Martin's editorial was a danger.  Their response, was to write up a couple of Letters to the Editor, and ask Brenda Shular to find people "not offically connected to 911" who would sign their names to the letters, and forward them to the Leader. 

Mike Dalton, through Forefront Organizing, forwarded two letters to Brenda Shular and asked her to find shills to put their signatures on the fake letters.  This was part of the media strategy, supposedly written by self-professed Marxist Glenn Burleigh, now head of MO Acorn.

It's a good thing the Dalton boys didn't try to pull this trick in California.  From Patterico, we see this fun fact about the laws in California being strictly against such trickery and malfeasance.

"California Penal Code section 538a states:

Every person who signs any letter addressed to a newspaper with the name of a person other than himself and sends such letter to the newspaper, or causes it to be sent to such newspaper, with intent to lead the newspaper to believe that such letter was written by the person whose name is signed thereto, is guilty of a misdemeanor."

Whew!  Talk about your close calls.  We never did hear whether these letters were published, but we do know the blatant attempt to sway the public with a false letter writing campaign was part and parcel of the organizing campaign run by former SEIU employee Mike Dalton.

It's almost as if you can't trust these guys.

League Ads Specifically Targeted Blunt For Senate Race

Following up on the bombshells that Robin Carnahan's Secretary of State staff, including her former Chief of Staff were involved in coordinating third party attacks against Roy Blunt, I wanted to add the context of how political reporters saw the ads and the LCV press release.

Keep in mind the LCV is partnered with America Votes, the new vehicle for coordinating progressive infrastructure in elections.  More on that in later posts, but let's take a look at what LCV claimed they were doing (seeking to influence Blunt's committee vote), with what they really did (run ads outside Blunt's district, including television ads in St Louis and Kansas City).

Ben Smith gets the first swipe, initially noting that Roy Blunt is running for the Senate.

An interesting new spot the League of Conservation Voters is running in Missouri, attacking Rep. Roy Blunt, the former Republican whip running for Senate from Missouri.

The ad attacks Blunt's votes against "clean energy" bills and his fundraising from "big oil" as unpatriotic.

Ben knew what was going on.  The LCV was taking swipes at a Republican candidate for Senator, and he comes out and says it.  This first ad was followed by more attacks on Blunt and a followup attack on Mike Rogers of Michigan.  This second round was said to be focused on the home districts of the Republicans.  That may have been the case for Rogers, but it certainly wasn't for Blunt. I'll show you in a minute.  

A second round of attacks occurred in May, and the New York Times Greenwire says the same thing - it's about the Senate race.   

Both Barrow and Ross do not currently face strong re-election challenges -- either from their own party or from the GOP -- but both have also been identified as potential targets by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Blunt, meanwhile, is campaigning for the U.S. Senate in what is likely to be one of the more closely watched and competitive races in the country this year.

This May round is interesting because it includes two Blue Dog Democrats on the Energy committee... and Roy Blunt.  The LCV even tells us who is behind it all:  VoteVets, LCV and America's Building Trades Unions (it's the AFL-CIO).  Those three disparate groups are united by two things - their love of all things progressive, and of course, they fall under the umbrella of the coordinating entity known as America Votes.

So what we see is a series of attacks started in April that roll into May, and are then continued by US Action in August, which is another section of the America Votes groups, and whose Missouri affiliate, Missouri ProVote, is heavily involved with State Voices, also an America Votes partner. 

We then come to the third attack on Roy Blunt by the LCV (and allies), the "Stain" ads that aired at the end of the year.  These ads go after several Republicans, but Blunt is of course front and center, again.  In fact, if you go through the LCV YouTube Channel, what strikes you is the number of times they go after Blunt, who is not running in the House, but announced he was running for the Senate early in 2009.

What are we to think?  The LCV claims these ad campaigns were about Blunt's House Vote, and not his Senate run, but political reporters weren't buying it.  In response to Blunt's criticism, the LCV points to other politicians they were attacking, but only Blunt came in for a sustained, year-long campaign in which every initiative added Blunt.

But that's not the kicker.  Do you know how we know the LCV was lying, and this was a coordinated attack on Blunt?  It's simple - every other Congressman, including the two Blue Dog Democrats, had the ads run in their home districts.  The Blunt attack ads were run state wide, including St Louis and Kansas City, as early as the April run.  Jo Mannies to the rescue!

But a League spokesman said the ad buy -- which so far is close to $100,000 (hefty for Missouri) -- is aimed at Blunt's current job, not his hoped-for-future one.

The ad is running on TV stations in St. Louis, Kansas City and Blunt's home turf in Springfield, Mo., said league spokesman Josh McNeil. The TV ad is to be accompanied by Internet ads and a direct-mail campaign. 

According to the League's own spokesman, the ads were run in cities out of Blunt's home district.  How exactly does running ads in St Louis supposed to aim at Blunt's current job?  Other statements make the claim ads were about energy votes on committee, but that makes no sense either.  Running television ads is crazy expensive, and no issues organization in their right mind would run ads out of a district in the hope that they could generate pressure on a congressman.  And to think Blunt would do it?  Running ads against Blunt made no fiscal sense for the House vote.  And to target him three times in the year was not only excessive, but showed their true intentions.  The League was dancing the fine line between breaking the law and stretching it by running ads and claiming it was about Blunt's energy vote.  If that truly was the issue, why the coordinated action throughout the rest of the year?  Why was Blunt singled out of all the Republican congressman (and dozens of Democrats) who voted against cap-and-trade and health care?

We're left with the truth, which is the LCV wanted the ads to be about the Senate race.  They added Blunt in every volley because they saw wanted to help Carnahan's election campaign.  And while Robin kept a low profile all year and carefully managed her image, Blunt was forced to answer questions from the press about those ads. It would have been a clever strategy in any other year. 

Despite the fact that the strategy failed and Carnahan knows she's a year behind, the question still remains.  How much input did Mindy Mazur and Paula Hodges have into the decisions to attack Blunt?  More important, was there any direct coordination for television, radio, and direct mail buys?  Who made the decisions on who to target, provided the data, and made the recommendations to the League of Conservation Voters and US Action?

National groups don't understand local market advertising.  They get help from someone. Was that someone the data arm of America Votes, ISSI?  And if so, what was Mindy's role in the year she worked as the Missouri state director for America Votes?  Was her job to plan out Robin's Senate run with the national progressive organizations?

And for me personally, how did the Post Dispatch miss such an easy story?  Why did Dave Catanese challenge Roy Blunt on his pointing out the too-good-to-be-true attacks that would run to over $750,000 in the course of a year?  How could these reporters have missed the connections?  Or did they never plan on looking?

And the story on Mindy Mazur isn't done.  Am I going to have to break that, too?

  

Russ Carnahan Money Bomb On Last Day Of The Year?

The campaign finance reports for came out today.  I'm so glad they're online now.  Makes the data super fast to analyze.

I was here in the office, so I real quick glanced through the Martin/Carnahan race.  Russ outraised Ed Martin, but in a very strange way.  The first thing you notice is that Martin beat Carnahan in the individual contributions list.  That's a strong sign of support in an anti-incumbent year.  Russ has something like 65% of his contributions from PACs (much higher than the total of Roy Blunt, which led the Post Dispatch to report on Blunt's total), but the stranger thing is how much money came in the last three days of the reporting period.

$31,550 dollars came into Russ Carnahan from individual contributions from December 29-31, 2009  That's a ton of dough on the last three days, and either he was burning up the phones, or he was sending bike messengers out in the bitter cold.

$43,100 came into his campaign from PAC contributions in the last three days from December 29-31.  That too is a lot of dough, and it makes the story curiouser.  It also shows how desperate he was to get ahead.

$74,650 came in the last three days of the quarter, almost a third of his total.  Was it his birthday?  Did he throw a party and not tell anyone?  Was he looking at his numbers and realizing he couldn't afford to get beat in fundraising twice in a row?

I'll tell you this.  When you're asking for money, it doesn't always come in on time, but it has to be received by the 31st to count in this quarter.  A great example is the St Louisans for Better Government PAC, which gave $2500 to Russ back on August 5th.  Russ reported it on August 12th.  It took a week to get to him and get deposited.  How did he raise so much money so fast?  That should be fun to follow up with and compare.  I've got a group of moms dying to get at those numbers.  I hope they all match up.  It's a really bad idea to count pledges or checks that didn't arrive on the quarter before. Goes against the whole transparency and honest government ethic.  But let's talk about that in three months.  No matter what his reports, the next quarter is going to be tougher to raise money for ol' Rubberstamp.  He can't go to the well too many times before his donors start wondering why he's always in a panic come the last day.