Who is paying for the Political Party Conventions and what do they get for it?
That is the $112 million dollar question.
How much cash will it take to put on the biggest political bashes of the season – the Democratic Party Convention in Denver this August and the Republican Party Convention in Minneapolis this September?
Private donations (overwhelming from corporations) are expected to exceed $112 million, which should cover 80% of the convention costs according to a new study released today by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Campaign Finance Institute.
Unlike direct campaign contributions, contributions to the political party conventions are unlimited and come directly from corporate treasuries. The report also shows that these same corporate sponsors “have been heavily engaged in the struggle for federal political influence since the last Presidential election.”
These organizations have responded to solicitations from partisan elected officials and fundraisers dispatched by the host committees. These solicitors have dangled promises of access to grateful federal elected officials.
Among other industries listed as donors, mining and electric utility interests were included in the list of convention sponsors. Peabody Mining, Arch Coal, and Newmont Mining are all sponsors of the Democratic Party Convention in Denver. Edison Electric Institute, Southern Co, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Xcel Energy, and Great River Energy are all electric utility organizations sponsoring one or both party conventions.
To view the complete report and listing of convention sponsors and also how much money they have spent on lobbying federal officials over the past three years, visit the Campaign Finance Institute website.
Notice
What Can Money Buy?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/wake-up-democrats-send-di_b_121822.html
"When party activists gathered in Chicago to nominate Bill Clinton to a second term in 1996, Mr. Obama was making his first run for political office, but he did not have enough clout to get full access to the convention. Instead, he concluded that high-dollar breakfasts and dinners seemed to lock voters out of the system, grousing to a reporter, "The convention's for sale, right?" New York Times, August 27th, 2008
Dirty Coal certainly thinks the Democratic convention is for sale. In one of the creepiest displays of propaganda this week in Denver, lighting up billboards and shuttling ads around in vans, and handing out T-shirts, fans, hats and enough tote-bag goodies to send Santa Claus and his reindeer back to the melting North Pole, the coal industry's front group--American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity--is spending nearly $2 million to ingratiate themselves among Democratic Party members. (They'll do the same with the Republicans next week.)
In truth, this "Clean Coal" charade has more to do with another convention, back in the cold winter of 1992. The National Coal Council held a conference to come to grips with a disturbing marketing reality: "Coal has a dismal image." Coal was "maligned and misunderstood." Worse yet, according to the Coal Council, "Most Americans do not think about coal at all."
The convention of coal companies grappled with these popular images: Air pollution and visibility, mine safety and labor regulations, unregulated strip mining, local apprehension, global warming, acid rain, soot and particulates, acid mine drainage and abandoned mines and more subsidence, the dreaded images of coal-draped Eastern Europe, and an unfair media. Coal was destined to play the villain unless "effective actions are taken to alter the public's perception of coal."
What to do? Welcome back to "Clean Coal."
Read the rest: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/wake-up-democrats-send-di_b_121822.html
Interesting
I've been in awe of a lot of the powerful speeches, but I could do without fancy jumbo-trons if it keeps coal money out of the loop.
Thanks.