Vote Hope—a 527 –for Obama—seems he has his own 527 surrogates.

[rodeodance]

Vote Hope—a 527 –for Obama—seems he has his own 527 surrogates.




Several threads about Hillary and 527’s this am and subsequent name-calling, leave the party, ect
Some calling this swiftboating by Hillary.

I am not for 527’s but it does seem both candidates have these surrogates.


January 22, 2008

California PAC gears up for Obama

Obama in Nevada moved away from his criticisms of outside money flowing into the political process, and now a California group appears to be gearing up to supplement his ground game there, according to an email forwarded by a reader.

Vote Hope, a group with a PAC and 527, founded by Steve Phillips, emailed supporters today with a help-wanted, announcing that they're "fired up to win California for Obama!" The email suggests that the organizing will be done through another group of which Phillips, son-in-law of the Democratic mega-donors Herb and Marion Sandler, is president, PowerPAC.

From the email:

With Election Day fast approaching, we wanted to let you know about a great opportunity to support Obama and get paid! On February 5th, PowerPAC, an organization supporting Barack Obama, will be hiring organizers to help turn out the vote. Here is the job description:

Organizers are responsible for:
• Calling Voters in specific locations and reminding them to vote.
• Providing Voters rides to th eir polling location.
• Checking polling locations to make sure supporters have voted.


http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/California_PAC_gears_up_for_Obama.html

[Johnny__Motown]

1. I'm not sure that this apparent "turn out the vote effort" is the same as a 527 slime machine

[mrreowwr_kittty]

2. I guess it is when they're not voting for Clinton. nt

[rinsd]

3. Another article about Vote Hope

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | July 21, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The website has the look and feel of Barack Obama's official page, and the headline says it all: "Bank it for Barack." The site asks for contributions of up to $5,000 per person to help the Illinois Democrat win the crucial state of California.

The effort employs a tactic that could transform the way campaign-related money is collected and spent in presidential campaign s .

The group sponsoring the Web page is not Obama's campaign, but an independent political action committee called Vote Hope 2008, which says that its goal is to help Obama become president and that it will spend $2 million to get out the vote for him.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/07/21/pac_tries_new_tactic_to_boost_obama_run/

Link to their FEC report for contributions/expenditures up thru 12/31/07 (reports for Jan are due today I think)

http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+C00433227

http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00433227

[K Gardner]

6. Mmmm.. a GOTV for California??

[rinsd]

8. Probably.

We have to wait a few days before the FEC reports for Jan are ready.

But it appears they spent only $11K on Obama's behalf in 2007 while taking in nearly $300K.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.asp?strID=C00433227&cycle=2008

[XemaSab]

4. You've got to be kidding

The focus of this group appears to be getting minorities to get out and vote for Obama.

http://www.votehope2008.org/

It's hardly a smear machine.

[rodeodance]

10. so?--its outside $$

[lapfog_1]

5. Hey, good catch there....

That's really damming... er, oh wait,

It's from a month ago, about a 527 organization which spun up for, what, two weeks, to support Obama in the CA primary.

How did that work out for them?

And, more important, how do you know that Obama even approved of this?

And, even more important, who the hell cares?

[scheming daemons]

7. Not all 527s are the same....

A 527 dedicated to getting more young people to the polls = NOBLE CAUSE

a 527 dedicated to generating smear campaigns about an opponent = DESPICABLE CAUSE



If you can't see the difference, you're a lost cause.

[rodeodance]

9. you ASSume Hillary's will smear??

[Exilednight]

11. No need assume, she's already done it.

[Occam Bandage]

13. No, their stated goal is to go negative against Obama. No assumptions.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. That is a parody of a distinction that you draw

I do not like 527's that spring up sudenly to help a candidate win an election and then melt away when the election season ends. For that reason I do not like the talked about pro-Hillary 527 either. I feel differently about 527's that represent ongoing membership organizations like Unions and advocacy groups like MoveOn.org which plan to stick around and which are accountable to heat from their members if they screw up in how they operate during an election. I feel a little better about temporary 527's that are open about who is supporting them compared to those that hide behind a veil until the finacial reporting data comes due, usually long after it is of any use to anyone to know.

If all candidates benefit from 527's during a campaign however I am less likely to come down on one or another for doing so while their competition "profits" from them when convenient to them.

You didn't use the word "swiftboating" in your post that I am replying to, but others have in regards to this new proposed pro-Clinton 527. You did however use "smear". I reject that characterization, at least in the abstract until I see what ads are actually produced by this 527 against Obama. I do not equate negative advertising with swiftboating, or "smearing"; those are specific inherently dishonest subsets of the larger category of negative advertising. Every political campaign "goes negative" some of the time. It is often called contrasting positions, or thowing light on the weaknesses of an opponent. It is often called raising issues for the public to consider.

Obama was quick to throw NAFTA against Clinton in Ohio for example, even though she never cast a vote on it herself. That was "an attack" - we can argue about whether it was a fair attack or not, but it was a negative attack on Hillary regardless. None of us have seen the supposedly negative ads this new 527 are rumored to be planning - but I won't call it below the belt unless it is literally shown to be below the belt.

[Occam Bandage]

12. That's pretty clearly a GOTV operation, not a SBVT-style slimeball group like Clinton's.