Warren bashes 2020 rivals for 'hobnobbing with the rich and powerful'

[brooklynite]

Politico

Elizabeth Warren is going after some of her Democratic rivals ahead of Tuesday night's debate over their dependence on big donors.

In a Medium post, the Massachusetts senator criticizes unnamed Democratic opponents for relying on high-dollar fundraisers to fund their campaigns and challenges them to disclose the names of their wealthy bundlers and finance teams, as well as any honorifics they're given. She also calls on them to reveal the dates and locations of all future fundraisers if they continue to hold such events.

“If Democratic candidates for president want to spend their time hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, it is currently legal for them to do so — but they shouldn’t be handing out secret titles and honors to rich donors,” Warren wrote in a Medium post with her latest plan on campaign finance. “Voters have a right to know who is buying access and recognition — and how much it costs.

Warren did not name names, but her comments were an implicit rebuke of Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. All of them have raised millions at fundraisers with the wealthy, a common practice in both parties.

[Act_of_Reparation]

1. It's almost like she thinks money shouldn't buy access to politicians.

Next-level bonkers, amirite?

[Ninga]

2. Yep. Spot on. Just look at the mess such "trumple" donors have created in the State Department.

[brooklynite]

6. Funny how she didn't think that when she was running for Senate...

I've had many a wine glass at her events.

[Act_of_Reparation]

8. Funny she's changed her mind.

Maybe you were poor company?

[brooklynite]

12. No, my cocktail chatter is scintillating...

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. You didn't spill an entire bottle of Chateau Margaux 1787 on her carpet, did you?

[Autumn]

21. Are you attending Hillary's "Dinner and Conversation" tomorrow night? nt

[Blue_true]

24. So what are you calling yourself?

Want to make a confession? Hold for a few minutes while I run out for a Priest.

[TidalWave46]

3. I only see one way this helps her.

She understands that half of Sanders current support will be fleeing him in the coming weeks and she is moving in on them.

Something like this won't help her in any other way. I would say it's not a very good move as Sanders supporters who will be fleeing are already aware of her position here.

And to really confuse you I'm actually leaning toward Warren because of her overall thought here. I don't think anyone will take on corruption like Warren and that really is the theme she is going with using this line of attack. I believe Warren and Harris would be the most aggressive in fighting corruption at every turn and putting policies in place to stop "legal" corruption.

[Blue_true]

25. She is very smart and canny.

Reread what she said carefully. Notice that she put in markers that she can avoid during the future as she host high dollar fundraisers. Notice how she said that she won't hand out plaques and awards to the people that attend, that was some canny wordsmithing that allows her to hold such fundraisers when she needs to, with the attendees out on notice there will be no special access for them.

[crazytown]

4. Buttigieg v Warren

I can't see her accosting Biden under the circumstances.

Warren’s challenge to disclose more about donors and fundraisers is most clearly directed at Buttigieg since he does not publicly disclose a full list of its bundlers. He also does not provide the time, place, and hosts of all of his fundraisers. The campaign has confirmed public reports of those involved in its “investors circle," and the dates and locations for some of its private, high-dollar fundraising events.

[Doremus]

19. Agreed. He also went after her with the "pocket change" remark. nt

[Otto Lidenbrock]

5. She can take the moral high ground given she outraised them without doing fancy fundraisers

Plus she's right. It would be nice who is contributing and a sign of their motivation. I believe Biden invites reporters to all of his but they just report on his speeches as if it's just another campaign event.

[brooklynite]

7. The question is: can either Warren or Sanders scale up to $1 B+ General Election level...

...with only small dollar contributions.

[crazytown]

9. Are not the Nominee & DNC accounts merged?

[Doremus]

20. I believe so. nt

[Otto Lidenbrock]

10. They'll get the money rolling

I think the difference is they won't be attending a swanky getaway at George and Amal Clooney's estate to do so.

Hollywood has been among the most vocal critics of Trump (partly because he was once on the inside and reflects the worst of it). People with big followings have gone from apolitical or downright ignorant to using their platforms to raise awareness....and the money too.

[corbettkroehler]

18. That's Right, Unity Is The Key

Donation flows in primaries are relatively slow compared with general elections. I remember vividly how then-Senator Obama's fundraising spiked in 2008 once he had the nomination and Hillary gave her most gracious concession speech.

Whether Sanders or Warren, we'll see a MASSIVE spike in the mobilization of grassroots donors once we have our nominee.

One more point: remember that Democrats don't have to match the filthy lucre which reThugs raise dollar-for-dollar but, merely, to remain competitive. This would be true for ANY nominee in 2020.

[Baclava]

11. Ha ha, taking that little angry guys message from 4 years ago, I like it, resonates with the youth

Alls fair in love and politics

[Peacetrain]

14. President Sanders..hmmmph missed that one

[Baclava]

16. Siphoning off votes from your competition in the primaries never hurts

You still got to climb that ladder one rung at a time, sorry Bernie

[Green Line]

15. She didn't mind when she was running for Senate

[Blue_true]

34. Do you know whether or not she set conditions on who attended,

what access they got? That make a huge difference. I think that it is ok for politicians to raise money at swanky affairs, as long as they are transparent about the hosts and allow reporters to attend to report.

I don't believe that a person should be held from helping out with money because he or she is rich. It's a matter of WHY the person is giving the money.

[NurseJackie]

17. Careful!

[PhoenixDem]

22. Now she is copying BS

and that too, after banking all the big donor donations before she announced

[Skidmore]

23. There's a catch.

https://newrepublic.com/article/155102/warrens-plan-spurn-big-money-donors-catch

Warren’s Plan to Spurn Big Money Donors Has a Catch
The Democratic frontrunner missed a chance to do something truly revolutionary.
By LIBBY WATSON
October 10, 201


A few weeks ago, I wrote that Senator Elizabeth Warren should not raise funds from millionaires at private fundraising events if she is the Democratic nominee, and argued that she “cannot spend a primary campaign proudly rejecting big donor money because she recognizes its dangerous influence on politics, and then turn around and take millions of that same money in the general election, without being a hypocrite.” Warren is clearly a faithful reader of my posts, because this week she changed her position. In an interview with CBS News, Warren was asked if she would commit to forgoing fundraising events “no matter how much money Donald Trump is raising,” and she affirmed that she would: “Yeah, I’m not going to do the big-dollar fund-raisers. I’m just not going to do it. The whole notion behind this campaign is that we can build this together.”


Hours later, the Warren campaign rowed back that statement, telling NBC News that Warren would “continue to raise money and attend events that are open to the press” for the Democratic Party itself. Fundraisers stacked with millionaires and billionaires still count as grassroots, apparently, as long as it’s for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and not her campaign.

It is surely better if Warren keeps her promise to only attend fundraisers that are open to the press—that at least reassures us that the events won’t include Warren standing up and promising a room of billionaires that she’ll go easy on them, offer up ritual sacrifices of the poor, or whatever else it is that rich people get up to in the privacy of their climate-change survival bunkers. It would be hard, though not impossible, for Warren to have back-slapping wink-and-nod conversations with rich donors with the Associated Press taking photos. Still, presidential campaigns lie all the time, and it’s very possible that the definition of “open to the press” may change; there are a lot more unanswered questions about the level of access these donors will ultimately get....

[highplainsdem]

26. Says the candidate who was perfectly happy to hobnob with the rich and powerful when fundraising

as recently as last year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-2020.html

[Kurt V.]

27. one is sincere in her conviction. one is more of the same neoliberal failed ideals.

[highplainsdem]

30. LOL.

[Green Line]

28. As she told the people of Mass that she wasn't going to run in 2020

[lapucelle]

29. I think we need stricter rules for reporting the source small dollar donations

before Putin or the Republicans figure out a way to game the system with automated donations from phantom donors.

[Celerity]

31. glass houses

The ultimate irony is counting Warren's 10m in account transfers, only 48% of her total monies before Q3 were from small donors. 49% of Buttigieg's monies have come from small donors. 10m of Sanders' totals has come from transfers of preexisting funds, and when the transfers are added in, even he had only 60% of his total monies from small donors prior to Q3. Prior to Q3, Buttigieg had over 400,000 individual donors, and had well over half a million (580,000) individual donors by Q3. His average Q3 donation was 33 USD (per MSNBC today). For comparison, Sanders had an average donor contribution of 27 USD in Q3 (again per MSNBC today.) But hey!, lets all buy into a far left, TYT, JD, etc.-pushed shit-stir tweet using a chop-quote, that Pete is basically only fundraising from the rich, and shits on small donors, lolol.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/politics/Pete-Buttigieg-fundraising.html

Mr. Schmuhl’s memo said more than 580,000 individual donors had contributed to the Buttigieg campaign since it launched in January, placing him well above likely thresholds to compete in future presidential debates. It said the campaign had raised more than $51 million since the beginning of the race, with an average donation of about $40. The memo did not reveal how much cash Mr. Buttigieg had remaining at the end of the third quarter.

the full exchange that kicked it all off when only a small part was chopped out and pull-quoted

Link to tweet

[beachbumbob]

32. the idea we need to turn on backs on people who rich is pretty ridiculous, look at what Gov Priztker

has accomplish in Illinois and if he chooses to run for president one day, he would make a great democratic president

no, hate people who want to have litmus tests for democrats on who we talk with, or get money from or whatever.

[Politicub]

33. Mayor Pete stepped in it and now all of the nominees have to deal with the fallout.

He is usually so thoughtful in what he says. It sounds like his guard was down with his "pocket change" bit. Now they all have to live with it.

While I don't have a problem with large donors and traditional fundraising activities -- we need all of the resources we can get for the general election -- the issue does create a point of differentiation between Warren and some of the other candidates. It is fair game to point that out.

And, I'm interested to hear how Buttigieg and the others position themselves if a fundraising question arises.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

35. Go warren

Shame the compromised. Just because you can do it does not mean you should.
Fuck the rich people,fuck them forever. They need to be chopped at the knees and taxed at 99% .