I am not the first to link to
this article, and hopefully won't be the last. There's a lot of information in there to be dissected, analyzed and opined on.
One thing I did not know about the senior Senator from Kentucky, is that as famous as he is for being against campaign finance reform, he once advocated it.
more...
McConnell continued publicly warning about corruption while privately raising as much money as he could for his first decade in the Senate. Democrats, then the party in power, held the fund-raising advantage. McConnell called for campaign-finance reform to neutralize their edge.
"The electoral process suffers from real and perceived special-interest influence," he wrote in a Herald-Leader opinion column in 1990.
Everything changed in 1994. Republicans seized Congress. Money shifted to the GOP. And in an about-face, McConnell became Washington's fiercest enemy of campaign-finance reform.
That "about face" is what is now popularly (and accurately) referred to as "flip-flopping" on the issue. It is clear that when the underdog, McConnell had no interest in people using money to "ampify" their voice.
"Building up your finances so you can amplify your voice is critical to any successful political activity," McConnell said. "It's a central part of the process."
Now, it's a central part of the process. Then, it was something that lead to corruption. Something he was very concerned about, at one time.
Campaign donations by "special interests" corrupt the Senate, Mitch McConnell warned -- in 1984.
Jesus, I hope he didn't get whiplash from flip-flopping so hard.
This next part just had me shaking my head in disbelief.
As Jefferson County judge-executive, McConnell challenged incumbent Sen. Walter "Dee" Huddleston, D-Ky. He flew to a breakfast at Washington's Capitol Hill Club to ask the major PACs for money.
They refused. They backed Huddleston. So the underdog bit the hands that wouldn't feed him.
"Huddleston For Sale to the Highest Bidder," accused one of his campaign press releases attacking the senator's PAC and special-interest money. McConnell depicted Huddleston as solely concerned about cash.
Within days of his surprise victory, McConnell launched fund-raising for his 1990 re-election, tapping the very Huddleston donors he had criticized. PACs alone gave him more than $41,000 before he took office.
Amazing, isn't it? He accuses his opponent of being "soley concerned about money," only to tap his donors after he wins. What a fucking hypocrite.
Speaking of being solely concerned about money, here's what professor McConnell had to say to a class.
In the early 1970s, Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr., a young and intense Republican lawyer, strode into the political science class he taught at the University of Louisville.
He didn't introduce himself to his students. He went straight to the chalkboard and scribbled.
"I am going to teach you the three things you need to build a political party," he said, and backed away to reveal the words: "Money, money, money."
Three decades later, the teacher has mastered the lesson like few in history.
And so begins my two year campaign to expose McConnell for what he is. A corrupt politician who will sell his vote and his efforts as a Senate leader to the highest bidder. McConnell is "The Man Who Sold the World." Or, at the very least, the man who is selling the world.
We've got to get this guy out of the Senate.
hink