Former three-term Senator and one-term governor Frank Murkowski got an ignominious boot out the door by Alaska Republicans yesterday, losing his gubernatorial reelection bid in the GOP primary – the latest incumbent to bite the dust this election season. For the 73-year-old Murkowski it was the likely end to a political career that started in 1980, when the Fairbanks banker was first elected senator.
I remember that first election quite well, even though I was outside Alaska at the time. (I spent 15 years in Alaska, much of it as a journalist covering politics.)
Continue readingLobbying on the Cheap
If you want to keep up with the inside world of lobbying, I can think of no better tour guide than Jeffrey Birnbaum of the Washington Post. Birnbaum has covered Washington lobbying longer than probably anyone in town – most of it while he was Fortune Magazine’s senior Washington writer – and he understands both the mechanics and culture of K Street, the center of Washington’s lobbying community. His 1986 book “Showdown at Gucci Gulch” remains a classic and his K-Street Confidential column appears every other Monday in the Washington Post.
Continue readingNew Profiles on Hot Races from CRP
Our friends over at the Center for Responsive Politics have launched a new project on their Capital Eye website featuring up-close profiles of the money in key congressional races. So far they’re highlighting a total of eight contests in Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia and Georgia – with more to come in the weeks ahead.
CRP has long been known as the best source on the web for money-and-politics information, but it’s mainly relied on data-heavy profiles that delineate the trends with lists, tables and pie charts. These new profiles put the numbers in context by combining them with old-fashioned reporting on the races.
Continue readingGo ahead, tell me what you really think…
One of the safest assumptions in politics these days is that Americans don’t much care for Congress. A whole raft of opinion polls tell the story – only about one person in four thinks Congress is doing a good job. But those are just percentages. When I spent two months on the road last year talking to people along U.S. Route 50 – from California to Maryland – one question I asked them was to give me a word or a short phrase to describe Congress as they saw it. I make no bones about this being a scientific sample. These were just people I walked up to in small towns and big cities across the middle of the country – though I did keep it even between Democrats and Republicans. I’ve divided their answers into three sections: responses that were given by more than one person, short answers that were unique, and longer answers. Each group is arranged in alphabetical order.
Continue readingWhat People Expect
Every once in a while it’s good just to step back a bit from the daily mishmash of political news in Washington to get a broader perspective on where we are, where we’re going, and what the American people expect of the people they elect to public office. When I took to the road last year and spent two months talking with people along U.S. Route 50, one of the things I asked was that very question: What do you expect of your representatives in Washington? “Not much” was a common first reaction, but upon reflection there were some very perceptive observations, some common themes, and a lot more shared expectations among Democrats and Republicans than we’re used to hearing about in Washington. Here’s a sampling of the answers:
Continue readingThree Incumbents Booted Out by Voters
It’s been a long time coming this election season, but the first congressional incumbents have finally been defeated at the polls – three of them in one night. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) got nearly all the media attention as he was beaten by newcomer Ned Lamont in Connecticut – though Lieberman vowed to keep fighting and said he would run in the fall as an independent.
On the same night, Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga) lost a runoff in her Georgia primary. And moderate Republican freshman Joe Schwarz (R-Mich) was upended by a more conservative challenger in the Michigan GOP primary.
Continue readingBloggers Dig Out Last-Minute Lieberman Donors
Kudos to the folks at MyDD who painstakingly compiled a list of the names of the last-minute contributors to Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-Conn) campaign. It took two volunteers five hours to do the work. To do it they had to download 14 PDF files from the FEC, then enter the names by hand into an Excel spreadsheet.
They also compiled state-by-state totals of where the money came from. Only 12% came from inside Connecticut.
This is exactly the kind of information that should be available to anyone without going through all that trouble. But the U.S. Senate exempted itself from the rules that all other federal candidates, PACs and parties have to live by – namely electronic reporting of their campaign contributions.
Continue readingMoney from All Over Flowing to Connecticut Senate Race
Donations to the Connecticut Senate race between incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman and businessman Ned Lamont are coming in from all over the country. Literally.
Even by the end of June – the last contributions available in computerized form from the Federal Election Commission – Lieberman’s beleaguered reelection campaign had drawn donors from 44 states and Puerto Rico. Lamont’s money came from 27 states.
While Connecticut led the list for both candidates, it was a much more important source of funds for Lamont than for the incumbent. Between January 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006 Lieberman collected 75% of his individual contributions from outside Connecticut, while Lamont drew only 20% of his from outside the state. The totals include only contributions above $200. Smaller amounts are reported only in bulk and not itemized.
Continue readingLieberman’s Last-Minute Donors
As the uphill fight by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) to hang on to his Senate seat reaches its final stages, the money is flowing in so fast to his reelection campaign that there’s hardly even time for neat handwriting.
For the past couple of hours I’ve been poring over 165 pages of handwritten reports filed by the campaign with the Federal Election Commission – the 48-hour notice reports that outline the contributions received between July 20 and August 3rd.
Continue readingLosing the Initiative
With Congress finally clearing out of town for a month’s recess, I thought I could relax a little, but then I saw the headline in Saturday’s Oregonian – the state’s largest paper, based in Portland: “N.Y. Cash Colors Oregon Ballot.”
Okay, I know this is money in politics at the state level – and in a state, moreover, that has something the federal government doesn’t have: ballot initiatives. But if you think congressional election races are tainted by big money, just take a look at what’s happened to the initiative process in those states – mostly west of the Missisippi – that allow them.
Continue reading
59063
