Do voters in Iowa care they might be taken advantage of (price, farmer)
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"During 2008, the Obama campaign didn't show any interest in going beyond the letter of the law in disclosing its donors to the general public. Despite public pleas from campaign-finance reform groups such as Common Cause and Democracy 21, Team Obama refused to follow Senator John McCain's lead and release names of donors who gave less than $200, even though such donors supplied about half of the $800 million the Obama campaign raised.
Perhaps one reason is that, as the Washington Post reported, the Obama campaign had turned off its Address Verification System, or AVS, at its Web site. That program should have stopped contributions coming in from citizens of foreign countries -- a violation of federal law. Clearly, the Obama campaign's decision to abandon filters had consequences -- the campaign was forced to refund $33,000 to two Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip who had bought T shirts in bulk from the campaign's online store."
"A group that attacked Republican Terry Branstad from the right during the GOP primary for governor this year was entirely financed by a national Democratic campaign group, according to records filed today with the Internal Revenue Service.
Iowans for Responsible Government received all of its funding — $782,500 — for a series of ads likening the former governor to Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi from the Democratic Governors Association. The group spent $767,236 in May and June, including almost $370,000 on television advertising.
That puts the total amount of money the Democratic Governors Association has put into the race for Iowa governor, where first-term Democrat Chet Culver is facing a stiff challenge, at more than $2 million.
The Democratic Governors Association is a political association aimed at electing and protecting Democratic governors. The group contributed $500,000 to Culver’s campaign directly at the end of 2009, according to campaign finance disclosure reports.
The group then contributed another $750,000 to Culver in the first five months of 2010, accounting for more than half of the $1.5 million Culver reported raising.
Iowans for a Responsible Government raised suspicions when it was disclosed that its coordinator was Rob Tully, a Des Moines lawyer and former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party.
Tully declined to disclose the contributors before the June 8 primary."
"The White House plans to continue attacking groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other conservative organizations for not disclosing the names of donors behind political ads. But during the 2004 Democratic primary campaign, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was involved with a political advocacy group that refused to reveal its own donors until the law required it.
During a press conference Tuesday, Gibbs scolded groups that would not disclose, and has said that Americans have a right to know who is behind “largely negative campaign attack ads.”
“Simply tell us who you are,” Gibbs said.
In a speech last week in Maryland, President Obama even called the practice “a threat to our democracy.”
“The American people deserve to know who’s trying to sway their elections,” Obama said.
Under campaign finance law, the Chamber is not required to release the names of its donors. When pressed by reporters as to why groups not mandated by law should disclose their donors, Gibbs said they should do it in “the spirit of political disclosure.”
During the 2003-2004 presidential primary season, however, Gibbs worked as the spokesman for a liberal advocacy group that ran attack ads against then-Democratic candidate Howard Dean. The “secretive” group, called Americans for Jobs, Health Care & Progressive Values, spent months organizing scathing ads without disclosing who was paying for them.
The Dean camp was furious, and called on the group to disclose who had funded the ad.
“Whoever is behind this should crawl out from underneath their rock and have the courage to say who they are,” Former Dean Spokesman Tricia Enright told The New York Times at the time. “It is hateful, it’s cynical, it’s exactly the kind of ad that keeps people from voting, that keeps people from getting involved in the process.”
The organization’s Treasurer, David Jones, refused.
“We will disclose donors when the law requires,” Jones was quoted as saying in The New York Times.
By law, organizations listed under the 527 tax code only have to reveal their donors once a quarter. Given the timing of the ad, Gibbs’ group knew they could withhold the names until after the January 2004 Iowa caucuses, which were about a month away from the time the Osama bin Laden spot hit the airways.
The plan worked. Dean came in third place in the Democratic Iowa caucuses, and after delivering his infamous “scream” speech in Des Moines, the campaign was widely regarded as dead in the water. Dean dropped out of the race a few weeks later, and the group was largely credited for the defeat."
Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin, it's not that one group is worse than the other, it's that some people are worse than others and sometimes they're R, sometimes D.
Coming soon , A massive support for abortions and "home Schooling" from conservative organizations.
Nip em at the bud !
Scientists Find 'Liberal Gene'
Researchers have determined that genetics could matter when it comes to some adults' political leanings.
According to scientists at UC San Diego and Harvard University, "ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4." That and how many friends you had during high school.
The study was led by UCSD's James Fowler and focused on 2,000 subjects from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Scientists matched the subjects' genetic information with "maps" of their social networks. According to researchers, they determined that people "with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults." However, the, subjects were only more likely to have leanings to the left if they were also socially active during adolescence.
The title of this thread should have been "Both political parties have undisclosed sources so they can buy more attack ads that the voters stop paying attention to, and ultimately do not work."
The title of this thread should have been "Both political parties have undisclosed sources so they can buy more attack ads that the voters stop paying attention to, and ultimately do not work."
It would appear that the OP underestimated the intelligence of Iowa voters after all. They seem to be able to look up the facts and make a rational decision instead of blindly falling for a steaming pile of partisan garbage.
I grew up on the Iowa border and I'd always thought that people in Iowa seemed more reasonable and level headed than other parts of the country.
When I was a kid I thought it was really cool that the Iowa caucus is first in the nation and even though now I spend most of my time in Chicago, I still consider myself an Iowan and am proud that many/most Iowans take their politics serious and really think about the issues. So Iowa is probably the last forum you want to start a thread like this.
When I was a kid I thought it was really cool that the Iowa caucus is first in the nation and even though now I spend most of my time in Chicago, I still consider myself an Iowan and am proud that many/most Iowans take their politics serious and really think about the issues. So Iowa is probably the last forum you want to start a thread like this.
Agreed. Go away, op.
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