Louisiana's Republican Majority and the Vitters
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| Also listed in: Candidates for Peace | Gulf Coast Democrats | LA Democratic Women | Louisiana Bloggers | Louisiana Democratic Party |
From email I received:
This week, hundreds of our friends and neighbors will qualify as Democrats to seek election to the Louisiana Legislature. They will carry with them our best wishes, our hopes. They will have the support of the people on this list as well as the people in their communities as they formally take the step of offering themselves as candidates for public service.
There are, however, 25 individuals and companies who are preparing to spend about $1.5 million to see that those Democrats don't succeed.
The Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM) was concocted by Senator David Vitter and his wife Wendy in late 2005 or early 2006 when the rest of Louisiana was trying to figure out how to recover from the twin disasters of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the collapse of the levees in New Orleans.
The Vitters convened some of their biggest fund-raisers to put together this organization, which is modeled and named after Tom DeLay's "Texans for a Republican Majority" which engaged in money laundering as a means of gaining Republican control of the Texas Legislature in 2002.
The LCRM committed itself to raising $2.5 million dollars to elect Republicans in at least 38 House seats currently held by Democrats.
Through the most recent campaign filing period, the LCRM had raised
$1,323,152 â�" 98 percent of which came from 25 individuals and companies. You can see the names of these folks, plus the dates they gave the money and the amounts of the contributions by going here:
Link
I've been doing a good bit of research on the LCRM and have posted some of it on the web and more of it will be coming. You can find it
here:
http://www.louisianad2d.us
These folks have already shown their hand. In March, they played in two special elections for open House seats. In one race in north Louisiana, they actually backed a candidate (which limited the amount of money the could contribute to $5,000). In the District 94 race in New Orleans, the LCRM didn't back a candidate but used last minute direct mail pieces to smear Democrat Deborah Langhoff. You can find the pieces they used here:
Link
With "Swift-Boat" Bob Perry of Houston as a $100,000 contributor to the LCRM and with the DeLay group as its role model, it should come as no surprise that smearing will constitute the bulk of the LCRM's 'work' in the coming weeks. From a business standpoint (and these folks are all about business) it makes sense. When a PAC endorses a candidate, it is limited to the amount it can contribute directly to the campaign ($5,000 in this case). When the PAC acts as an independent third party, it can spend whatever it wants to spend on that race.
Doing the math, let's say the LCRM decided that it wanted to target 50 House and Senate races; that would mean that they could make 50 contributions of $5,000 to each of the candidates they decided to back. That comes to $250,000. That would leave the LCRM with more than $1 million on hand. That money will be used to attack Democrats.
Using the Langhoff attack as the model, that money will be used to smear Democrats.
There is something Democrats can do to fight this; it's called "innoculation."
Democratic candidates for the Legislature should be making a big deal about the LCRM. These people are trying to buy a House of the Louisiana Legislature using deception and distortions. To accomplish what? The intent, it appears, is nothing more than to make Louisiana a pawn in national conservative attempt to solidify a base in the wake of the failure of the Bush administration and its policies.
Louisiana and its problems are not even an afterthought!
Tell voters what the LCRM is going to do to you: they're going to say vile and vicious things about you; they're going to say things about you that (if they were true) will make your friends and family wonder how they ever put up with you.
But, we know that what they say will not be true; that it will be the DeLay/Rove/Perry/Vitter style of destructive politics where they will do or say anything that they believe will help them win.
This is what the LCRM is about: Power!
Conservatives love to talk about "special interest groups" who try to dominate the political process. What could better define a special interest group than 25 wealthy individuals and companies trying to buy control of at least one half of the Louisiana Legislature?
Calling out the LCRM is the way to limit their effectiveness.
We will never be able to match their money. But, by knowing their methods, we can warn people â�" yes, the voters in those districts â�" about what's coming and in so doing diminish the effectiveness of the slime when it hits.
Democrats should also be prepared in the final days of the campaign to run ads focusing on these distortions. Radio is probably the only viable venue.
This tactic of innoculation worked very effectively for us in Lafayette when we were fighting BellSouth and Cox over the right of our community to build its fiber network. We didn't have the money to outspend those big corporations, but we out maneuvered them by alerting people to what their tactics would be.
Democrats can and should to the same thing in coming weeks. Start talking about the LCRM now. Write your newspaper. Call in radio talk shows.
Call them out! Then run them out on October 20!
Let me know if I can help.
******
Lafayette
This week, hundreds of our friends and neighbors will qualify as Democrats to seek election to the Louisiana Legislature. They will carry with them our best wishes, our hopes. They will have the support of the people on this list as well as the people in their communities as they formally take the step of offering themselves as candidates for public service.
There are, however, 25 individuals and companies who are preparing to spend about $1.5 million to see that those Democrats don't succeed.
The Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority (LCRM) was concocted by Senator David Vitter and his wife Wendy in late 2005 or early 2006 when the rest of Louisiana was trying to figure out how to recover from the twin disasters of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the collapse of the levees in New Orleans.
The Vitters convened some of their biggest fund-raisers to put together this organization, which is modeled and named after Tom DeLay's "Texans for a Republican Majority" which engaged in money laundering as a means of gaining Republican control of the Texas Legislature in 2002.
The LCRM committed itself to raising $2.5 million dollars to elect Republicans in at least 38 House seats currently held by Democrats.
Through the most recent campaign filing period, the LCRM had raised
$1,323,152 â�" 98 percent of which came from 25 individuals and companies. You can see the names of these folks, plus the dates they gave the money and the amounts of the contributions by going here:
Link
I've been doing a good bit of research on the LCRM and have posted some of it on the web and more of it will be coming. You can find it
here:
http://www.louisianad2d.us
These folks have already shown their hand. In March, they played in two special elections for open House seats. In one race in north Louisiana, they actually backed a candidate (which limited the amount of money the could contribute to $5,000). In the District 94 race in New Orleans, the LCRM didn't back a candidate but used last minute direct mail pieces to smear Democrat Deborah Langhoff. You can find the pieces they used here:
Link
With "Swift-Boat" Bob Perry of Houston as a $100,000 contributor to the LCRM and with the DeLay group as its role model, it should come as no surprise that smearing will constitute the bulk of the LCRM's 'work' in the coming weeks. From a business standpoint (and these folks are all about business) it makes sense. When a PAC endorses a candidate, it is limited to the amount it can contribute directly to the campaign ($5,000 in this case). When the PAC acts as an independent third party, it can spend whatever it wants to spend on that race.
Doing the math, let's say the LCRM decided that it wanted to target 50 House and Senate races; that would mean that they could make 50 contributions of $5,000 to each of the candidates they decided to back. That comes to $250,000. That would leave the LCRM with more than $1 million on hand. That money will be used to attack Democrats.
Using the Langhoff attack as the model, that money will be used to smear Democrats.
There is something Democrats can do to fight this; it's called "innoculation."
Democratic candidates for the Legislature should be making a big deal about the LCRM. These people are trying to buy a House of the Louisiana Legislature using deception and distortions. To accomplish what? The intent, it appears, is nothing more than to make Louisiana a pawn in national conservative attempt to solidify a base in the wake of the failure of the Bush administration and its policies.
Louisiana and its problems are not even an afterthought!
Tell voters what the LCRM is going to do to you: they're going to say vile and vicious things about you; they're going to say things about you that (if they were true) will make your friends and family wonder how they ever put up with you.
But, we know that what they say will not be true; that it will be the DeLay/Rove/Perry/Vitter style of destructive politics where they will do or say anything that they believe will help them win.
This is what the LCRM is about: Power!
Conservatives love to talk about "special interest groups" who try to dominate the political process. What could better define a special interest group than 25 wealthy individuals and companies trying to buy control of at least one half of the Louisiana Legislature?
Calling out the LCRM is the way to limit their effectiveness.
We will never be able to match their money. But, by knowing their methods, we can warn people â�" yes, the voters in those districts â�" about what's coming and in so doing diminish the effectiveness of the slime when it hits.
Democrats should also be prepared in the final days of the campaign to run ads focusing on these distortions. Radio is probably the only viable venue.
This tactic of innoculation worked very effectively for us in Lafayette when we were fighting BellSouth and Cox over the right of our community to build its fiber network. We didn't have the money to outspend those big corporations, but we out maneuvered them by alerting people to what their tactics would be.
Democrats can and should to the same thing in coming weeks. Start talking about the LCRM now. Write your newspaper. Call in radio talk shows.
Call them out! Then run them out on October 20!
Let me know if I can help.
******
Lafayette
And as for Vitter, I think everyone needs to be reminded constantly of his hypocrisy.
Yeah!