Re: Pack up the Tea Bags

1

Starting a new PAC is easy: Fill out some paperwork, throw up a splash-page website, rent an email list, and you're off. It's an entrepreneurial endeavor.

That does sound easy. Maybe I should start a PAC.

I'll call it "Grifters for Social Change."


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 6:59 AM
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No one should take a vow of poverty to go into politics, but it should reflect a higher calling. Mine came after spending six days in a hospital in downtown New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. When I got out I knew a comfortable career in cardiopulmonary science wouldn't be satisfying. I enrolled in law school the following year determined to fight for the principles of liberty, individualism and self-determination that made America the world's envy. The people who supported the Tea Party believed in those same principles...

How extraordinary.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:28 AM
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3

Why spend your life helping to save people from heart disease when you can instead focus your energy on making sure there are lower marginal tax rates for rich people?


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:26 AM
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4

Getting grants for science is apparently harder than asking scared, old white people for money to lobby against funding for science.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:33 AM
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5

Someone should try asking scared old white people to fund their grant.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:37 AM
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6

2: Yeah, what the hell was that about?


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:46 AM
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7

It's too hard to explain indirects.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:46 AM
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8

We propose to examine the molecular basis for how THEY"RE COMING TO TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY!!!!


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:49 AM
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9

Scared old white people should be easy targets for fundraising for heart disease research.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:52 AM
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10

Clinton is now ahead by so much that in RCP's poll aggregator she has enough electoral votes to win even without "toss-up states".

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map.html


Posted by: Trivers | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 10:19 AM
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And the fact that Georgia and Arizona are in the "toss-up" category speaks volumes about the level of Trump's unpopularity.


Posted by: My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 10:30 AM
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12

Has Georgia gone D since Carter?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 10:40 AM
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13

12: In 1992.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 10:41 AM
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14

It's interesting how odd the '92 and '96 maps look 20 years later. In '96 Arizona went for Clinton (and so did Tennessee and Kentucky) but Colorado did not. 1992 had Georgia as a Dem state but Florida went for Bush. West Virginia was the most solid Dem state in the country, except for maybe Rhode Island.


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 10:48 AM
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15

Remarkably, Texas may be in play.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 11:52 AM
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16

One would have thought that the Clinton Presidency might have revived the Democratic party in the once solidly Democratic south, instead of putting the final nails in its coffin.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 12:06 PM
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16: During the Clinton years the old Southern Democrats were still dying off.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 12:32 PM
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I understand it was a generational thing, but, still, you would think a charismatic Southern white guy President, with a Southern white guy VP, maybe could have moved the needle a bit in terms of bringing younger generations of Southern white people into the Democratic fold.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 12:48 PM
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That article is one of the more shameless "sorry not sorry"s I've seen. I'll grant that the "Hurricane Katrina made me conservative" is the single dumbest paragraph and it's dumb in a different way, but the overall piece is striking. Conservatives were mad at Dubya all along, no, really! The Tea Party rank and file were utter saints and 100 percent correct in their principles, the only problem were the PAC employees! This only went on for so long because the only people reporting on it were outlets right-wingers distrust, like the New York Times, so it's their fault!

It does make me a bit curious how much this is only a problem on the right, and if so, why. Are liberals with money to burn smarter about it or something?


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 12:59 PM
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Conservatives were mad at Dubya all along, no, really!

So mad, they voted for him twice!


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 1:05 PM
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21

Are liberals with money to burn smarter about it or something?

We've covered this before. Dumb/gullible conservatives use money to assuage their political anxiety by sending it to obvious political affinity* scammers, liberals do it by sending $$ to Whole Foods and ostensibly nonpolitical causes (eg WWF).

I think the really rich liberals spend most of it on goo-goo causes (whether effective local charities, legit nonpartisan orgs like Amnesty or Oxfam, or dubious liberal-sounding groups), but ultimately there are more rich conservatives than liberals, so even if the spending targets were symmetrical, the effects wouldn't be.

*that is, televangelists, Tea Party PACs, and gold bullion are all essentially tribally political


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 1:19 PM
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22

No one really believes that the World Wrestling Federation is non-political.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 1:38 PM
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23

Didn't Mrs. Oiled Torso try to buy a Senate seat in some improbable state?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 1:43 PM
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22 - it's now called the World-Wide Fund For Wrestling.


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 1:44 PM
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25

24 - that's the World-Wide Fund for Entertainment to you.


Posted by: Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 2:00 PM
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26

Oh my god.


Posted by: Trivers | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 2:57 PM
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27

I was just coming here to post 26! It may possibly be my favorite thing of all time. I can't stop watching it.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:02 PM
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28

Have you seen the guy in Omaha with the pot brownies and the cat?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:05 PM
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29

No


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:08 PM
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30

No


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:08 PM
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31

It's in another thread.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:09 PM
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32

It's in another thread.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:10 PM
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33

Its in another thread.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:18 PM
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34

Its in a other thread.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:22 PM
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35

What was 26? It's been deleted.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:23 PM
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36

Goat porn.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:27 PM
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37

Its in other thread.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:31 PM
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38

I must have left my keys in the other goat.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:33 PM
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39

Inside a goat, it's too dark to find your keys.


Posted by: My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:36 PM
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35: no it hasn't?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:38 PM
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40: weird. I got an error message saying the post had been removed before. I see it now.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 7:49 PM
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42

It's also not in the other thread.

Who is that?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:28 PM
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43

Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-17-16 8:41 PM
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