campaign contributions

yesterday i wrote:

"but (congresscritters) are selling their souls purely to fill the campaign coffers so that they might get re-elected. that's pretty fucked up.

i believe that humans are ultimately quite rational and self interested - if politicians and career govt folk are willing to sell nuclear secrets purely to stay in office, then the office must be very lucrative indeed."

here's digby on the fundraising slushfund:

"They didn't even try to hide it.

Haven't you ever wondered why it is that we are told constantly that it's nearly impossible for the Democrats to take back the house because they've been safely gerrymandered and yet Republicans spend almost all their time fundraising? If their seats are safe, what do they need all this campaign cash for?

It's a money laundering operation. The lobbyists give money to the GOP as campaign cash, the recipients gain power and influence in the party by spreading that campaign cash around. The Republican leadership allows the lobbyists to write their own legislation and the members earmark large sums of money to their own personal special interests. The taxpayers then pay back the lobbyists at a very nice profit.

The taxpayers are thereby funding the Republican party. Nice racket isn't it? And anybody who doesn't understand that this is a distinctly Republican problem (like the inexplicable Deborah Howell who refuses to see the forest for a couple of twigs on the side of the road) is willfully blind.
[snip]
It is hard to overemphasize how important this Abramoff scandal is. It's not just "gotcha" politics. This Republican political machine is one of the most corrosive forces this country has ever seen. They are literally stealing huge sums of money from the taxpayers, sometimes blatantly for personal financial gain, as with the Dukestir. But in a larger sense they are blatently using our money, the people's money, as the primary way to fund their party and keep it in power. The exposure of this scam has shaken the foundation of their long term strategy."

Digby is correct, and he picked up something that i missed - the purpose of raising campaign coffers isn't necesasrily to get the congresscritter re-elected, it is so they can donate the money to other players so that they can demonstrate their fundraising prowess, which means they get promoted internally into certain committees and whatnot.

The latest Time article describes how this works in practice:

"Lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Oct. 23, 2000, e-mail to his business partner Michael Scanlon was, as usual, not subtle. "Would 10K for NRCC from Suncruz for Ney help?" Scanlon shot back: "Yes, alot [sic]! But would have to give them a definate [sic] answer--and they need it this week ..."
[snip]
To wit: a $10,000 donation to the Republicans just days before Ney inserted into the Congressional Record a statement praising an Abramoff business partner."

Ya see, Ney sold his soul, and perhaps bought himself some jail-time, not for anything directly of value to him, but merely so that he could point to a $10k donation to the NRCC, and somehow get credit for it. i wonder how they keep track of who 'instigated' each donation - i.e. how does Ney get credit for the $10k to the NRCC from Suncruz?

along the same lines, i see that our friend Ziyad ABDULJAWAD donated $20k to the NRCC on June30, 2005. He has only once previously donated to the NRCC - $1000. Why is he donating $20k to them just 6 months after an election? I wonder who asked him to do it, what he got in return, and which fundraiser got the credit for the donation?

Incidentally, the $20k donation came just 3 weeks after the Duke story broke.