Story of Cindy McCain's disgraced charity gains attention

I'm not so arrogant to think that my story from last week finally prompted the mainstream media to pay attention to a huge story they have been ignoring... but I am just righteous enough to remind politicians that if they are going to brag about their philanthropic efforts starting a charity... they should be compelled to tell the rest of the story if it involves you getting your drugs from a charity that you put at risk:

A doctor with McCain's medical charity who supplied her with prescriptions for the drugs lost his license and never practiced again. The charity, the American Voluntary Medical Team, eventually had to be closed in the wake of the controversy. Her husband was forced to admit publicly that he was absent much of the time she was having problems and was not aware of them.

"So many lives were damaged by this," said Jeanette Johnson, whose husband, John Max Johnson, surrendered his medical license. "A lot of good people. Doctors who volunteered their time. My husband. I cannot begin to tell you how painful it was. We moved far away to start over."

McCain's addiction also embroiled her with one of her charity's former employees, Tom Gosinski, who reported her drug use to the DEA and provided prosecutors with a contemporaneous journal that detailed the effects of her drug problems.

But if you still think my outrage is over the line.. please... keep emailing me.

30 fundraisers in 60 days

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will appear at around 30 fund-raising events in the next two months leading up to Election Day – about one every two days on average, officials with Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign said today.

Yet, no announcements on whether or not she ever plans to answers questions during a press conference.

Did she really steal drugs from her own charity?

Cindy McCain looked so nice in her speech at the GOP convention tonight.

It's hard to believe they featured the story of how she started her own nonprofit called the American Voluntary Medical Team, but they left out the part of the story where she was investigated by the DEA for stealing drugs to feed her addiction to prescription painkillers.

I believe she wore red that day. She granted semi-exclusive interviews to one TV station and three daily newspaper reporters in Arizona, tearfully recalling her addiction, which came about after painful back and knee problems and was exacerbated by the stress of the Keating Five banking scandal that had ensnared her husband. To make matters worse, McCain admitted, she had stolen the drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, her own charity, and had been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The local press cooed over her hard-luck story. One of the four journalists spoon-fed the story -- Doug McEachern, then a reporter for Tribune Newspapers, now a columnist with the Arizona Republic (and, it must be added, normally much more acerbic) -- wrote this rather typical lead:

"She was blonde and beautiful. A rich man's daughter who became a politically powerful man's wife. She had it all, including an insidious addiction to drugs that sapped the beauty from her life like a spider on a butterfly."

Hmmm. But that's old news, right?

McCain's major donor tips off VP pick early

As the political world waits to hear who McCain will pick for his VP... it appeared that much discussed front-runners like Pawlenty and Romney were out. After initial reports showed that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was still in Alaska, some reporters thought she wouldn't be at the big high noon rally in Dayton, Ohio.

But then... reports surfaced of a second plane from Alaska to Dayton... and who owns that second plane? None other than Clay Lacy.

Major donors always ruin everything...

UPDATE: Political junkies may enjoy this article I found from earlier this year "Sparks Fly Over Palin Fundraising Role,"

Fundraising goal finally met for Democrats convention

The Denver committee responsible for raising $40.6 million in funding for the upcoming Democratic National Convention received a lot of negative press earlier this summer when it feared they would miss the goal.

Well... it looks like they really turned on the juice this past month. This week it was announced that the group met its goal.

Political consultant Eric Sondermann said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper should be credited with helping the committee garner the funds deemed necessary to adequately support next week's convention in the Colorado city, The Denver Post said Wednesday.

"I think you have to give credit where credit is due," Sondermann said. "(Denver Mayor John) Hickenlooper has been tenacious about this and never gave up, even when a lot of people figured we would have to make this a success even if it has to be scaled down."

The group's successful efforts come more than a month after it reported it was $11 million short of meeting its June deadline for DNC funding, the Post reported.

The mayor said that the rate of fundraising increased 2 to 3 times in the last four weeks.

For an unpopular guy, Bush sure is one heckuva fundraiser

From the Los Angeles Times:

"His approval rating is hovering about the 30% mark in most polls, about as low as Harry Truman's back in the day.

But President Bush is still a muscular draw on the campaign trail, raking in roughly $70 million so far this year, according to a story on the president's fundraising prowess by the Associated Press. Among the hard-core, said California Democratic consultant Bill Carrick, "He's a bigger fundraising draw than [Republican John] McCain."

Tucked from view, often in private homes at events closed to the media, Bush has raised money for the Republican National Committee as well as House candidates in safely Republican districts. At one event, in Napa's exclusive St. Helena territory, Bush managed to raise $850,000 in 90 minutes -- almost $10,000 a minute (notcounting drive time)."

Some estimate that he has raised almost a billion dollars for the GOP during his two terms in the White House. That's unbelievable.

10,000 donors warned not to attempt "swift boat" attacks

There is no question that scurrilous attacks by the infamous 527 group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth helped sink Senator John Kerry’s presidential bid in 2004. However, this year a new group is warning conservative donors that any attempt to use the same "Swift Boat" tactics will be meet with an aggressive response.

Led by Tom Matzzie (pictured here), the group Accountable America is planning to send 10,000 top conservative donors a warning letter next week. According to the New York Times:

“We want to stop the Swift Boating before it gets off the ground,” said Mr. Matzzie, who described his effort as “going for the jugular.”

The warning letter is intended as a first step, alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.

The group is also hoping to be able to respond if an outside conservative group broadcasts a television advertisement attacking Senator Barack Obama, or another Democratic candidate, by running commercials exposing the donors behind the advertisements.

Of particular interest are major GOP donors "including Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino mogul, and Mel Sembler, a former ambassador and real estate magnate, both major donors to Freedom’s Watch, a conservative group.

It remains to be seen how successful Accountable America will be since outside political groups organized as 501(c)4 entities do not have to disclose the names of their donors.

In fact, Ed Patru, a spokesman for Freedom’s Watch told the New York Times that if donors feel too scared to fund deceptive or slanderous attack ads - his group is more than willing to continue shielding them from public scrutiny.

Hillraisers with huge egos

Proving once again that major donors usually don't give a damn about the mission or the cause... they are more addicted to the power and recognition that goes with a major donor's ego.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, met with a group of 25 prominent supporters and fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Clinton at a private home in Westchester County, NY. The group included several so-called "Hillraisers," each of whom have raised in excess of $100,000 for Clinton's failed primary campaign. The meeting was repeatedly sought by the Hillary supporters and is at least the second such meeting between backers of Clinton and the McCain campaign.

An organizer of the meeting, Amy Siskind, said that the pro-Hillary groups represented pledged to help deliver, "hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of votes," to McCain if the groups find areas of agreement between themselves and his campaign.

...oh yeah... no way they can get, "maybe millions of votes."

The most interesting quirk of Clinton's fundraising dilemma

Remember last year when Hillary Clinton was the presumptive nominee and everyone was talking about how she was getting donors to max out for both the primary and the general election at the same time?

What amazes me is that while she has sooooo much debt - she is also awash in cash that is restricted to use only on the general election. According to Greg Gordon at McClatchy Newspapers:

"Clinton's latest report to the Federal Election Commission showed an April 30 cash balance of nearly $29.7 million, but that was deceiving. FEC spokesman George Smaragdis said the figure included $6 million in primary-season cash and $23.7 million in donations designated for the fall general election campaign. None of the general election donations can be used to retire debts accrued during the primary season.

Clinton's biggest problem, of course, is the $21 million in IOUs, which include $11,425,000 she is known to have lent her campaign through the first week of May and possibly millions of dollars more in yet-to-be-disclosed loans during her last-ditch primary campaign efforts."

I guess political nuts will be debating for the next couple weeks what she plans to do with that money. Will she give it to help Obama? Will she keep it and use it for another run in 2012?

For me, the lesson is that donors who give restricted gifts are short sighted and almost never really get what they think they are paying for. I've written before that I think it is selfish for donors who demand their gifts be used for restricted purposes are selfish and their help is counter-productive.

In this case, I guess the donors didn't have a choice if they wanted to give a maximum contribution it needed to be split between primary and general. But it certainly is ironic. I wonder if these donors can ask for a refund?

Obama announces Sánchez as chair of Latino fundraising

The Barack Obama for America Campaign has announced the appointment of Francisco Sánchez, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Transportation, as the National Chair of Latino/Hispanic Fundraising. Sánchez is also an advisor on Latin American policy for the campaign.

In this capacity, Sanchez will co-chair the Obama Hispanic Leadership Council with Illinois Attorney Manny Sánchez. The newly formed Council will work with the national finance team to increase the enthusiasm and fundraising efforts for the Obama campaign in the Latino community.

Top McCain fundraiser resigns

One of the McCain campaign's most important fundraisers resigned as national finance co-chair. Former Rep. Thomas G. Loeffler, a Texan who is among the McCain campaign’s most important advisers, resigned over lobbying entanglements, a Republican source told Politico on Sunday.

Loeffler was part of the rescue mission for the campaign last year after its spending badly outstripped its fundraising, leading to a contraction of the campaign that left McCain running a bare-bones operation in the lead-up to his breakout New Hampshire primary victory.

Loeffler’s departure followed a report this weekend by Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff that Loeffler’s “lobbying firm has collected nearly $15 million from Saudi Arabia since 2002 and millions more from other foreign and corporate interests, including a French aerospace firm seeking Pentagon contracts.”

Apparently the "maverick" presidential candidate didn't want to look bad in the media... but he has no problems appearing with President Bush at a fundraiser in Phoenix on May 27th.

British Prime Minister looks to US for fundraising tips

When Gordon Brown visited the United States last week he met with all three presidential candidates. Why, you might ask?

It appears he is looking for help "in wiping out the lead that the Tories have established over Labour in the dash for political cash."

The Prime Minister has told The Times his party is examining the fundraising success of the two Democratic presidential candidates, both of whom regularly generate more than $1 million (£500,000) a day through small donations on the internet.

“We are watching closely how they’ve managed to extend their reach to new groups of supporters and donors,” he said during a trip to Washington last week. “The political systems are not the same and there are legal constraints about asking for money in unsolicited e-mails. But we’re certainly interested in what we can learn.” Mr Brown, a keen student of American politics, met both of the Democrat contenders and John McCain, the Republican nominee. According to latest figures, Mr Obama raised more than $40 million last month – the bulk of it online, via a donor base of more than one million individuals.

Oiy. One more bad habit we can export to the rest of the world.

Donor envelope stuffed with feces

How bad has fundraising gotten the for National Republican Congressional Committee?

The New York Times details the steps being taken by Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole. The 58-year-old is a year into his term as chairman of the N.R.C.C.

Apparently, when he got there, things were pretty bad.

Many conservative activists have become so dissatisfied with the party’s heresies, particularly on immigration and government spending, that as Cole’s staff took over, the committee’s fund-raising pleas were being ignored and, on at least one occasion, returned in an envelope stuffed with feces.

Ewwwww. That's nasty. I've seen angry donors send back lots of "crap" in those business reply envelopes... but never actual crap!

Worse still, the National Republican Congressional Committee recently discovered, during an internal audit, accounting fraud so extensive that it had to call in the F.B.I., which is now investigating embezzlement by the committee’s former treasurer.

Congressman's daughter paid $270,000 fundraising commission

Conservative bloggers, like the two numbskulls who run Majority Accountability Project, have been all over the story of how a Democratic Congressman's daughter was paid seemingly large sums of money to fundraise on his behalf.

From Newsday.com:

Molly Bishop has made nearly $270,000 since 2002 fundraising for her father, Rep. Timothy Bishop, and has broadened her clientele since 2006 and earned $164,000 working for other local Democrats, according to state and federal records.

Bishop, 29, who started working as a part-time fundraiser in her father's first campaign in 2002, billed Brookhaven Supervisor Brian Foley's campaign $118,000 and the Brookhaven Democratic Party $35,000 and has worked for a half dozen other local candidates, according to reports filed with the State Board of Elections and the Federal Election Commission.

Other bloggers have long chronicled the potential ethical problems of hiring family members as lobbyists, but the subject of whether family members should be paid to fundraise for candidates is only now gaining traction.

Last year, Mitt Romney's campaign got attention from this blog (and others) when they paid students who raised at least $1,000 for the former presidential candidate a 10% commission on all money raised.

I think it's great that people want to look more closely at politicians who pay relatives a commission to fundraise on their behalf.

Congressman to attend nonprofit conference

A reader just forwarded me an email that Representative Robin Hayes (R-NC) co-chair of the House Philanthropy Caucus will be attending an event organized by the Nonprofit Federation of the DMA on April 9th.

The organization is hosting the 2008 Critical Issues Impacting Nonprofits & Fundraising conference in Washington, DC. They also advertise "nonprofit legal luminaries" including:

* Errol Copilevitz of Copilevitz & Canter, LLC
* Jack B. Siegel of Charity Governance Consulting LLC (and blogger)
* Chip Watkins of Chamberlain & Bean

Also in the line-up: Jerry Lease from the US Postal Service, Evelyn Brody of Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology and our co-chairs Geoff Peters and Charlie Nave. The full day conference plans to cover everything from how to complete the new Form 990 to what is lurking in state legislatures.

If you live want to see the agenda, go here.

"The B in Bush stands for big bucks"

Despite an approval rating that hovers around 30%, President Bush has spoken at 11 Republican fundraising events in the last 11 weeks, bringing in over $27 million... that's a pace of $346,000 per day according to the Los Angeles Times.

On Tuesday, President Bush was in Jacksonville, where he talked about free trade with dockworkers. That was the official reason for the day trip.

But the event was sandwiched between two unofficial reasons: a luncheon in Jacksonville, where 51 people contributed $685,500 to the Republican National Committee, and a reception in Palm Beach, where 49 guests were expected to donate $762,000 to the party's main bank account.

Despite media reports that John McCain trails in fundraising, the RNC and DNC are important campaign tools because there are no limits on contributions to the party itself. Many people might be surprised to read that the parties are in much different shape:

At the end of February, the party had $21.7 million in cash on hand, compared with the Democratic National Committee's balance of $3 million, said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

No wonder the DNC doesn't want to pay for Florida to hold another primary!

McCain starts 16 city fundraising blitz

Now that John McCain has the Republican presidential nomination wrapped up, he is focusing on narrowing the enormous fundraising gap between himself and the Democrats.

On Thursday and Friday of this past week, he held fundraisers in Naples, Fla., Atlanta and Phoenix at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. He has others set for St. Louis, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Southern California, Salt Lake City, Denver and Las Vegas.

The Naples event on Thursday featured a number of leading real estate developers and private equity managers as well as Facundo Bacardi, chairman of rum maker Bacardi Ltd.

The St. Louis fundraiser March 10 will include August Busch III, CEO of Anheuser-Busch Cos. McCain's wife, Cindy Hensley McCain, chairs Phoenix-based Hensley & Co., one of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributors in the U.S.

EMC Corp. chairman Joseph Tucci is one of the organizers of McCain's Boston event on March 12.

Cigna Inc. CEO Edward Hanway and Carl Buchholz, managing partner of Washington lobbying and law firm Blank Rome LLP, are among the co-chairs of the March 13 Philadelphia fundraiser.

I guess when you don't have 1 million individuals supporting your campaign, you need to go out and find some big corporate backers.

Clinton uses "monstergate" for fundraising pitch

The Clinton campaign has shown an impressive ability to turn insults around quickly into fundraising pitches. From today's Washington Post:

Mere moments after foreign policy advisor Samantha Power resigned for calling Clinton a "monster," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe sent out an e-mail far and wide alerting anyone with money to make a contribution now -- "even as little as $5" -- to "stop the Obama attacks."

"Just one day after Senator Obama promised to begin attacking Hillary, a senior Obama advisor has called her a 'monster,'" McAuliffe wrote, adding in bold letters for emphasis: "That's right -- a 'monster.'"

Readers of this blog will recall that Clinton did the same thing last July when a fashion reporter commented on Clinton's display of cleavage during a Senate floor debate, the campaign fired off this reply.

Obama's got over 1 million donors

This is a clip from an email Barack Obama sent out this afternoon:

But today I want to share another staggering number: supporters like you donated more than $55 million to this campaign in the month of February.

That's a humbling achievement, and I am very grateful for your support.

No campaign has ever raised this much in a single month in the history of presidential primaries. But more important than the total is how we did it -- more than 90% of donations were $100 or less, and more than 385,000 new donors in February pushed us past our goal of more than 1,000,000 people owning a piece of this campaign.

I think we can all agree we are past the point where comparing totals matters, but if you like horse race coverage (or if you are an obsessive fundraiser), Hillary announced last week that she raised $35 million in the month.

Hundreds of thousands presumed stolen from Republican fundraising arm

As if the Republicans aren't having enough problems raising money to help candidates defend themselves in the upcoming election, the New York Times has more details today of an unfolding scandal at the NRCC:

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen from the chief fund-raising arm of House Republicans, according to party officials who described the findings of emergency internal audits.

The financial records of the group, the National Republican Congressional Committee, may also have been falsified for several years, Republican officials said. The campaign committees of several Republican lawmakers may also have been victims of a scam that is now under criminal investigation by the F.B.I.

The audits were ordered after the abrupt departure several weeks ago of Christopher J. Ward, who had been treasurer of the committee. Lawmakers said that Mr. Ward, who served a similar role for dozens of individual members of Congress and their political committees, is the focus of the F.B.I.’s criminal investigation.

There are more details over the TPM Muckraker and the The Hill.