posted July 11, 2014 04:14 PM            

House Republicans, so worried that a swelling cash deficit will keep them from making big gains this November, have begun cracking down on dozens of lawmakers who haven’t paid dues crucial to the party’s campaign accounts. It’s reached the point that Speaker John Boehner has dispatched his own team to twist some of the stragglers’ arms.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House campaign arm, is well behind its Democratic counterpart in fundraising, to the tune of $22 million so far. And many GOP outside groups, who could in theory compensate for the deficit, are more interested in channeling their resources toward retaking the Senate than defending the House.

That’s put increased pressure on Republicans to get dues from lawmakers. The NRCC had earlier announced the formation of a task force geared toward getting members to pay up. But behind the scenes, Boehner has launched his own effort — sending a trio of members close to him to press the procrastinators to fork over cash. They’ve been poring over NRCC dues sheets, calling truant members, tracking them down in hallways and otherwise pressuring them to open their wallets. Boehner himself has wrangled more than $1 million from his colleagues in the Ohio delegation.

An official familiar with the overall push said about 120 of the 234 members of the GOP Conference paid their dues in full by the end of June, supplying the NRCC with more than $12 million. But there are about 100 members who have paid only part of what they owe, or nothing at all — leaving potentially millions of dollars still on the table.

Dues are a critical component of a campaign committee’s income. The fees are based on seniority, so lawmakers with the longest tenure and service on the most sought-after congressional panels are expected to pay the lion’s share. The lowest figure is $32,500 and runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Particularly frustrating to some higher-ups is that some of the party’s most senior members — those who often have the fullest campaign treasuries — have been AWOL on dues. They include House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), a GOP aide said. Other delinquents include Kansas Rep. Lynn Jenkins, Florida Reps. Dennis Ross and Ander Crenshaw and Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany.

Shuster said in an interview that he would be “fully paid” by the time of the election, while a Jenkins spokesman said the congresswoman was “on pace” to fulfilling what she owes. Spokesmen for the others either declined to comment or did not respond to requests.

There is no set deadline for members to pay up, though they have to pay within each election cycle. But, with the fall campaign drawing closer, party strategists say they’d like the money to come in sooner rather than later. For those who don’t shell out by the end of the cycle, there could be consequences. They could lose the ability to use NRCC facilities, such as fundraising call centers.

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, a Boehner ally and former NRCC chairman, said the House speaker is concerned about dues to the point that “he thinks we are risking our majority for not giving our best effort.”

“I think he thinks the conditions are pretty ripe for us,” Cole said. “We think we have the opportunity to pick up seats. But if you go into an election with a major cash disparity, then we run the risk of losing the majority that really shouldn’t be in jeopardy. That’s what he’s said, and I agree with him 100 percent.”

Asked about Cole’s comments, Cory Fritz, a Boehner spokesman, said, “Speaker Boehner believes House Republicans have a real opportunity to win a larger House majority in 2014. He’s working closely with members and the NRCC to counter the Obama fundraising machine and provide our candidates with the resources they need.”

On Thursday morning at the Capitol Hill Club, the NRCC held a special reception to thank members who had met their payment obligations. Boehner, one of the event’s headliners, had a simple message for the audience: In life, 80 percent of the product comes from the 20 percent of the people who do the work.

“It was his way of recognizing the people doing the work to keep the majority in the House,” one person who attended the event said. “It was a very positive atmosphere, because it was for people who paid. But what’s left unspoken is, there are going to be consequences for those who don’t.”

Through the end of May, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had outraised the NRCC $113 million to $91 million. The gap is likely to widen in the coming weeks as Democrats rake in big bucks in the wake of Boehner’s lawsuit against the president over the use of executive actions.

That Republicans are behind in the cash dash may seem surprising given that the House chamber is the epicenter of GOP power. But party strategists say there are several reasons for the predicament.

President Barack Obama is staking out a far more aggressive role in raising money for House Democrats than he did during the last midterm election, when he held eight fundraisers for them. So far this cycle, Obama has hosted 15 fundraisers for the DCCC. He will hold another one in Silicon Valley on July 23.

Other Republicans credit Democrats with building up a powerful digital fundraising program that has allowed them to cultivate financial support from an army of low-dollar contributors who give amounts of less than $200. While the Democratic committee has raised $46 million from such small donors, the NRCC has raised just $17 million from them.

With a political environment that’s in the Republican Party’s favor, many analysts predict the GOP will pick up House seats this fall. But GOP lawmakers and strategists say the party cannot be complacent about the funding gap because it’s not just 2014 that’s at stake.

With conditions this positive, they argue, Republicans need to exploit the opportunity to add as many seats as possible ahead of a 2016 presidential election that could favor Democrats.

“The current cash deficit is substantial across the board and will severely impact our ability to maximize the environment and win the seats we need for future cycles,” said Brian Walsh, a former NRCC political director. “We’d always rather have a wind at our backs than a cash advantage, but this deficit is a real problem and it’s our great candidates that will suffer.”

The impact of the overall money gap on the election will become clearer as Labor Day approaches and both parties begin unloading their war chests on campaign ads that will air in races across the country.

For now, Democrats look primed to spend more money and to compete in more races. The Democratic House committee has reserved $43.5 million for TV ad time across 36 districts, while its GOP counterpart has booked $30 million in 26 districts.

“Where there are differences between the DCCC and NRCC means that we can compete in fewer [media] markets, fewer individual races,” said Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, the NRCC’s former chairman.

The Democratic ad buy is aimed at defending the party’s most jeopardized seats, while also trying to chip away at vulnerable Republican ones. Of the 36 districts the party is investing in, 19 are occupied by Democrats and 17 by Republicans.

“We do have a strategic advantage right now, having been able to reserve more money in more seats,” said DCCC Chairman Steve Israel of New York.
If the NRCC has a plan for narrowing the gap — aside from cracking down on members to pay dues — it isn’t saying.

A committee spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato, deflected questions about the organization’s finances, saying only that House Republicans had the support of “Americans coast to coast who don’t want to give the president a blank check his last two years in office.”

Evening the playing field, some Republicans say, will most likely fall on the shoulders of friendly cash-flush outside groups. But it’s unclear if that will happen.
A spokesman for American Crossroads, a prominent, Karl Rove-founded group, said it would be spending most of its resources on the Senate, which Republicans are increasingly confident they can snag from the Democrats. Spokespersons for two other prominent Republican groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Koch brothers-linked Americans for Prosperity, declined to say how they would be distributing resources.

If anything, it’s Democrats who look poised to benefit from outside groups. House Majority PAC, a super PAC devoted to helping Democrats win control of the House, announced Thursday that it had reserved $20 million in congressional districts across the country. No Republican outside group has announced a plan remotely close to that investment.
That does little to assuage the worries of Democrats, who remember all too well when Republican groups plowed millions of dollars into House races during the final days of the 2010 midterms. That year, Republicans netted 63 seats and captured the House majority.

“The only thing that continues to make me toss and turn at night are the Republican super PACs,” Israel said. “They have outsourced to Republican super PACs, and I see it as kind of the death star hovering in space waiting to try to vaporize our candidates. Our fundraising strength gives us the strategic benefit, but I don’t think we can get complacent.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/house-republicans-cash-woes-108790.html

I wonder what I would think (or feel) as a conservative reading this article about how Republicans in the House aren't taking personal responsibility. I thought that was a tenant of being conservative: You believe the Left is lazy, and You're part of the group that believes in one taking care of one's own financial responsibilities.

posted July 12, 2014 09:33 AM            

And, who's predicting demoscats will retain their majority in the US Senate after the November 2014 elections?

It's comical leftist loons never want to talk about their big campaign contributors...trial lawyers, labor unions and the far left lunatic fringe billionaires...George Soros, Warren Buffett, Peter Lewis..and:

Steven Spielberg, Charles Ergen, Vance K. Opperman, Daniel Abraham, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Robert F.X. Sillerman, George Lucas, Alice Walton, Paul Allen, Sumner Redstone, Bill Gates, William Barron Hilton, Eric Schmidt, William Randolph Hearst III, Marc Benioff, Anthony Pritzker, Ray Milton Dolby, Charles Schwab, Robert Kraft, Gordon P. Getty II, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Ballmer, Ralph Lauren, Jeff Bezos, Henry Samueli.

Neither do demoscats want to talk about their money laundering operation at the "Tides Foundation" which takes campaign contributions from millionaires and billionaires in anonymous donations to be distributed to demoscat political campaigns.

Nope, demoscats don't want to talk about any of that. Demoscats want to rant and rail against the Koch brothers campaign contributions.

posted July 15, 2014 11:35 AM            

This is a partial list of O'Bomber's billionaire contributors...just as I said.

165 billionaires indexed in 2010 (Free-Press-Release.com)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The 2010 Edition of the “DEMOCRAT BILLIONAIRE DONORS LIST” will index 165 democrat billionaires. The reference is a secret fund raising tool for congressional candidates and/or senatorial candidates. 165 billionaires will be indexed in the 2010 Edition of the “DEMOCRAT BILLIONAIRE DONORS LIST”.

The “DEMOCRAT BILLIONAIRE DONORS LIST” includes Democrat “powerbrokers” including, Steven Spielberg, George Soros, Charles Ergen, Vance K. Opperman, Daniel Abraham, Warren Buffett, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Robert F.X. Sillerman, George Lucas, Alice Walton, Paul Allen, Sumner Redstone, Bill Gates, William Barron Hilton, Eric Schmidt, William Randolph Hearst III, Marc Benioff, Anthony Pritzker, Ray Milton Dolby, Charles Schwab, Robert Kraft, Gordon P. Getty II, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Ballmer, Ralph Lauren, Jeff Bezos, Henry Samueli. These are the real “Billionaires for Obama” and they are on the 2010 “DEMOCRAT BILLIONAIRE DONORS LIST”.
http://www.pardontheparody.com/?p=1893

This is the demoscat money laundering operation...The Tides Foundation. This permits high roller radical extremists to fund other radical extremists without getting their fingerprints all over the money....just as I said.

Tides Foundation
P.O. Box 29903
San Francisco, CA
94129-0903

Tides Center
P.O. Box 29907
San Francisco, CA
94129-0907
Phone (415) 561-6400 (415) 561-6300 (C)
Fax (415) 561-6401 (F) / (415) 561-6301
Email :info@tides.org
URL :http://www.tidesfoundation.org http://www.tidescenter.org

Tides Foundation and Tides Center's Visual Map

•Net Assets: Tides Foundation -- $135,525,497 (2011); Tides Center -- $75,030,551 (2011)
•Grants Received: Tides Foundation -- $88,466,974 (2011); Tides Center -- $94,079,671 (2011)
•Grants Awarded: Tides Foundation -- $91,939,822 (2011); Tides Center -- $19,341,827 (2011)

Established in 1976 by California-based activist Drummond Pike, the Tides Foundation was set up as a public charity that receives money from donors and then funnels it to the recipients of their choice. Because many of these recipient groups are quite radical, the donors often prefer not to have their names publicly linked with the donees. By letting the Tides Foundation, in effect, “launder” the money for them and pass it along to the intended beneficiaries, donors can avoid leaving a “paper trail.” Such contributions are called "donor-advised," or donor-directed, funds.

Through this legal loophole, nonprofit entities can also create for-profit organizations and then funnel money to them through Tides -- thereby circumventing the laws that bar nonprofits from directly funding their own for-profit enterprises. Pew Charitable Trusts, for instance, set up three for-profit media companies and then proceeded to fund them via donor-advised contributions to Tides, which (for an 8 percent management fee) in turn sent the money to the media companies.

If a donor wishes to give money to a particular cause but finds that there is no organization in existence dedicated specifically to that issue, the Tides Foundation will, for a fee, create a group to meet that perceived need.

In 1996 the Tides Foundation created, with a $9 million seed grant, a separate but closely related entity called the Tides Center, also headed by Drummond Pike. While the Foundation's activities focus on fundraising and grant-making, the Center -- in its role as fiscal sponsor -- offers newly created organizations the shelter of Tides' own charitable tax-exempt status, as well as the benefits of Tides' health and liability insurance coverage. As the Capital Research Center explains:

"Under the Tides Center umbrella, the new group can then accept tax deductible contributions without needing to apply immediately to the IRS for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity tax status.... Besides giving a new project its seal of approval, the Tides Center performs a notable service in showing new groups how to run an office, apply for grants, conduct effective public relations, and handle the many personnel, payroll, and budget problems that might baffle a novice group."

Between 1996 and 2010, the Tides Center served as a fiscal sponsor to some 677 separate projects with combined revenues of $522.4 million; in 2010 alone, the Center was actively managing nearly 200 projects.

In addition to the foregoing duties, the Tides Center also functions as a legal firewall insulating the Tides Foundation from potential lawsuits filed by people whose livelihoods or well-being may be harmed by Foundation-funded projects. (These could be, for instance, farmers or loggers who are put out of business by Tides-backed environmentalist groups.)

The Tides Center’s Board Chairman is Wade Rathke, who is also a member of the Tides Foundation Board. Rathke, a protege of the late George A. Wiley, serves as President of the New Orleans-based Local 100 of the Service Employees International Union, and is the founder and chief organizer of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Maya Wiley, daughter of George A. Wiley, sits on the Tides Center's Board of Directors.

Chip Berlet sits on the Board of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a Tides Center project formed in 2005 to combat “the growing power of the religious right” and to “fight for the separation of church and state.” Berlet is a senior analyst for Political Research Associates, and has had affiliations with the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, the Christic Institute, the Socialist Workers Party, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Tides Foundation promotes a multitude of leftist agendas, as evidenced by its assertion: "We strengthen community-based organizations and the progressive movement by providing an innovative and cost-effective framework for your philanthropy." Among the crusades to which Tides contributes are: radical environmentalism; the "exclusion of humans from public and private wildlands"; the anti-war movement; anti-free trade campaigns; the banning of firearms ownership; abolition of the death penalty; access to government-funded abortion-on-demand; and radical gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender advocacy. The Foundation is also a member organization of the International Human Rights Funders Group, a network of more than six-dozen grantmakers dedicated to finaning leftwing groups and causes.

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Tides formed a "9/11 Fund" to advocate a "peaceful national response." Tides later replaced the 9/11 Fund with the "Democratic Justice Fund," which was financed in large measure by the Open Society Institute of George Soros, who has donated more than $7 million to Tides over the years. Reciprocally, the Tides Foundation is a major funder of the Shadow Party, a George Soros-conceived nationwide network of several dozen unions, non-profit activist groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically to the left, and which are engaged in campaigning for the Democrats.

Tides also set up a Peace Strategies Fund and an Iraq Peace Fund, the latter of which has granted money to such groups as MoveOn.org, the National Council of Churches, the Arab-American Action Network, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the pro-Castro groups United for Peace and Justice and Center for Constitutional Rights. In addition, Tides funds “A Better Way Project,” which coordinates the activities of United for Peace and Justice and the Win Without War Coalition/Keep America Safe Campaign.

Tides and the organizations it supports interact closely with one another on a regular basis. For example, Drummond Pike sits on the Board of the Environmental Working Group along with David Fenton, founder of Fenton Communications.

Recent recipients of Tides Foundation grants include: the ACORN Institute; the AdBusters Media Foundation; the Agape Foundation; the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute; Alliance For Justice; the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; the American Civil Liberties Union; American Family Voices; the American Friends Service Committee; the American Immigration Law Foundation; Amnesty International; the Border Action Network; the Brennan Center for Justice; Campaign for America’s Future; the Center for American Progress; the Center for Community Change; the Center for Constitutional Rights; the Center for Reproductive Rights; Changemakers; the Children’s Defense Fund; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; the Council on American-Islamic Relations (as revealed in FrontpageMagazine); Democracy Now!; Earth Day Network; Earth Island Institute; Earthjustice; Environmental Defense; Environmental Media Services; the Environmental Working Group; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting; the Feminist Majority Foundation; Free Press; Funding Exchange; Global Exchange; Grantmakers Without Borders; Grassroots International; Greenpeace; Human Rights First; Human Rights Watch; the Immigrant Legal Resource Center; Institute for America’s Future; Institute for Policy Studies; Institute for Public Accuracy; the Israel Policy Forum; the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy; the Jane Addams Peace Association; the League of Conservation Voters; the League of United Latin American Citizens; the League of Women Voters; the Liberty Hill Foundation; MADRE; Medecins Sans Frontieres; Media Matters for America; Mercy Corps; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Mexico Solidarity Network; the Middle East Children’s Alliance; Mothers & Others for a Livable Planet; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty; the National Council of Churches; the National Lawyers Guild; the National Network of Grantmakers; the National Organization for Women Foundation; the National Wildlife Federation; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Nature Conservancy (of California and of New York); the New Israel Fund; the New World Foundation; Nonviolent Peaceforce; the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Oxfam America; the Pacifica Foundation; Peace Action; the Peace Development Fund; People for the American Way; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Planned Parenthood; the Ploughshares Fund; Population Connection; the Progress Unity Fund; Project Vote; the Proteus Fund; the Public Citizen Foundation; the Rainforest Action Network; the Rainforest Alliance; the Rockefeller Family Fund; the Ruckus Society; the Sentencing Project; September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows; the Sierra Club; the Shefa Fund; Sojourners; the Threshold Foundation; TrueMajority Action; Trust for Public Land; the Union of Concerned Scientists; USAction; Veterans For Peace; Waterkeeper Alliance; the Wilderness Society; Witness For Peace; Women's Action for New Directions; and the World Wildlife Fund.

Tides also runs a tax-exempt “alternative media source” called the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), a leading provider of Web technology to the radical left.

Between 1993 and 2003, at least 91 foundations made grants to the Tides Foundation. These included the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Annie E. Casey Foundation; the Arca Foundation; the AT&T Foundation; the Barbra Streisand Foundation; the Bauman Family Foundation; Ben and Jerry's Foundation; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the Blue Moon Fund; the Bullitt Foundation; the CarEth Foundation; the Carnegie Corporation of New York; Changemakers; the ChevronTexaco Foundation; the Columbia Foundation; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the Energy Foundation; the Fannie Mae Foundation; the Ford Foundation; the Foundation for Deep Ecology; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; the Heinz Family Foundation; the Howard Heinz Endowment; the J.M. Kaplan Fund; the JEHT Foundation; the Jenifer Altman Foundation; the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the Joyce Foundation; the Lear Family Foundation; the Liberty Hill Foundation; the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the Nathan Cummings Foundation; the New World Foundation; the Open Society Institute; the Pew Charitable Trusts; the Ploughshares Fund; the Proteus Fund; the Public Welfare Foundation; the Righteous Persons Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the Rockefeller Family Fund; the Rockefeller Foundation; the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy; the Stern Family Fund; the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust; the Summit Charitable Foundation; the Surdna Foundation; the Threshold Foundation; the Turner Foundation; the Vanguard Public Foundation; the Verizon Foundation; the Vira I. Heinz Endowment; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; and the Woods Fund of Chicago.

To view a list of additional noteworthy supporters of the Tides Foundation and Tides Center, click here.

One particularly significant donor to the Tides entities is Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Senator John Kerry. From 1994 to 2004, the Heinz Endowments, which Mrs. Kerry heads, gave the Tides Foundation and Center approximately $8.1 million in grants. Until February 2001, Mrs. Kerry also served as a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which has given Tides numerous six-figure grants.

The Tides Foundation and Tides Center also receive grants from the U.S. federal government. Between 1997 and 2001, these grants included the following: $395,219 from the Department of Interior; $3,350,431 from the Environmental Protection Agency; $3,487,040 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development; $208,878 from the Department of Agriculture; $39,550 from the Department of Energy; $93,500 from the Small Business Administration; $10,986 from the Department of Health and Human Services; and $84,520 from the Centers for Disease Control U.S. Agency for International Development.