I had a nice relaxing Fourth of July weekend celebrating my freedom… the freedom from reading the Seattle Times. But now that the holiday is over I’m back to my usual grind, and oy is it particularly grinding today.
Take for example the front page, above-the-fold article on Sen. Patty Murray’s fundraising: “Lobbyists are Sen. Murray’s biggest donors.” Uh-huh. And your point is…?
The headline makes it sound nefarious, but the article, not so much. For example, we learn that back when she was first elected, Murray didn’t attract much money from lobbyists, but now that she’s a three-term incumbent, a top member of the Senate leadership, “one of only four people to sit on both the Senate budget and appropriations committees,” and a chair of two powerful Appropriations subcommittees, the tables have turned.
Well… duh-uh. It’d be professional malpractice for lobbyists not to give to Murray. Dog bites man, and all that.
And then there’s the Times expose of Murray’s big corporate donors, which includes following inexcusable muddle:
Microsoft is Murray’s top donor by contributor; its executives, employees and its PAC have given $131,000 since 2005 to Murray’s campaign and to M-PAC. The company just edged out the No. 2 contributor, ActBlue, a political-action committee that bundles individual donations to Democratic candidates.
Let’s be perfectly clear: ActBlue is no more a contributor to Murray than VISA or MasterCard, and to suggest otherwise is downright misleading. ActBlue is nothing more than tool — an “online clearinghouse for Democratic action” as its motto explains — used by campaigns, bloggers, activists and individuals to facilitate contributions, and you’d think Times reporter Kyung M. Song might want to explain that before implying otherwise.
As for Murray’s top contributors who really are top contributors, it’s kinda amazing that a newspaper so prone to licking the feet of Washington state corporate giants like Microsoft, Boeing and Weyerhaeuser would attempt to make an issue out of Murray receiving donations from Washington state corporate giants like Microsoft, Boeing and Weyerhaeuser, especially while illustrating Murray’s reputation for fierce independence.
One donor was Tim Keating, Boeing’s senior vice president of government operations. Keating donated $2,400 to Murray in April 2009, shortly after the company privately briefed her that it likely would locate a second assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner in Charleston, S.C., instead of in Everett.
Two months later, Keating gave Murray another $2,400. In October, Boeing announced Charleston as its pick. A furious Murray threatened to withhold her support for any Boeing projects beyond Washington’s borders.
Yup, that certainly sounds like Murray is in Boeing’s pockets. Not.
Of course the big checks are gonna stand out, but Murray has received over 65,000 individual contributions so far this cycle, 85 percent of them from within Washington state, in an average amount of only $39.00. To put that in perspective, Murray will likely have more individual contributors this cycle than the allegedly grassrooty Clint Didier will receive votes.
Still, as long as the Times is focusing on this kinda stuff I’m assuming they’ll take an equally hard look at where Rossi has raised his money over the years, and where he’s raising it from now. You know, like the millions of dollars the BIAW has spent trying to elect him to the governor’s mansion, and whether Rossi’s refusal to state a position on Wall Street reform has anything to do with his recent fundraiser with hedge fund manager Paul Singer?
I mean if the the Times is as fair and balanced and objective as they claim to be, we’ll be seeing all that above the fold too, right?
Right?
It can’t be good for Rossi if Murray is getting contrabutions from the rich and powerful. That means they think Murray’s going to win.
I’m pleasantly surprised that Act Blue is #2.
It’s technically a PAC but those “bundled” contributions are from individual small (5/10/20 dallar) donors.
And Act Blue has essentially 0 (zero) overhead.
Another reason I don’t read the ‘Times’. Great follow-up piece Goldy.
I won’t hold my breath waiting on ‘Times’ to lay out DiNO Rossi finance facts.
What’s nice about the ST is that one often does not need to sort out the ads for the worthless stuff that the puppy can pee on. Often it is right there on the front page above the fold.
Thanks Goldy for digging out the nugget that ST missed – ActBlue and the size of this grass root’s app as a proportion of Murray’s war chest.
I used to (naively) think Liberals were altruistic. You guys are more piggish than we are.
@5 righton on 07/06/2010 at 6:53 pm,
Nice to know you consider yourself and those who think like you are piggish. We’ll all be sure to keep this admission in mind.
@righton:
I love your reasoning. If something is done for no gain, it’s naïve and foolish. If it’s done for less than pure reasons, it’s piggish. Projecting much these days?
Let me explain for the sake of clarity. A governing party doesn’t get to be ideologically pure. They need to listen to the needs of all the stakeholders in an issue, and then make a call based on those needs.
30 years ago or so, the party that did that best would probably have been the GOP.
Somewhere on the road from then to now, you got lost and turned into a group of whiny special interests. The GOP of 2010 is a wacky funhouse mirror of the Democratic Party of the mid to late 70s, with gun nuts, immigration hardliners, fundie Christians, and anti-tax loons fighting for the party’s time and attention.
Unfortunately, they forgot on the way that their job is to, y’know, govern!
corporate contributors to republicans = TEH EVUL
corporate contributors to democrats = eh, its ok.
hypocrisy at its finest.
Campaign finance law requires donars to list their employers. There is a valid reason for this requirement: it helps ferret out corporations which tried to bypass the prohibition on corporate giving by funneling the money through their employees. This is how Strippergate was exposed (pun intended).
But the Seattle Times lumps high-level contributions by Microsoft and Boeing executives in with low-level contributions by thousands of regular employees, without making it clear they are doing so. Either they are too lazy to do the work to break it out, or they don’t want to do so because it might interfere with the point they wanted to make.
Given the tens of thousands of employees in the Puget Sound area working for Microsoft and Boeing, any campaign finance report broken down by employers would show those two companies being featured, at least within the top five. But to jump to the conclusion that the candidate is “owned” by Microsoft of Boeing as a result of those total contributions is a foolish and unsupported leap of logic. The logical error is in the unstated assumption that Microsoft and Boeing management have 100% agreement on what an elected representative from Washington State is supposed to do. Indeed, the opposite is often true.
I remember a lesson my old football coach taught me. He said that when you go to tackle a ball carrier (or defend against a receiver), don’t look at their head, their eyes, their shoulders, arms, or their feet. The other player will use those to attempt to mis-direct you. Watch what is happening in the middle of their gut. Wherever the gut moves, you can be sure your opponant is heading in that direction.
So in politics, watch what the politician does. It really doesn’t matter what they say, or who contributes to their campaign. What does matter is how they vote, and what initiatives they press forward or oppose with real actions, rather than words.