Warren just called out Buttigieg on fundraising

[brooklynite]

Link to tweet

[LaurenOlimina]

1. Yup.

[Merlot]

2. I hear he's popular with the silicon valley crowd

Am interested to see if that's true.

[George II]

3. Candidates should NOT comment or critique other candidates' methods of fundraising....

Seems like those who are most critical of others are those who have their own questionable fundraising tactics.

[redqueen]

4. He's reportedly got the most billionaire supporters

so this kind of scrutiny was bound to happen at some point.

[George II]

6. "Reportedly". But remember that even billionaires can't give more than $2900 or $5800, the same....

....as many of Warren's and Sanders' contributors.

[redqueen]

9. Yeah I know, so much of this rhetoric is just red meat.

But having that narrative out there is kinda low hanging fruit for people who are willing to use it.

[George II]

12. I don't have a problem with either candidate, but when we scrutinize others' campaign sources....

....let's be realistic.

Of the two, Buttigieg has 47% of his contributions unitemized, Warren has 64%. Buttigieg is more "transparent". So we have no idea where about 2/3 of Warren's money come from, Buttigieg less than half.

You know what they say, "people who live in glass houses....."

[redqueen]

13. Yep & given what Celerity posted it's kinda puzzling why Warren would go there.

May make for some interesting discussion during the next debate.

[George II]

14. Thanks. That goes back to what I said originally, candidates should not criticize others'....

....methods of fundraising. To each his/her own. As long as they don't violate FEC regulations, they should all be free to fundraise as they see fit.

[redqueen]

15. I don't disagree of course.

However I'm not surprised by it at all.

[Celerity]

5. Pete tied Warren in fundraising for Q2 and Q3 combined and had a higher percentage of small donors

do the maths, Bernie had 18m in Q2, 25m Q3 (43m), Pete had 25m and 19m (44m)

Warren had 19m and 25m (44m). BUT 10m USD of that was for a transfer of pre-existing funds and counting all that, only 48% of her total monies before Q3 was from small donors. 10m of Sanders totals has come from transfers of preexisting funds, and when the transfers are added in, even he has only 60% of his total monies from small donors.

Pete was not running in Q1, he officially launched April 14, 2019.

In Q2, when he raised around 25m USD, his average donation was 84 USD per person, from almost 300,000 individuals, and that was in just his first full quarter of running. His average donation was down to only 33 USD in Q3, Sanders was 27 USD per person.



Big Donors, Small Donors: Pete Buttigieg Has Courted Them All — Successfully

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-fundraising.html



Elizabeth Warren decries big money in politics. Her campaign treasurer embodies it.

‘Personal PAC man’ Paul Egerman has deep ties to liberal megadonors

https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/elizabeth-warren-president-pac-money-treasurer/

FAIRFAX, Va. — With a sizable American flag as her backdrop and supporters toting signs reading “The Best President Money Can’t Buy,” Elizabeth Warren decried the role big bucks play in politics.

“Corruption, the influence of money, touches every decision that gets made in Washington,” the Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. senator from Massachusetts told hundreds of people attending her May 16 campaign event at George Mason University in Virginia. “Whatever issue brought you here today, I guarantee if there’s a decision to be made in Washington, it’s been touched, pushed, massaged, tilted over, just a little, so the folks with money do better than everyone else.”

Warren’s declaration aligns with her aggressive rejection of traditional sources of campaign cash, from political action committees to lobbyists. Everyone will have access to her, she says, not just wealthy donors. She’s instituted “selfie lines” at rallies. She releases videos of herself personally calling donors who’ve contributed just a few dollars. But Warren has also selected for her presidential campaign treasurer a man whose contributions run counter to Warren’s statements — among the most emphatic among the more than 20 Democrats running for president — against big money in politics.

Dubbed a “personal PAC man” to politicians by The Boston Globe more than a decade ago, retired software engineer Paul Egerman, 70, has quietly established himself as a key benefactor and rainmaker for Democratic political committees and liberal causes.

Since 1995, Egerman and his wife, Joanne, have given more than $8.4 million to various Democratic candidates and PACs, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Center for Responsive Politics data. Of that, Egerman has contributed $1.7 million to the pro-Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, which is also affiliated with a “dark money” group — raising political cash that can’t be traced to its original source. In 2012, he gave $56,000 to Rethink PAC, a super PAC that helped Warren in her successful campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.

snip

“I don’t believe democracy should be for sale to billionaires and giant corporations. I don’t take corporate PAC money. Shoot, I don’t take PAC money of any kind.”

— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), during a campaign event in Des Moines, Jan. 5

“I don’t take corporate PAC money. Shoot, I don’t take PAC money of any kind.”

— Warren, during a campaign event in Manchester, N.H., Jan. 12

https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/pacs?cid=N00033492&cycle=CAREER&type=I





How Elizabeth Warren Raised Big Money Before She Denounced Big Money

Ms. Warren wooed wealthy donors for years, stockpiling money from fund-raisers, and has used $10.4 million from her 2018 Senate race to underwrite her 2020 bid.

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

On the highest floor of the tallest building in Boston, Senator Elizabeth Warren was busy collecting big checks from some of the city’s politically connected insiders. It was April 2018 and Ms. Warren, up for re-election, was at a breakfast fund-raiser hosted for her by John M. Connors Jr., one of the old-guard power brokers of Massachusetts. Soon after, Ms. Warren was in Manhattan doing the same. There would be trips to Hollywood and Silicon Valley, Martha’s Vineyard and Philadelphia — all with fund-raisers on the agenda. She collected campaign funds at the private home of at least one California megadonor, and was hosted by another in Florida. She held finance events until two weeks before her all-but-assured re-election last November.

Then, early this year, Ms. Warren made a bold bet that would delight the left: She announced she was quitting this big-money circuit in the 2020 presidential primary, vowing not to attend private fund-raisers or dial up rich donors anymore. Admirers and activists praised her stand — but few noted the fact that she had built a financial cushion by pocketing big checks the years before. The open secret of Ms. Warren’s campaign is that her big-money fund-raising through 2018 helped lay the foundation for her anti-big-money run for the presidency. Last winter and spring, she transferred $10.4 million in leftover funds from her 2018 Senate campaign to underwrite her 2020 run, a portion of which was raised from the same donor class she is now running against.

As Ms. Warren has risen in the polls on her populist and anti-corruption message, some donors and, privately, opponents are chafing at her campaign’s purity claims of being “100 percent grass-roots funded.” Several donors now hosting events for her rivals organized fund-raisers for her last year. “Can you spell hypocrite?” said former Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, who contributed $4,000 to Ms. Warren in 2018 and is now supporting former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Mr. Rendell said he had recruited donors to attend an intimate fund-raising dinner for Ms. Warren last year at Barclay Prime, a Philadelphia steakhouse where the famed cheesesteak goes for $120. (The dish includes Wagyu rib-eye, foie gras, truffled cheese whiz and a half-bottle of champagne.) He said he received a “glowing thank-you letter” from Ms. Warren afterward. But when Mr. Rendell co-hosted Mr. Biden’s first fund-raiser this spring, Ms. Warren’s campaign sent brickbats, deriding the affair as “a swanky private fund-raiser for wealthy donors,” the likes of which she now shuns. “She didn’t have any trouble taking our money the year before,” Mr. Rendell said. “All of a sudden, we were bad guys and power brokers and influence-peddlers. In 2018, we were wonderful.”

snip


Elizabeth Warren calls Joe Biden’s super PAC reversal ‘disappointing’

"That's not who we are."

https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2019/10/25/elizabeth-warren-joe-biden-super-pacs

[redqueen]

7. Not sure why that isn't a bigger story really. nt

[brooklynite]

8. Wagyu beef cheesesteaks?

[Celerity]

10. The World's Most Expensive Philly Cheesesteak Is This $120 Work of Art

https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/barclay-prime-philly-cheesesteak-worlds-most-expensive

[brooklynite]

11. And correct me if I'm wrong, but is that a TOASTED bun?

I know Ed, and I respect his political judgement, but this is spending money for the sake of spending money.

[Celerity]

16. I have no clue who ordered what at that Warren fundraiser, or if anyone even ordered

that cheese steak. That said, I have eaten at restos where some of the entrees were more than that sandwich, and the sandwich does come with a 1/2 bottle of champagne. Judging from the pic, it is Veuve Clicquot Brut (Yellow Label), which is decent bubbly, but hardly outrageous.

[msongs]

17. oh the good old days when candidates backtracked on wanting MFA nt