Yesterday, I got an email from Representative John Dingell’s campaign via the Washtenaw Democratic Party. The text from Washtenaw Dem Party Chair Stu Dowty is short and sweet. “This just in from Congressman John Dingell’s campaign. Can you contribute?”
You know, sometimes a teenager will plow through his ice cream, then look at his little brother’s scoop, longingly. In the parenting business, we call that having a “hollow leg.” If the teenager exerts pressure on the younger brother to give up his scoop to the appetite of the older kid, we call that a clear violation of the rules: Greed is not good, despite what the Gordon Gekko character, played by Michael Douglas, would have had us believe in the movie “Wall Street.”
Greed is one of the seven deadly sins—or is it one of the seven dwarfs? I can never keep them straight. Avarice. Sleepy. Gluttony. Dopey. Greed. Sneezy. Anyway, since you’re one of the smart kids, you’ve got your deadly sins and Disney characters all in two neat rows, I’m sure. Greed is a proclivity. If you’re a Mother Theresa-type, you’ve got a handle on your greed. If you’re wearing one (or more) of those WWMTD bracelets, you’re working on your greed issues. If you’re a parent, you’re multi-tasking. You’re working on the greed thing, and helping your kids work on it.
The Dingell campaign email included the following pitch that can only be described as, well, something of which Gordon Gekko would be particularly proud:
Congressman Dingell earned the name Big John because he’s always taken on the tough battles and fought for working families. Just in the last few months he’s taken on BP, cracked down on Medicare waste and helped get tainted food off the shelves.
Now, Big John needs your help.
His opponent is millionaire Rob Steele. Steele is appealing to the far right for money – and he’s ready to put his millions into this race.
Steele is clearly not on the side of working families. Not only would Steele support policies that encourage big corporations to send jobs overseas, he actually signed a pledge promising to protect tax breaks for companies that outsource American jobs!
Steele’s radical plans go even further than what George W. Bush was able to accomplish. He’s on record for supporting an agenda to turn Social Security retirement funds to Wall Street bankers.
Positions like these have made Steele the new darling of the far right. He’s been on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program - and just last week Dick Morris put him on his targeted top fundraising list.
We need your help to counter the influx of money coming in from the far right and to keep these ads up on the air for the next 41 days to remind people of John Dingell’s strong record of looking out for working families. That’s why we are launching our Big John Money Bomb.
We’re asking for your help to stay up on television for the next 41 days with 410 grassroots donations – in a single day.
Make no mistake, the far right is charged up around the country. They want to take the country back – back to the Bush years, but worse. We have a legendary champion in John Dingell, who has always fought for working families. Please help him push back on the far right, and send a strong message that our country is moving forward.
Please click here to contribute to our September 21th Big John Money Bomb right now.
Thank you for your support,
Jason Ellenburg
Campaign Manager
Dingell for Congress
If Rob Steele is “appealing” to the far right for money, I wish the poor sucker luck. As of July his opponent, Democrat John Dingell, had already locked up hundreds of thousands in donations from numerous PACs that typically support far right Republican candidates.
If you visit the Federal Election Commission web site and check out Representative Dingell’s fundraising records, you will see that the incumbent has raised three-quarters of his $999,202 from hundreds of special interest groups/PACs, including Lockheed Martin, a PAC that supports John McCain and supported George W. Bush. Dingell also took PAC donations from Kraft Food Global PAC, and Wal-Mart, PACs that support primarily Republican candidates, as well. According to OpenSecrets.org records, Bristol Myers Squibb has contributed huge to John Dingell, a total of $47,500. Only former president George W. Bush has gotten more from the drug company’s PAC, $78,550. While Dingell was making sure the banks didn’t stick the bank bailout to the “working familes” too badly, he took $43,000 in donations from Morgan Stanley’s PAC, just slightly less than Republican Elizabeth Dole. Click here to download a list of Dingell’s PAC donors.
As of July 2010, John Dingell had taken in $999,202 in contributions from PACs, and individuals ($236,250) and spent $958,210 running unopposed in the Democratic primary—$95,000 of which was paid to Fraioli & Associates for fundraising consulting services, and $81,000 of which was paid to Perkins, Coie LLP to keep track of the money Fraioli & Associates were supposed to help bring in. The Congressman, in a District where unemployment hovers around 14 percent, ran a campaign that spent $8,700 on flowers. Know what? The Democratic incumbent has $904,503 in cash on hand. Now, John Dingell, a candidate with 97 percent name recognition, is asking for 410 donations from “grassroots” supporters so he can run his television ads.
May I suggest that the next campaign mailer that goes out from the Dingell campaign headquarters has a photo of the Congressman lighting a bonfire of $1,000 dollar bills to keep the 15th District’s mushrooming homeless population warm? There are 3,000 homeless children in Washtenaw County alone at the moment, and we have a guy representing us who’s backing the next big boondoggle, the Detroit Region Aerotropolis.
Republican Rob Steele has been out fundraised almost 5:1 by Democrat John Dingell. According to FEC records, as of July, Steele had taken in $193,981 in donations from individuals ($193,981) and loaned himself $19,500. He has taken/received $0 in special interest/PAC money. If Steele is poised to “put his millions into the race,” as is suggested in the email above, he might have done so a bit sooner. By July, according to state campaign finance records, gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder, who has taken in donations from local Ann Arbor Dems hand over fist, had plowed alost $7 million dollars of his own money into his race—against multiple challengers in the primary.
Here’s an observation: the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has plowed money into television ads for Democratic candidates running for Congress in Michigan. The campaigns of Gary McDowell (MI-01), Mark Schauer (MI-07) and Gary Peters (MI-09) have all been the recipients of DCCC largesse. So where’s the DCCC support for a “vulnerable” John Dingell? Either the DCCC doesn’t care a fig whether Michigan is represented by one less Democrat next year, or the DCCC leadership doesn’t think John Dingell’s campaign needs the DCCC’s help. You decide.
In the meantime, below you’ll find a sneak peek at the first of the TV ads John Dingell’s campaign is running. It attacks the Republican for having a “Wall Street agenda.” Maybe so, but it’s Democratic Congressman John Dingell and not Rob Steele who has financial support from the PACs of the Wall Street bankers, energy and drug companies. Big John has exponentially more money from Republican/conservative leaning PACs flowing through his campaign than the Republican candidate against whom he’s running.
Obviously, having the big bucks to pay SKDKnickerbocker LLC, a DC media consulting service heavy-hitter, can conveniently blur the line between fiction and fact. “It’s your story. We’ll help you tell it,” says the company’s web site.
The story John Dingell’s campaign is telling this election cycle is an American political classic: John “Big John” Dingell, the abridged version—Looking out for “working families” like yours and mine.
John “Big John” Dingell, the unabridged version is a more honest representation—Looking out for “working families” like yours and mine—when Big John’s not busy looking out for Wal-Mart, Eli Lilly, Exxon Mobil, Dow Chemical Morgan Stanley, the National Rifle Association, Kraft, Lockheed Martin and Bristol-Myers Squibb.