Interesting admission from the NY Times:
The public may be surprised to learn these results, but Democratic Party leaders are not. In getting behind the badly needed drive to end soft money as a device for buying candidates and favors, the Democrats knew they would have considerable catching up to do to broaden their base for the new campaign world of limited hard money. The one category the Democrats led in was among fat-cat donors, with the party garnering 92 percent of the contributions of $1 million or more in 2002, the last year soft money was permitted. No wonder Terry McAuliffe, the Democrats’ soft-money maestro, is emphasizing an urgent new direct-mail effort to enlist many more smaller donors.
Amusing.
Moe Lane
So, essentially, McCain held up a big sausage grinder, and all the Democrats all went over to it, scratched their heads for a while, dropped their pants, inserted their primary sex organs into the hole* and urgently motioned for McCain to hit the on switch.
The man must have felt like Bugs Bunny in that mobster episode: how he kept from suddenly breaking out in maniacal laughter at random intervals, I’ll never know**.
Moe
*Yes, the metaphor requires male sexual organs in order to work. Sorry about that.
**The funny part is that, every so often, I come across somebody calling for the Democrats to draft McCain for President in ’04. -After- all of this has happened, mind you.
Great googly moogly.
David Perron
But…but…the Democratic Party is the party of the working man! This cannot be true!
[/gumble]
Andrew Lazarus
Apparently it’s been true since the New Deal. Many of the Democratic supporters see themselves as too poor to contribute at all.
Moe Lane
“Many of the Democratic supporters see themselves as too poor to contribute at all.”
Which is, of course, false. Of course, should the Democratic Party ever successfully convince them that they’re well off enough to contribute to the Party, why, half of the rhetoric goes up in smoke…
Oh, my. One does hope that the GOP leadership can come up with a suitable way of showing their appreciation: McCain’s good at this.
Moe
Andrew Lazarus
Moe, up until the integration of the Christian Right into the GOP, the Dems had a much better organized field operation (seems like forever ago). So I guess they had more people donating their labor.
What I really wanted to remark is that this discrepancy isn’t new.
David Perron
I’m not a bit surprised to hear the Democrats were once much better organized than the Republicans. What really surprises me is they are not now, accusations of a VRWC notwithstanding.
wallster
If you think that the Democrats are truly the party of the rich, you are obviously delusional.
Dems fight for higher minimum wages, social safety nets, medical coverage for the poor, etc. Republicans fight for dividend and capital gains tax cuts, and a repeal of the estate tax. If the Dems are the party of the rich, and the Reps are the party of the working man, then both parties are acting in direct opposition to its constituents best economic interests.
Talk all you want about 92% of $1m donors being Democratic. This is true because the party relied on altruistic millionaires for funding, as its core constituency, the bottom half of earners, can’t afford to give $100 or $200.
I agree that the campaign finance reforms don’t make any sense for Dems – what the hell is the sense of raising the minimum contribution to $2,000? So the rich can have even more sway over politics?
John Cole
My solution is to get rid of all the campaign finance laws and simply have full disclosure.
I am sorry it ruffles your feathers that some people are allowed and capable to contribute 2k- they are, after all, the ones paying the most to keep this country running.
David Perron
So, in other words, wallster, the Democratic party is the party of the altruistic rich, while the Republican party is the party of the greedy rich. The utility of making party distinctions along lines of wealth is suddenly much less useful.
One could easily make a different distinction that’s equally valid, such as that Democrats are the party of old (altruistic) money, while Republicans are the party of new (actually trying to generate new wealth) money, but there’s really no basis for that one, either. But you see how that works, no?
Dean
But, I thought that all the rednecks and country bumpkins and hicks are Republicans. (You know, the ones running around in white sheets.)
You mean that not only are they benighted fools, but they’re RICH benighted fools?
Wow. Wotta country!
But somewhere along the line, I think there’s a disconnect between those who would claim that the GOP is made up of red-neck know-nothings, and those who would claim that the Dems are the party of the poor.
Reuben
I’m sorry, Dean, but the fact that the republican party has convinced some poor people that it is in their best interest to have no social programs does not porve that the republican party is the party of the poor. Actions are all that counts. And as Wallster said “Dems fight for higher minimum wages, social safety nets, medical coverage for the poor, etc. Republicans fight for dividend and capital gains tax cuts, and a repeal of the estate tax.” That is what you have to look at, not the effectivness of republican misinformation.