Liebercrats?

by: Matt Stoller

Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 18:52


The donors threatening Nancy Pelosi are listed below.  I bolded the ones who contributed to Joe Lieberman's campaign for Senate in 2006, when he won reelection as an independent.

Marc Aronchick
Clarence Avant
Susie Tompkins Buell
Sim Farar
Robert L. Johnson
Chris Korge
Marc and Cathy Lasry
Hassan Nemazee
Alan and Susan Patricof
JB Pritzker
Amy Rao
Lynn de Rothschild
Haim Saban
Bernard Schwartz
Stanley S. Shuman
Jay Snyder
Maureen White and Steven Rattner

... Adding that Haim Saban is the fiscal sponsor of extreme right-wing hawk Michael O'Hanlon at the Brookings Institution and Lasry was a Bush donor.

... Aravosis notices that 30% of these donors slept in the White House when Bill was President.  I don't have any problem with that, actually, I just think it's funny how transparently transactional they are.

Matt Stoller :: Liebercrats?

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Liebercrats? | 47 comments
"Death Tax" Democrats? (4.00 / 4)
And isn't that BET Bob Johnson? Champion of eliminating the estate tax, and purveyor of rumors about what Obama was doing "down in the 'hood"?

I call on Senator Clinton to reject and renounce.....

An Idea (4.00 / 2)
How about they all donate to nobody anymore, ever? I think we could all be ok with this.  

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra
I hope and pray Hillary doesn't run as an independent like Liberman. n/t (0.00 / 0)


We won the Battle. Now the Real Fight for Change Begins. Join MoveOn.org and fight for progressive change.  
She won't run as an indy .. (0.00 / 0)
because she'd become the most hated person in America(or at least among Democrats)
[ Parent ]
So how much are they worth? (0.00 / 0)
They're cracking the funding whip, how big a whip?

How much are they worth to the party? (0.00 / 0)
Or how much is their net worth?  

The answer to number 1: not much, IMO.  For every $60,000 combined donation that they and their spouse make to every committee, Obama has 600 people willing to give $100.

The answer to number 2:  Scrooge McDuck-esque.  Marc Lasry and Haim Saban in particular have more money than God, having founded a major hedge fund and supplying every American child with a wildly overpriced Power Ranger in 1994, respectively.  

As far as I'm concerned, Saban is particularly suspect, having said openly "I'm a one issue guy, and my issues is Israel."

[ Parent ]
Forbes 400 list (0.00 / 0)
Only three of the individuals make the Forbes 400 list (richest Americans) for either 2006 or 2007.  Haim Saban is the richest of the group, worth $3.4 billion in 2007 followed by J.B. Pritzker at $2.7 billion and Robert L. Johnson (on the list at $1 billion in 2006, off in 2007 when it took $1.3 billion to qualify and (according to Forbes) 82 billionaires failed to crack the list.

The number of lightly taxed hedge find managers on the list is extroadinary.  Thank you, Senator Schumer.

Rattner bought the New Jersey Nets and plans to move the team to Brooklyn.  Wonder how much in taxpayer subsidies he wants for that boondoggle.  He outbid a group that included Jon Corzine for the Nets (Corzine wanted to keep in their tax supported home in Jersey).  It would be far cheaper to copy the good citizens of Green Bay whi own the team and are therefor not subject to the extortion of rich guys.

[ Parent ]
Heh (0.00 / 0)
I encourage you not to confuse Steven Rattner with Bruce Ratner.
[ Parent ]
although (0.00 / 0)
There would be a big moral difference between donating during the primary and donating in the general.  



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

I was gonna ask that question. (4.00 / 1)
Donating in the primary is completely legitimate; it means they liked Lieberman, but still, that's a fundamentally legitimate personal choice, even if a tasteless one from my perspective.

Donating after the primary is different.

So I hope Matt only highlighted those who gave after the primary.

[ Parent ]
He specifies (0.00 / 0)
that this refers to the "independent" run.
[ Parent ]
Because (0.00 / 0)
it's immoral if other people donate money to candidates you don't like.
[ Parent ]
Shady cast of characters - I notice the BET founder too (4.00 / 1)
Robert L. Johnson, the icky corporate Liebercrat.

The cast of characters around Hillary. I don't think we are going to get a true progressive candidate with another Clinton presidency. NAFTA-like half-baked policies is all we're going to see down that road.  

Family feud? (0.00 / 0)
I think a couple of other Pritzkers (Chicago billionaires) are big Obama supporters.

Yup (I googled)

http://www.observer.com/2007/o...

Yeah .. (0.00 / 0)
Penny Pritzker is Obama's finance chair I believe .. so there is a bit of a family feud going on
[ Parent ]
Nice catch Matt (4.00 / 1)
That is all.
Heh (4.00 / 1)
And what about all the ones who didn't donate to Lieberman?  Seems like a weak thesis to me.  I guess JB Pritzker must be evil while his sister, Obama's finance chair (who also donated to Lieberman) is fine.

The reality is that when you take sides in a visible way, you're going to alienate people on the other side.  This holds true whether your name is Daily Kos, Keith Olbermann, or what have you.  You're going to make some people happy and you're going to make some people unhappy.  This isn't blackmail, it's reality.

These people aren't demanding that Pelosi endorse Clinton, they simply want to see her return to her stance of public neutrality.  If that's such an unreasonable thing to ask, one should consider the sensible reasons why Pelosi adopted that stance in the first instance.

Why should Pelosi be neutral? .. (0.00 / 0)
she probably sees the handwriting on the wall .. and doesn't want to see the party destroy itself
[ Parent ]
They've been "neutral" (4.00 / 1)
really in a de facto manner only.  Once George Miller endorsed Obama, and Rory Reid went for Clinton prior to Nevada, it was fairly clear where Pelosi and Reid had cast their lots.
[ Parent ]
Well (4.00 / 2)
I don't really subscribe to the theory that it is necessary to alienate half the party in order to save it.

A lot of this comes down to whether you believe that Democrats are more or less divided 50/50 between the candidates, or that Obama is somehow the overwhelming choice of the people.  If you want to be like Keith Olbermann and basically conduct yourself as though everyone out there is pro-Obama, you're going to lose some amount of support.  Whether it's worth losing that support is a choice that has to be made.

[ Parent ]
You are missing the point .. (0.00 / 0)
as someone has pointed out already(Chris, maybe), if a candidate was 6% ahead .. with 83% of the precincts in .. the TV networks would have called the race already .. even Clinton knows her only shot at this point is the convention .. what does that tell you?
[ Parent ]
Well (0.00 / 0)
Declaring that the race is over when most of Hillary's supporters don't agree that it's over is a good way to alienate people.

If you believe they're all in deep denial and that everyone is required to wave the truth in their face at every opportunity, that's fine, but this goes back to my point about alienating half the party.  I assume you saw the poll today where 78% of Democrats didn't want Hillary to drop out at this point.

[ Parent ]
When are Hillary supporters ever gonna agree .. (0.00 / 0)
that it's over? .. they won't until the convention .. or unless the supers come out soon for Obama .. and that 78% .. well .. I wonder how many of them actually know what the chances of Hillary winning are .. I bet a lot of them don't ..  I wonder if they knew how slim Hillary's chances are .. what they'd say .. and also .. we both know .. if the shoe was on the other foot ... Hillary's supporters would be howling for Brack to drop out
[ Parent ]
I'll agree when it's over (4.00 / 1)
For the record, Al Gore and John Kerry both dropped out exactly when I thought it was appropriate for them to drop out.  Jerry Brown in '92 and Bill Bradley in '00 went on much longer than I thought was appropriate.  My track record is that this is the 12th Democratic primary season I have observed, the 10th I have observed as a Democrat, and I have never seen a candidate drop out when I thought he should stay in.  And right now, I think Hillary should stay in because she has a realistic chance to win.

And I GUARANTEE YOU I WOULD NOT be "howling for Barack to drop out" if the shoe was on the other foot.  Sure, I would be more impatient if I were an Obama supporter, but there's really no grounds for howling with a small delegate lead, tied in the polls, and Hillary-friendly states coming up, not to mention the idea that repeatedly demanding the other side to drop out is rude and disrespectful.  In fact, it might be the reason Hillary is still tied in the polls when you might think folks would start breaking toward the leader--people who haven't voted yet don't like being told their vote won't count.  Not to mention the appearance of arrogance created by these constant demands.


[ Parent ]
Arrogance? .. (0.00 / 0)
Obama supporters aren't gonna take any smack from Hillary supporters .. and it's not that their vote doesn't count .. it's the matter of the fact that her chances of winning are very slim .. do you think the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team happens all the time? ... those are the odds basically
[ Parent ]
Since when is "Liebercrats?" a thesis? (4.00 / 1)
An open question reaching no conclusions does not a "thesis" make.
[ Parent ]
Okay (0.00 / 0)
if you really want to be that way, assume I meant that this didn't look like the kind of facts that could justify a thesis of that type.
[ Parent ]
Pelosi hasn't said anything illegitimate. (4.00 / 1)
"In the interests of democracy, and for the future good of the party, superdelegates should not vote against a clear pledged delegate leader."  That isn't what Clinton wants people to say, but that's not an unreasonable thing to say.  That's a perfectly valid position to announce, and it doesn't even quite breach her neutral position either, though it obviously comes close.

Anyway, as a party leader she has every right to say that she thinks superdelegates should not do this.  That this happens to be Clinton's only remaining realistic path to the nomination is a bummer for Clinton, but is not Pelosi's fault.

===================

The superdelegate option has a vague similarity to the nuclear option.  It is always technically possible, and indeed superdelegates exist partly to allow this possibility.  But, it's such a hugely disruptive move that it can only realistically be used in the most dire and serious circumstances.  The only way to justify the supers using the superdelegate option against Obama at this point, would be if 1) Hillary managed to destroy him somehow, or, 2) he managed to destroy himself.  The odds of 2 are exceedingly low.  The argument that Obama is far and away, much less electable than Hillary freakin Clinton in November also doesn't hold water.  So the only way circumstances could become appropriate for the superdelegate option in August, would be if Hillary destroys Obama in April, and then follows that up with the superdelegate option.  A lot of people, apparently including Pelosi, feel that is not acceptable.

[ Parent ]
Please (0.00 / 0)
It adopts wholesale one candidate's position on a contested idea that is crucial to the outcome.  Neutrality is neutrality, and that ain't neutrality.  You can't chair the Convention and take positions on issues hotly contested between the candidates.  The Convention is there to support the candidates, nothing else.  It's not there to do anything to shape the outcome in any form.
[ Parent ]
LOL. (0.00 / 0)
The Convention is there to support the candidates, nothing else.  It's not there to do anything to shape the outcome in any form.

LOL is literally all I have to say to that.

Your concept of neutrality, meanwhile, is the same one that requires "journalists" to present "pile of flaming bullshit" and "reasoned, provable factual argument" as two equal viewpoints in a hesaid/shesaid dispute.  That concept of neutrality has gotten this country in a shitpile of trouble.  That's not what neutrality is.  That's abdication of sanity, and abdication of standards.  Reasonableness is a legitimate standard in journalism, and democracy is a legitimate standard in elections (else why bother), and for Pelosi to say that overturning the winner of the elected delegates and the popular vote is not democracy, not democratic, and therefore not appropriate, is a legitimate upholding of legitimate standards.  

I'm not ready for pomo world where just because somebody says something, it automatically has the same standing as anything anyone else has said.  Just cause Clinton said it (or Obama said it), doesn't mean it has instant and equal credibility, and everyone has to be "neutral" between it and whatever else everyone else has said.  Nope.  That's not how reasoned discourse works.

[ Parent ]
Where did this journalism stuff come in? (0.00 / 0)
I mostly agree on what you wrote about that, but what does it have to do with the subject we're talking about?

As for Pelosi:

for Pelosi to say that overturning the winner of the elected delegates and the popular vote is not democracy, not democratic, and therefore not appropriate

I mostly agree with that.  That's what she said today, and it's a clear walking back from her earlier position, the one that pissed me off, which was that superdelegates should follow the pledged delegates.  That's clearly siding with the Obama camp on a hotly contested, crucial issue and clearly inappropriate for her role as the neutral conductor of a convention that serves the candidates.

A clarification: I said I "mostly" agree with what she said today.  It would be better for her to just remain silent on the issue.  However, she's a politican, too, and she has to save face, so she can't turn 180 from her previous position.  I think her statement today was an acceptable way for her to walk back from her unacceptable side-taking while still maintaining a little dignity.

I'm actually quite a Pelosi fan except for the way she has meddled in this campaign.  If she wants to get involved in the Presidential campaign, that's fine but she needs to give up some of her Party leader honorifics.  The two don't combine.

[ Parent ]
I dunno (0.00 / 0)
These people aren't demanding that Pelosi endorse Clinton, they simply want to see her return to her stance of public neutrality.

I seem to remember a couple weeks again the Clinton campaign and donors demanding Howard Dean and the DNC "show leadership" on the Florida/Michigan issue, with the strong implication that "leadership" meant breaking neutrality and going with the option desired by the Clinton campaign.

So close on the heels of that event, it seems hard to take credibly the idea it's a lack of neutrality on Pelosi's part which the signatories of this new letter are objecting to. It seems more plausible to me that they're objecting because her claimed stance-- that superdelegates should not override voting-- would favor Obama.

(Although I note that by itself, asserting superdelegates should not override elections is an entirely neutral stance to take-- it favors neither candidate inherently. The only reason such a stance in practice favors Obama at this point is cuz of all those elections he won.)

[ Parent ]
Speaking just for me (4.00 / 1)
But I've called on Dean to show leadership, and I didn't mean what you said at all.  I meant he needs to assemble all party bigwigs and get them, as a group, to force the two camps to get together and work out something fair to both camps that gets FL & MI enfranchised.  I would fully expect that both candidates would have to give up something.
[ Parent ]
The States have done the damage... (0.00 / 0)
not the candidates...  the Party told them the consequences...  too late now.

Clinton won't agree until she has a vote [paid by her blackmailers] that benefits her... and I then you have to understand unless you have a screw loose that Obama would agree to a massive costly revote that benefits Clinton...

Stalemate... get with the program.

Also note, Clinton $$$ DNC blackmailers have threatened the Dean and DNC withholding their money unless they get a friendly Clinton bias rerun!

again get with the program...


[ Parent ]
Sorry (0.00 / 0)
I just can't engage against that kind of rhetoric.  You're obviously looking through a very restrictive prism--perhaps it has sand in it.  :)

But one thing:  it's absolutely not "too late."  Something has to be done.

[ Parent ]
OK... (0.00 / 0)
Phone the States... then you might find out how difficult it would be for them to logistically organize a fair and balanced re-vote this close to the end of the nomination.

The whole f-up with Florida and Michigan is not a situation I feel great about, but it's happened.  Those States that went against the DNC thought they would have the time to make their case to overturn the rules, which, I might add all other States adhered to...  It backfired on them badly.

Both 'States' held out and tried to negotiate too late in the game, and then finally came to the realization that even they wouldn't be able to pull off a fair and balance revote under their own rules

So, no something can't be done.

[ Parent ]
How is she breaking neutrality? (0.00 / 0)
I fully expect Pelosi to back Obama at the convention, but she's not breaking neutrality here. She's saying that she thinks superdelegates should back the candidate with the most pledged delegates. That's a valid position and it doesn't make her a partisan for Obama.

Granted, Obama's almost certain to win that metric, but I don't believe she's ever contradicted this position with a previous statement.

Moreover, she has only moral influence over superdelegates. DNC rules say superdelegates can vote for whoever they like. They don't have to follow who Pelosi recommends.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
yeah yeah but Hillary would 'die' for Israel... Obama nah... (0.00 / 0)
"...On the other side, Mark Aronchick, an influential Clinton supporter and organizer, said that Obama has to "play catch up" in the Jewish community. He argued that Clinton's stances on the Middle East are well-known, while Obama's -- despite the Illinois senator's repeated attempts to express pro-Israel sentiments and allay concerns over several of his choices for advisers -- are still unclear.

"I know where she stands. I know she fully understands Israel's right to self-defense -- to protect Ashkelon, to protect Netivot," said Aronchick, who serves as Pennsylvania's representative to the Democratic National Committee. "She gets it, she understands the reason for the fence, she understands that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations."
http://www.jewishexponent.com/...

How many on this list are AIPAC Israel fanatics?  I know Saban is...

Odd (0.00 / 0)
I just discovered that Google Maps carries no information for Israel.  No towns, no roads, nothing.  It has satellite imagery, but no maps.

I went to go look up Ashkelon, cause I wanted to know if it was inside Gaza or just outside it, and I wanted to know if Aronchick was speaking in dog whistle or not.  (I'm pretty sure Ashkelon is an Israeli town just outside the Gaza Strip, and so he's not speaking in some kind of Greater Israel code.)

But, to my surprise Israel isn't on the map.  I guess it was Google, not Ahmadinejad, who was the danger all along.

The world is weird, I constantly rediscover.

[ Parent ]
Yeah... but IT DOES give AIPAC's 'propaganda' Travel Agency Wing (0.00 / 0)
the reason to provide lots and lots of arm-twisting junkets to Israel make sure Congresscritters see what AIPAC's networked campaign funds are going towards...


Congressional Travel - Privately Funded
Top Sponsors Funding Travel, 2005-2007

The sponsors of congressional trips may just be interested in making a good impression, but they are often hoping the trip will enlighten the lawmaker about their new product, research or developments in their industry. The sponsors are often looking to influence policy, whether it's in the realm of education, foreign relations, the environment or technology. The trips present an opportunity to show the lawmaker, instead of simply tell....

NUMERO UNO!! American Israel Education Foundation $1,444,709
#2 Aspen Institute $1,050,850

And remember when the Congresscritters come back AIPAC expects loyalty 'position paper'] trip reports!Hoyer took some happy campers [Democrats and Republicanson an Israel junket last summer...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/p...

And what did Hoyer have to say when he came back:


..."All of us came back with a renewed sense of the importance of dealing with Iran, of the dangers that a nuclear armed Iran would pose to the region and the international community," Hoyer said. "There is a sense that Ahmadinejad is one of the few world leaders who expresses the possibility of the elimination of another sovereign nation -- Israel --

and hopes to **eliminate** from the Middle East the ** United States of America.**"
http://staging.jta.org/cgi-bin...

Welcome to Neocon/DLC/Lieberman/Hillary Propaganda 101...

[ Parent ]
AIPAC opensecrets travel link (0.00 / 0)
[ Parent ]
How I will answer the next invitation (0.00 / 0)
I get frequent invitations from Mark Aronchick for fund-raisers, sometimes via email, sometimes looking like posh wedding announcements. From now on, I'll respond that I'm a Democrat (who wouldn't support the Lieberman Independent Party) and an Obama supporter. (I can't afford to buy into the political bashes he throws anyhow!)

I'm paying two mortgages at the moment, and as soon as I sell my old house, I'll go back to being an Internet base donor to the DNC and blue candidates. I want the dinosaur big donors' days to be over. (Anybody wanna buy a lovely Cape Cod in a family-friendly neighborhood near Harrisburg, first-floor master bedroom, multilevel deck, fenced yard, $200,000, not yet on the market? We needed a one-floor house for medical reasons.)

[ Parent ]
umm (4.00 / 2)
Obama and Hillary both did us no favors in the Lamont/Lieberman fight, Obama endorsed Duckworth against Cegelis in Illinois-6, Hillary's in tight with the DLC, Obama is associated with all kinds of fun machine politicians...

Neither of these candidates are solid, pure-as-driven-snow, in-our-camp-and-with-us-all-the-way progressives.  Let's just be a movement, push for what we care about, and not fall into the trap of buying into candidates so hardcore that we start filtering information as candidate-partisans.  We should be progressives first.

I think... (0.00 / 0)
Haim Saban funded the Brooking's Saban Center where Ken Pollack is the director.  Michael O'Hanlon is with Brookings but not the Saban Center.

But, I suspect this mean they'll have jobs in a Clinton administration.

Saban funds .. (0.00 / 0)
Brookings in general .. not just the part where Pollack is the director
[ Parent ]
This could be a watershed moment (4.00 / 1)
In that the moneyed DLC wing can be exposed as powerless if Pelosi and everyone else ignores them.
No Need to Alienate... (0.00 / 0)
Somehow, what Pelosi needs to do is make it clear that a new source of campaign funds is alive and working in Democratic Circles, and that now is not the time for standing one's ground, but a time to recognize that change is at hand.  She needs to listen to them -- but not be driven by them.  I suspect it is less that they don't trust Obama, more that they were not in on the ground floor financing his campaign, and thus have a sense of ownership.  She needs to make it clear that the future will not be like that any more.  They will have to argue their positions, and their geographical "facts on the ground" in an altered environment.  But she should not cut them out.  We don't need their money spent next fall on 527's favoring McCain.  

Liebercrats? | 47 comments
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