The Washington Post reports today that the two leading officials of the Counter Intelligence Field Agency (CIFA) resigned, apparently in the pork-cloud kicked up after fairly strong evidence (a guilty plea of attempted bribery is already involved) that CIFA may have provided counter intelligence contracts to subcontractor MZM, Inc. because of money and favors to Duke Cunningham from MZM’s President Mitchell Wade.
Continue readingImplications of Self-Financed Candidates
I'll leave it to others to assess the impact of the Internet and bloggers on the Connecticut race; my sense has been (and still is) that absent the $4 million of his own money that Ned Lamont was able to put into his campaign, and the millions more he can potentially spend down the road, we'd be focusing more on other inumbents who lost yesterday instead of on Sen. Joe Lieberman.
Continue readingLuddites in the Massachussetts Attorney General’s Office
"Transparency is not an option but a requirement these days," Steve Bailey argues in the Boston Globe today. He examines the website of MA Attorney General Tom Reilly and finds it comes up short. When one might imagine that a search would take place on a website, the Attorney General's office requires him to take the green line, an escalator, an elevator and a pass through a metal detector on the way to some three ring binders and two old computers. "In the year 2006 in a state that considers itself a technology leader this is beyond a bad joke."
Continue readingLessons from Lamont
There's one interesting interesting analysis this morning on the Lieberman loss in the Washington Post. It focuses on what turned out to be the powerful combination of the netroots and grassroots for the Lamont campaign.
Zephyr (Sunlight's National Director and the Dean campaign's Internet brain) and I talked about whether we agreed with this analysis this morning and whether there is more to be learned. (Too bad we didn't do it on IM or I would just put it here.)
We agree that the breakthrough for Lamont wasn't necessarily the use of the Internet but how he used it. Since 2004 candidates have increasingly "used" the internet, but mostly used it as an alien force, not as an aspect of every part of the campaign itself. For a campaign not to use the Internet to amplify everything you do would be like not using the telephone.
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 readingIt Works! Information Is Power
Yesterday, long-time incumbent Rep. Bob Ney announced he wasn't going to run for reelection after all. The results of his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff finally registered on the political Richter scale (e.g. his polls) and he withdrew. (And maybe there are some other reasons too.)
It wasn't any great surprise to me, though it did take a little longer than I thought. I really believe that information is power and, as important, that as soon as people are armed with the data that it can have consequences. In short, give people the facts and let them decide. The notion that citizens could care less when it comes to political scandal is a myth perpetuated by Washington insiders. I just can't help but feel a little bit gleeful to see another member of Congress (think former Rep. Tom DeLay) finally see the handwriting on the wall. (Though it would be better for them to see it on the Internet in the form of searchable databases.)
Continue readingSunlight Foundation Funds Metavid and More Perfect
We are thrilled to announce that the Sunlight Foundation has decided to fund two new projects, Metavid and More Perfect. Metavid, created by two UCSC grad students, captures video footage of the House and Senate in action, and is searchable by keyword. Look up "uranium," "peanut butter," or "minimum wage" and watch, on video, what has been said about that subject on the House and Senate floors. When I showed an old colleague the Metavid site, he immediately started looking up words for clients of his who are running for federal office, to see what their opponents had said. But the implications are much broader for the public, which typically has the choice of watching hours of C-SPAN in hopes of catching something, or watching no law-making at all.
Continue readingLamont’s Last-Minute Donors
Earlier, Larry documented how Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) is flush with campaign contributions as his primary battle comes to a close tomorrow. Lieberman has received contributions from numerous political action committees and political allies along with contributions from people across the country. Lieberman’s challenger, Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, is his own biggest campaign contributor having given himself $2 million dollars over the past 15 days. Lamont has also brought in contributions from a wide variety of people including top Democratic fundraisers, liberal philanthropists, and investors.
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.
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