In so many different ways we are seeing who is running on smaller donors, and who is using the power brokers with big money. We are seeing one candidate's calm demeanor, we are seeing the angry underbelly of the other.
Florida is the secret for Hillary. Tonight we learn that her big donor fundraisers are threatening Dean with wanting huge sums of money back if Florida's delegates are not seated. Remember now, Dean has already offered revotes. So why are they threatening?
Hillary's big money donors threatening Dean over Florida“If you’re not going to count my vote, I’m not going to give you my money,” said Mr. Cejas, who was the United States ambassador to Belgium from 1998 to 2001.
Christopher Korge, a Florida real estate developer who is another top fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton, held an event last year in his home that brought in about $140,000 for the national party, which was set aside in a special account for the general election battle in Florida. But he told committee officials this week that if Florida’s delegate conundrum was not settled satisfactorily he would be asking for the money back.
“If we do not resolve this issue,” Mr. Korge said, “I think it’s safe to say there will be a request for a return of $140,000.”
The anger from Clinton fund-raisers seems to emanate mostly from Florida, where the impasse appears farthest from resolution. Democratic Party officials in Michigan on Friday proposed a new primary election on June 3 to make up for the January election.
Threats, money, power? All of them.
One of the candidates, Barack Obama is using the 50 State plan. He is using and upgrading the DNC voter files as he goes. This will benefit all the party. Hillary is not using the DNC files. I hear she is using Harold Ickes database.
Voter files and how campaigns use them.Rather than focusing on a handful of swing states, Dean and a chorus of like-minded allies have argued, Democrats should invest substantial time and money in trying to restore their competitiveness, even in Republican territory. As part of that initiative, Dean has provided every state party with funds to hire organizers and upgrade computerized voter files.
Dave Boundy, the DNC's political director, says that while Clinton has used voter files from a private vendor, Obama has mostly purchased the files from state parties. Under the agreement with those parties, Boundy added, Obama will update the files to show which voters responded to his outreach efforts. That should help state parties and the eventual nominee target their own turnout campaigns this fall.
Here is more about Harold Ickes database called Catalist:
Perhaps Ickes' largest-scale project is Catalist, a private company born out of his open distrust in the ability of Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean to build a voter database to rival that of the Republicans. Ickes is president of the company.
"It's unclear to me," Ickes said, whether the Democratic Party's database is uniform and rich enough for a national election.
The Democratic Party's voter database, a party spokeswoman said, is fully functional and accessible through a central interface.
"Given the proven success of VoteBuilder in the 2006 elections and the overwhelmingly positive response we've had from the campaigns and state parties who used it, we are very confident in our voter file," said DNC communications director Karen Finney.
Power and money versus grassroots. The odds are in the power and money corner that are fighting dirty....but things could turn around.
