RNC Fundraising Underbelly

The D.C. lobbyists have been taking all the blame for the distorted campaigns against the Obama administration... especially health care reforms that would start to bring the insurance industry to heel and benefit millions of U.S. citizens.

But it's not only the lobbyists.... they're just the employed messengers.

The lobbyists are, after all, openly, blatantly, in the pay of big insurance, big pharma, big oil. They don't work for the little guy, the working middle-class.

But, our elected representatives aren't supposed to be paid lobbyists, aren't supposed to act like a big legislative wood-mulcher, taking in principled reform and spitting out dirty chips.

But they are. And we now can see how the GOP is fueling that chipper.... the RNC's marching orders linked to Kevin Huffman's "Tweaking the GOP's fundraising strategy," in today's Washington Post.

The Republican National Committee in its zeal to keep its fund-raising troops in perfect goose-step, gave this presentation at its February RNC Finance Meeting. Here is a page from their 72-page blueprint for fundraising success for the upcoming elections. At it's heart, literally, are the motivating factors to be used to raise money from evidently clueless donors:

The image of a heart usually brings to mind thoughts of love, caring.... warm and fuzzies. But this is a rock-hard heart that divides GOP donors into two classes, the average knee-jerk Joes, and the heavy-hitter big shots, or wanna-be big shots, the major ego-driven donors.

What are the RNC's recommended fund-raising strategies? The number one tactic is "FEAR!!!" Number two? "Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration." And there is the tried and true... SOCIALISM charge. This is so important a tactic, it got a page all to itself:

The red-alert type trumpets a Chicken-Little-sky-is-falling approach .... "Save the country from trending toward Socialism." Woooooo.... the "S" word. And it works too, haven't you noticed?

But perhaps the saddest statement of the GOP fund-raising mindset is the attack mentality of reducing your opponent to an agent of the Evil Empire.... wonder what Ronald Reagan would think of the misuse of that phrase. The GOP is into Evil BIG TIME! You know like the "Axis of Evil." Here are the RNC's evil suggestions:

Obama in white-face as the Joker is something we've seen before... oh yes, as a big placard at the "grass-roots," "spontaneous," Tea Parties. It's a PARTEEEE... but the GOP isn't a party to be proud of.

The Folly of Ferraro Feminism

The touchy subject of feminism, Hillary Clinton and her bitterly disappointed "we-got-robbed" older female supporters are addressed with clear insight by Maureen Tkacik in.... "The Feminine Mistake." (WaPo)

Tkacik muses over a flaw in this generation of women's-rights activists: "They lack a certain bedside manner. At times, a pungent cocktail of indignation and impatience fueling veteran feminists through this primary season has seemed suicidally poisonous.

"Witness Geraldine Ferraro's threat to vote in the general election for John McCain because she found Barack Obama's campaign 'sexist.' (Sweetie, McCain is an antiabortion Republican who has explicitly stated his intention to nominate Supreme Court justices in the mold of John Roberts. He also, incidentally, traded his first wife -- who'd been disfigured by a car accident -- for his second in the matter of a month.)"

All of this unseemly Hillary-supporter rage and whining ignores Obama's against-all-odds historic win, as Tkacik points out, it is "harder in this country to be born a black male than a white female."

A vote for McCain would also keep us mired in Iraq. Feminists should worry about that.... although the young Obama-supporting feminists seem to get it. Tkacik recounts the "soul-shattering story about a man in Basra who beat his daughter to death for forming a crush on a British soldier....."

"Honor killings have long been practiced in Iraq, but they have grown more common as women's rights have been curtailed under the reign of fear imposed by the chaos of the occupation and the puritanism of Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr."

Before acting like vindictive women scorned, perhaps Ferraro and others with similar grudges, should step outside of themselves to view the larger picture. The first African-American presidential candidate who opposed the Iraq war and supports feminist issues, as opposed to supporting the injustices and blows to women's rights spawned by The Decider and carried forward with gusto by McSame.

Hillary feminists.... don't look for progress on her "it's all about me" path. It's not the way forward.