Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

How stupid are these people?

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: They Bought You, They Own You

Open Thread: They Bought You, They Own You

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It’s like borrowing money from your in-laws — once you’ve accepted their generosity, they feel compelled to give you advice on how you’re spending “their” hard-earned cash. The NYTimes chronicles the gradual breakdown of civilities, as “Big Donors Seek Larger Roles in Presidential Campaigns“:

… In an election cycle that is already on track to break spending records, and with few limits on contributions to “super PACs” and other outside groups, big donors have never been more important. No longer satisfied with sitting on the sidelines and writing big checks, many of them are eager to play larger roles in the campaigns.

They expect their views to be heard quickly and their concerns taken seriously, sometimes creating headaches and potential awkwardness for the campaigns and super PACs, which must tend to the contributors and their seemingly endless suggestions and questions.

On one hand, the campaigns and their affiliated groups rely on the financial support and appreciate the occasional insights that come from people who have been successful in other fields.

On the other hand, they find themselves devoting more and more time to stroking donors’ egos, weighing their ideas, and soothing supporters whose panicked phone calls can be prompted by anything from an alarming Twitter post to a small stumble on a morning show.

“Donors are demanding a lot these days, man, and they want answers and they want results, and a lot of them hit the panic button a lot,” said Theresa Kostrzewa, a Republican lobbyist and donor based in North Carolina, who is supporting former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida. “This is a new day. Donors consider a contribution like, ‘Well, wait, I just invested in you. Now I need to have my say; you need to answer to me.’ ”

Referring to the maximum direct donation to a candidate that the Federal Election Commission allows, she described the sentiment as: “I gave $2,700. I’m entitled to 2,700 opinions.”…
As handling concerns from contributors has become a crucial job for campaigns and super PACs, many have devoted at least one person, in part, to donor maintenance. Austin Barbour, a senior adviser to the super PAC that supported former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, said he would regularly receive a flurry of calls from worried donors — “What’s the plan? What are you putting on TV? Why are you doing that? Why are you not saying this?”

But Mr. Barbour, who is now joining Mr. Bush’s campaign, said he was happy to field the complaints: “If they wanted to talk to me for an hour, I’d talk to them for an hour,” he said. “They were the ones who were funding what we were doing, so goodness gracious, the least thing I could do is answer whatever questions they had.”…

One might suspect that the Grey Lady was less worried about “donor input” than about the fact that, in this fallen era, every jumped-up thousandaire feels entitled to copious face time with the candidate. It used to be that an elite coterie of Serious Money Men could handle such matters with discretion, in quiet rooms. In the good old days, you just needed to tongue-bath movers and shakers like… Charles Koch, as described in this long star-struck Forbes piece:

… Q. What are your goals in this election?

A: My view of the political realm, not just now but for many decades, is that the Democrats are taking us down the road to serfdom over the cliff at 100 miles an hour and the Republicans are going around 70 miles an hour. What I want is to reverse the trajectory of this country…

Q. So will this presidential election decide anything? It doesn’t sound like you’re enthusiastic about anybody.

A. My ideal candidates would be Calvin Coolidge or a William Gladstone. I mean, you look at what they did… Look what Calvin Coolidge did. He cut government expenditures in half. Cut tax rates by two- thirds, reduced the national debt by a third and cut unemployment from 12% to 2.4%. Now the only thing I hold against him is he didn’t run again so we got Herbert Hoover, who turned a recession into a great depression with his policies.

Q. You mentioned a white knight. What about Trump?

A. Yeah, I mean, he’s… I’m not the only one person who’s frustrated with what’s going on in both parties. But I would hope there would be somebody who would capture that frustration, and what’s behind that frustration, and do what Calvin Coolidge or William Gladstone did and change the trajectory of the country. Now it’s not likely, because I’ve got to go back to Calvin Coolidge to find somebody who did that. I’ve got to go back to Gladstone in 1846…

The tragedy is that, given his access to the very best health care, this bitter old man is liable to outlive us all, doing his best to destroy the whole planet as he goes.

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    Felanius Kootea

    Ahahahaha! Unfortunately this applies to Dem donors as well. Another reason to get rid of Citizen’s United.

  2. 2.

    goblue72

    Our democracy is doomed. Its almost like after having bought their candidates, donors expect to be able to take that out of their toy box and play with them too.

    Also too – I am totally not surprised that Darth Koch’s Presidential hero is Calvin Coolidge.

  5. 5.

    ShadeTail

    A: My view of the political realm, not just now but for many decades, is that the Democrats are taking us down the road to serfdom over the cliff at 100 miles an hour and the Republicans are going around 70 miles an hour.

    And that’s a problem, because the one holding the lash over the serfs *isn’t him*. We can’t have that, now can we?

  7. 7.

    Petorado

    Contrast Justice Kennedy’s famous line, “We now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,” with “Well, wait, I just invested in you. Now I need to have my say; you need to answer to me.”

    If only lawyers had to learn Latin terms like quid pro quo, they’d understand that corruption is giving a politician money in exchange for improper influence such as “you need to answer to me.”

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    Now the only thing I hold against him is he didn’t run again so we got Herbert Hoover, who turned a recession into a great depression with his policies.

    And what were those policies? Oh, yeah, continuing the exact same policies that Mr. Koch is advocating today: laissez faire economics and balanced budgets. Coolidge was just lucky enough to jump out of the car before it went off the cliff.

  10. 10.

    Not That Guy

    I once met a guy in a bar who said that if we called capitalism by its true name, which is money-ism, people would think about it differently.

    I think he was on to something.

  11. 11.

    Peale

    @Petorado: I guess you could argue that we have honest corruption. Openly spoken about. We’re looking around as people brag about bribery. In many countries, dishonest men and women are supposed to keep quiet about that. Maybe we should call it naive corruption.

  13. 13.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I have been told repeatedly that the RNC would work out the kinks and unite the PAC system into one giant campaign machine. This is why it’s not going to happen. Once you let a rich person donate a million dollars, they expect to have their way with how it’s spent. You know how every single person here has a different opinion of how messaging should work, or what Obama should do in any situation? Blow that up with the egos who’ve never been told ‘no’ and decision makers who have never suffered for being wrong or crazy. Then throw in the grifters who flock to this giant pile of legally unregulated money.

    Citizens United needs to go, and damages our democracy, but thank goodness it’s also self-poisoning.

  16. 16.

    Jay C

    @goblue72:

    I’m wondering if Mr. Koch has ever taken the time to contemplate the fact that the American (indeed, the world’s) economy in the early 21st Century is quite a bit different from what it was in the 1920s?
    Probably not: one thing that probably hasn’t changed much since the Coolidge Administration is that rich assholes will always be… well, rich assholes. Law of nature, I guess.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    Hahahahahahaha

    Coolidge signed into law the Revenue Act of 1924, which reduced the top marginal tax rate from 58% to 46%, as well as personal income tax rates across the board, increased the estate tax and bolstered it with a new gift tax.

  19. 19.

    jl

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    ” Baud/Cracker 2016 ”
    Sounds good to me. All the commenters will demand a say in the campaign.

    Given the ‘Walker product’ I don’t see how whether his campaign staff or his nutcase billionaire funders controlled his campaign could make any difference. I hope the guy is not as much of a dolt and complete nonentity as his campaign indicated, but we all saw and heard what we saw and heard.

  22. 22.

    Ted Mills

    Never forget: the Koch’s faulty pipeline burned a brother and sister alive while their father looked on helpless. And *nothing* happened to them.

  24. 24.

    ThresherK

    Isn’t this a bit backwards? Looks like they started the business relationship by arguing over price, then established that Scotty was a hoor.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    Reading up on Calvin Coolidge on Wikipedia. All in all, as Republican presidents go, Koch could have picked worse.

    Oh, and according to wiki, state and local governments picked up the slack of reduced federal spending — their budgets grew considerably.

  26. 26.

    Benw

    @Roger Moore: you’re telling me that Koch’s version of history is inaccurate? No way.

    They want a president to drive the country into a depression while the enormously rich skim off the money? Oh, man, they were SO close with W.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    @jl:

    All the commenters will demand a say in the campaign.

    I have learned that the act of patronage is not as easy as it seemed. I have new respect for the wheelers and dealers in our political system.

  30. 30.

    NickM

    Free people who elect their leaders in a democracy cannot be serfs. Serve serve an aristocratic class. It kills me to see Lord Koch calling democracy serfdom and service to the oligarchy freedom. Perfectly backwards Orwellianisms.

  31. 31.

    BGinCHI

    Gladstone opposed what conservatives were trying to do, for fuck’s sake.

    They pretty much created the British welfare state.

    Koch, you stupid fucking selfish prick, you are not even for what you say you are for! And you inherited your goddamn money.

    You are every Dickens villain rolled into one character, but without the character.

  33. 33.

    Peale

    @Petorado: There are lots of corrupt democracies in the world. You know, the kinds where people are elected to make things better, but then run off with the funds and make sure the oligarchy isn’t really challenged. Yeah, I know, pretty much all of those are what we would euphemistically call “emerging” markets and a lot of them can’t seem to figure out how to provide water without exposing the population to disease, but we aren’t really exceptional. Eventually, we’ll have their problems. Imagine, though. The excitement of being an “emerging” economy again.

  34. 34.

    ThresherK

    @Rob: That’s the like getting home from an evening out with the spouse, and the sitter says, “Hey, your toddler didn’t get carried off by a coyote!”

    The new normal: Celebrating avoiding things that were never problems years ago. Thanks, GOP.

  35. 35.

    Mike J

    @Calouste:

    taking us down the road to serfdom

    Wow, enough projection to lit up the moon,

    Normal people think serfdom would mean a few rich people having the power of life and death over the masses. Koch thinks it means those rich people might have to pay taxes on their serf.

  37. 37.

    SatanicPanic

    The shame about money equaling speech is that the people with the most speech have the least valuable things to say

  38. 38.

    gene108

    @Keith P.:

    Like Trump and McCarthy, at least they’re starting to be more open about what we already knew.

    Rich people had some influence, but not on this scale.

    I think pre-1976 / Watergate / Primary Era there was less campaigning to the public, as the candidates were not selected until the smoke cleared, in the smoke filled rooms, at the nominating conventions. You just did not need as much money to campaign, as the campaigning was less and shorter, so not as much money got thrown at candidates, which may have been a “natural” check on corruption.

    Post 1976 reforms, you had kept contributions small enough that no one person could drop $1 million bucks or more onto a candidate like they are doing in these here election.

    This is the perfect confluence of candidates needing a lot of cash, because the campaign for the 2016 Presidency started in 2014 or early 2015, while the super rich are free to throw around their money on those politicians they deem worthy. And those politicians will now have to jump to their strings or the funds will be cut off.

    A pathetic state of affairs.

  39. 39.

    Patrick

    My ideal candidates would be Calvin Coolidge or a William Gladstone. I mean, you look at what they did… Look what Calvin Coolidge did. He cut government expenditures in half.

    So he wants to cut our military spending in half, eh…

  40. 40.

    jl

    @Baud: I don’t have to worry about it, since some time ago I volunteered to troll against your campaign. Every candidate needs some blog trolls. I will begin:

    “Baud is no good. Baud is a commie fascist. If Baud is president, the world will implode into a piece of moldy dog poo.”

    That’s pretty basic, but I’ll practice and be up to speed soon.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Once you let a rich person donate a million dollars, they expect to have their way with how it’s spent.

    Only a million? What a piker, might as well sit in the bleachers with the rest of the yahoos. As Everett Dirksen (I think) once said “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.” [Disclaimer: Yes, it’s probably not verbatim. If only there were some way for me to check …]

  43. 43.

    A guy

    Lol. If you have to borrow money from ur in laws you failed. Kinda like those who can’t figure a way to repay 22,000 in student loan debt

  44. 44.

    jl

    @Baud: Ah, my trolling is counterproductive! I guess that is a sign of basic troll competence. Thanks. I feel like I am making progress already.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @gene108:

    This is the perfect confluence of candidates needing a lot of cash, because the campaign for the 2016 Presidency started in 2014 or early 2015, while the super rich are free to throw around their money on those politicians they deem worthy.

    I would also add that they can get away with this because about 40% of the regular folks in this country who would normally react negatively to all this will not under any circumstances support a candidate with a D next to his or her name.

  47. 47.

    Rob

    @Frankensteinbeck #32:
    Noted with a sigh.

    @ThresherK #34:
    Sad but true.

    I think the highway funding bill needs to be voted on by the end of October, the “fiscal cliff” looms sometime after that (?), and then in mid-December the federal government needs to be funded again. Thanks, Republicans, for all the dramas.

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @jl:

    “Baud is no good. Baud is a commie fascist. If Baud is president, the world will implode into a piece of moldy dog poo.”

    Baud is opposed to cat ass shaving. Baud’s helicopters are laughing. Baud is not aware of all internet traditions.

  54. 54.

    SRW1

    My view of the political realm, not just now but for many decades, is that the Democrats are taking us down the road to serfdom over the cliff at 100 miles an hour and the Republicans are going around 70 miles an hour.

    So, Sarah could see Russia from her house and Charles K. can see a cliff somewhere in the universe millions of miles away.

  55. 55.

    Heliopause

    My god, this is horrible news. WWIII sadly now appears to have only lasted 6 or 8 hours. Kerry and Lavrov are making a cold peace out of a cold war that’s been raging since I got up this morning. And without consulting Wolf Blitzer first. Disgraceful.

  59. 59.

    srv

    Hebetude meets Jebetude:

    Once hailed as the likely Republican nominee, Jeb Bush’s support has been sliced in half from July to September and now stands at 7% as a variety of potential voters turned to other candidates, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
    …
    Mr. Bush lost support across the board: among men and women, voters under and over 50 years of age, talk-radio listeners, and values and tea-party voters alike. Though his support flagged among likely voters who identified as very conservative and total conservatives, Mr. Bush lost the most ground – a 15-point decline — among self-described moderate and liberals, earning 8% from those voters in September compared with 23% in July.

    Terry Schaivo had more brain activity than this guy does.

  60. 60.

    Schlemazel

    @srv:
    I’m sure right to retch should be along shortly to explain that this is all part of the plan.

    It surprising because I thought it would come down to Walkerbot v.04 and dumbellU’s dumber brother. Now it is in doubt

  61. 61.

    burnspbesq

    @Petorado:

    If only lawyers had to learn Latin terms like quid pro quo, they’d understand that corruption is giving a politician money in exchange for improper influence such as “you need to answer to me.”

    If only jackalopes like you understood the legal definition of conflict of interest, we wouldn’t have to listen to this kind of whingeing–or, alternatively, there might be a groundswell of support for legislative changes that would make that definition more to your liking.

  63. 63.

    Mike in NC

    @Heliopause: Earlier today the idiots on MSNBC, including Mrs. Greenspan and Michael Steele, were lamenting how badly Putin had blindsided the hapless lame duck Obama.

  64. 64.

    gratuitous

    Billionaires bitching about how the system isn’t rigged enough in their favor. I’m not saying 1789 France was all right, but I’m not saying they were all wrong, either.

  65. 65.

    Thoughtful Today

    WSJ via Booman:

    Bernie Has a Million Donors.

    This is anecdotal, but you know how Facebook suggests people who you might want to be friends with? For some reason, over the last month or so the algorithm has been serving up nearly 100% people who have few friends in common with me but who love Bernie Sanders so much that they use him in their avatar. And I spent some time yesterday looking at these folks and their bios are a lot different from the old suggestions I was getting. In the past, most suggested friends were in three groups: academics, journalists/editors, or employed progressive organizers. But most of these Bernie folks are just regular people who work as food servers or have a job at Lowe’s or maybe do some charity work with the homeless. There’s a lot of young people still in their first job. There are stay-at-home moms and people who are self-publishing short stories.

    ‘The Onion’s’ satirical take: “Bernie Sanders Clearly In Pocket Of High-Rolling Teacher Who Donated $300 To His Campaign.”

  68. 68.

    Heliopause

    @Baud:

    I didn’t catch it all but it was a joint presser and they pledged to keep lines of communication open or some such, yadda yadda yadda. I sure hope this peace is brief, I sunk everything into popcorn futures.

  69. 69.

    bluehill

    Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, talks about how empires end and disproportionate control by the wealthy is one reason. Interesting and depressing talk.

    Lawrence Wilkerson was invited to the Lone Star College System in the Houston metropolitan area. He made several appearances that drew substantial crowds at different campuses, speaking about the travails of the empire. Wilkerson was Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell’s chief of staff.

    He left many in the decidedly conservative audience shocked and with much to think about. Lawrence Wilkerson pointed out that a United States break-up is a possibility as we have historically been very stable. It is not necessarily a natural state of being. If one looks at what seems like insurmountable deadlocks in Congress, one must ask if that may be the path we are on.

  70. 70.

    srv

    @bluehill: I’ll give it to the liberals – the 24×7 politics of divisiveness is succeeding beyond the right’s wildest dreams.

    Bring. It. On.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Ted Mills:

    Never forget: the Koch’s faulty pipeline burned a brother and sister alive while their father looked on helpless. And *nothing* happened to them.

    I wish it was just the Kochs.

    CANTON, Ohio — A leading supplier of fast food and supermarket chicken is facing more than $1.4 million in fines this year for worker safety and health violations, including several that led a teenaged worker to suffer the amputation of his lower leg.
    The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has levied the latest penalties against Case Farms Processing Inc. for 16 violations at the chicken processor’s Canton facility. The safety failures resulted in two serious injuries to workers while they cleaned machines. A 17-year-old worker, employed by cleaning subcontractor Cal-Clean had his left leg amputated from the knee down and a 24-year-old Case Farms employee lost two fingertips. Both workers were fired after the incidents.

    They have been fining this company for safety violations for the last 25 years.

    About a month ago there were four dead workers in Texas.. The company was fined less than a 100k. They’re expendable. They wouldn’t have to shut down a lot of them. If they shut down the worst 1% in quick succession and kept them closed until they fixed the problems word would spread and they’d straighten up fast. It’s not even fair to decent employers. It puts them at a disadvantage for following the rules.

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @goblue72:

    Our democracy is doomed. Its almost like after having bought their candidates, donors expect to be able to take that out of their toy box and play with them too.

    Exactly, right? What else could we expect? I hope someone’s printing every last quote in the article and sending them on to Chief Justice Roberts. Money’s just free speech my a$$.

    (Check out Stamp Stampede for some good lefty fun in this regard, btw)

  74. 74.

    feebog

    If I was limited to just five pikes on which to attach heads they would be reserved for Dick Cheney, Antonin Scalia, Ted Cruz, and Charles and David Koch.

  79. 79.

    bluehill

    @Calouste: Wilkerson acknowledges that the U.S. was built on the backs of black people and compares us to the Greek empire that was also built on the backs of slaves.

    He says he’s a repub but he must be truly a RINO since he seems to believe in universal healthcare and favors diplomacy over military engagement.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @Thoughtful Today:

    My husband made a 5 dollar Bernie donation because he got caught up in some email pitch frenzy. He was talking about making really small donations to all of them because he likes a race and he’s undecided. I don’t know if he’s done that but I told him to skip Jim Webb :)

    He didn’t even ask why! Just agreed. I had reasons.

  81. 81.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    He was talking about making really small donations to all of them

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Chaffee calls your husband personally to thank him.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The only thing I know about him is the metric system, which isn’t fair but is true. So I told him that. He said “good- we should have gone to the metric system a long time ago”. He’s the Chaffee base, turns out.

  89. 89.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Does the Coolidge article on Wikipedia still have that weird aside about how Hoover caused the Great Depression by being too much of a tax-and-spend liberal?

    (It was dutifully sourced to a Coolidge bio by Amity Shlaes, so it’d probably be difficult to strike down.)

  93. 93.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Roger Moore:
    You cudlips don’t get it. Baud is inevitable. While the other candidates trumpet and stampede around on national television, Baud’s internet-savvy grassroots campaign is sweeping up the young people, the dog photograph fanciers, and the naked mopping demographic. On election night 2016, Hillary will think she’s won, but the next morning Baud will be president and no one will even know.

  94. 94.

    Thoughtful Today

    WaPo:

    Ahead of primaries, Sanders raises more than $24 million in third quarter.
    …
    Sanders’s campaign said it now has more than $25 million in the bank…
    …
    By Wednesday evening, Sanders’s campaign said it had received 1.3 million donations from about 650,000 different donors. That put Sanders across the threshold of 1 million contributions earlier than Barack Obama was in both his presidential campaigns.

    Bernie’s been very conservative with his expenditures. It’s helped that he’s benefiting from a tremendous number of volunteers across the country.

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suzanne: To the extent that I have a voice is this decision, the answer is no.

    ETA: Unless a Deputy Under Secretary of Cudlip Relations is added as a sub-cabinet level position – for which I do not advocate.

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