All 2012, the NYT was going nuts about how democracy was being undermined whenever some rich Republican donor like Foster Friess would scrape together one ... million ... dollars to back some GOP primary longshot, because the essence of democracy is that the Mainstream Media must rule.
From the NYT today:
 |
| "Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, in February. Mr. Adelson, the biggest single donor in political history, supported eight candidates through "super PACs." All of them lost on Tuesday." |
Little to Show for Cash Flood by Big Donors
At the private air terminal at Logan Airport in Boston early Wednesday, men in unwrinkled suits sank into plush leather chairs as they waited to board Gulfstream jets, trading consolations over Mitt Romney’s loss the day before.
... The biggest single donor in political history, the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, mingled with other Romney backers at a postelection breakfast, fresh off a large gamble gone bad. Of the eight candidates he supported with tens of millions of dollars in contributions to “super PACs,” none were victorious on Tuesday.
And as calls came in on Wednesday from some of the donors who had poured more than $300 million into the pair of big-spending outside groups founded in part by Karl Rove — perhaps the leading political entrepreneur of the super PAC era — he offered them a grim upside: without us, the race would not have been as close as it was.
What cut of that $300+ million was pocketed by Karl and his allies in the political advertising business? The traditional advertising agency commission was 15%, but I don't know what applies in the Super PAC business, other than that it sounds like a nice business to be in.
Anyway, don't let Karl's $300 million fiasco cause you to think skeptical thoughts about his free strategic advice to Republicans. That just wouldn't be nice.
The most expensive election in American history drew to a close this week with a price tag estimated at more than $6 billion, propelled by legal and regulatory decisions that allowed wealthy donors to pour record amounts of cash into races around the country.
But while outside spending affected the election in innumerable ways — reshaping the Republican presidential nominating contest, clogging the airwaves with unprecedented amounts of negative advertising and shoring up embattled Republican incumbents in the House — the prizes most sought by the emerging class of megadonors remained outside their grasp. President Obama will return to the White House in January, and the Democrats have strengthened their lock on the Senate. ...
Mr. Adelson’s giving to super PACs and other outside groups came to more than $60 million, though in public Mr. Adelson did not seem overly concerned about the paltry returns on his investment.
“Paying bills,” Mr. Adelson said on Tuesday night when asked by a Norwegian reporter how he thought his donations had been spent. “That’s how you spend money. Either that or become a Jewish husband — you spend a lot of money.”
Sheldon is making a joke about how he didn't much care about politics until he married his second wife, who is an Israeli. Since then, Sheldon has dutifully poured zillions into Israeli and American politics, which has (I should hope) warmed the heart of the second Mrs. Adelson. He's an old man in love.
The real smart money turned out to be, perhaps unsurprisingly, the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, who loaned $200 million to the New York Times in 2008 to keep it afloat, which he's likely to get paid back in full. Slim makes monopolistic profits on phone calls between America and Mexico, so he profits exorbitantly off illegal immigration, which his New York Times has so vociferously supported.
Are you saying that the New York Times has some kind of financial conflict of interest over immigration? What are you, some kind of racist?
Control of the Narrative is the most precious power.
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/11933?utm
ReplyDeleteFrom the NYT: "the prizes most sought by the emerging class of megadonors remained outside their grasp."
ReplyDeleteThat would be: "the prizes most sought by the emerging class of Republican megadonors remained outside their grasp."
Fixed that for them. George Soros is the invisible man.
It's an interesting article Steve. Why can't that rich Jewish guy donate a few million dollars to poor Jewish bloggers like me?
ReplyDeleteP.S. You've got some typos in this post.
Speaking of donors---Steve and others, there's a good post up on the union organization that made Obama the victor.
ReplyDeleteLook for the Nov 7, 9 pm post entitled, "About Tueday's Lost: If the Archangel Michael Were on the Ballot, Beezlebub Would Still Have Won."
http://www.redstate.com/
On "Curb Your Enthusiasm" the Larry David character was always getting pulled into that, right... I liked when his wife wanted them to move to Malibu and his joke to the realtor of breakfasting on endangered whale blubber falls flat
ReplyDeletehttp://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/25-million-self-described-evangelicals-voted-for-obama-why-what-else-do-the-exit-polls-tell-us-about-how-christians-voted/
ReplyDeleteWhen you zoom in a bit, you find that 21% of self-identified, white, born-again, evangelical Christians voted for President Obama in 2012. This means of the 117 million people who voted on Tuesday, about 24.7 million were evangelicals who voted for Obama. This was down from 24% of evangelicals who voted for Obama in 2008. (Of the 125 million people who voted in 2008, about 30 million were evangelicals who voted for Obama.)
As a VA resident I saw a lot of ads from Rove and Armey's groups for months. They vastly outspent the Dem side in the Senate race and were beaten.
ReplyDeleteThe number one theme of their ads was denouncing Obama as a big spender. They never explained how this hurt the average voter. The ads from Dems with people laid off from Bain packed a big emotion punch.
Getting dozens of robocalls spouting the same GOP script also does not create a positive impression of the GOP.
Share price of Mr. Adelson's Las Vegas Sands on January 20, 2009 = $5.04. Share price today = $44.44.
ReplyDeleteKarl Rove is not the genius Republicans think he is. You were right when you pointed out that he helped GWB narrowly win twice, which ended up in him getting a lot of credit. It would have been more impressive if GWB won by 2 big margins, but then no one would have paid attention to the "architect".
ReplyDeleteIt was hilarious to see Rove feuding with the Fox News back room number crunchers as his bold predictions came unraveled live on air. There goes his career as a prognosticator.
Slim must have made his fortune in some other business. Long distance telephone calls between US and Mexico cannot be the most profitable business in the world.
ReplyDelete"Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, in February. Mr. Adelson, the biggest single donor in political history, supported eight candidates through "super PACs." All of them lost on Tuesday."
ReplyDeleteHa-Ha!
yes, the media is pro-immigration. ALL media, not just the NY Times.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
Media gets its funds from ads.
Who buys ads?
Corporations.
What do corporations do?
They sells goods and services for money. If there are profits, some of those profits go to purchase ads in the media.
The more revenues, the more ads. The more ads, the more money the media makes.
Guess what? The media wants more revenues for the corporations that purchase ads. And they want more profits for those corps.
How does mass immigration affect revenues and profits? THe more mass immigration, the more revenues because you have more customers.
The more immigration, especially from low wage nations, the less labor costs those corporations that buys ads in the media. That raises profits. Some of those increased profits go to ad purchases.
Also the more nonwhite immigrants, the more diversity in america. The more diversity, the unified the electorate is. The less unified the electorate, the less able they are to unite and discover their common interest, and so the less able they are to control the govt. That gives big corporations more control over the govt, which they use to raise profits.
So the media supports mass immigration because it helps pay their salaries.
If any major candidate is really against mass immigration, really threatens it, the media will stomp on that candidate. That is why the GOP only gives lip service against mass immigration.
Follow the money. Always follow the money.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeletehttp://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/25-million-self-described-evangelicals-voted-for-obama-why-what-else-do-the-exit-polls-tell-us-about-how-christians-voted/
When you zoom in a bit, you find that 21% of self-identified, white, born-again, evangelical Christians voted for President Obama in 2012. This means of the 117 million people who voted on Tuesday, about 24.7 million were evangelicals who voted for Obama. This was down from 24% of evangelicals who voted for Obama in 2008. (Of the 125 million people who voted in 2008, about 30 million were evangelicals who voted for Obama.)"
My dear fellow, I think some remedial math would not go amiss, or is it the reading comprehension thing?
ReplyDelete"The number one theme of their ads was denouncing Obama as a big spender. They never explained how this hurt the average voter. The ads from Dems with people laid off from Bain packed a big emotion punch."
This is a problem for GOPers. You'd think their ad people would be as effective as the Dem ad people.
1) The GOP should be forced to spend time in a high school classroom with students of average IQ (with some low ave) thrown in.
They should be shown that you have to distill a message into personal term and never never assume that an ave IQ person knows anything about the terms "debt," "deficit" or "gdp." In fact, never use those terms. Speak of wages, paychecks, jobs, and deductions from their checks.
2) Use of visuals: why the hell both Romney and Ryan didn't carry out a several inch thick binder of the 2700+ page health bill, I'll never know. They should have held it high, and asked, "Do you know what this is? It's your health care, it's your experience with your doctor about to implode. It's the rules and regulations that will tear apart what we've come to know as great medical treatment in our country." Then, in William Jennings Bryant voices, they should have read a passage or two of legalese.
How hard is that to come up with? To Wave that baby around?
Not hard at all.
"Follow the money. Always follow the money."
ReplyDeleteFox makes big money off their Spanish network. Rupert is not a fool.
Did Romney even mention disparate impact? Imagine the following commercial. You don't know it's a commercial until near the end. Two suburban neighbors are standing with garden hoses in hand, watching their neighbor's house across the street burn down. One notices an ember in the other's eaves, which they quickly extinguish. Meanwhile, the fire victim's wife and two children are running across the street in night gowns, carrying teddy bears, to be comforted by neighbor A's wife. Their cat is missing. The little boy has a burn blister on his hand.
ReplyDeleteNeighbor B: "The fire department was pretty slow to get here."
Neighbor A: "Yeah, and they seemed confused when they did come."
Neighbor B: "You know, St. Paul used to have a pretty good entrance exam for the fire department, but the Obama administration sued them. They said it had a disparate impact on minorities. The department had to make a test anyone could pass."
Neighbor A: "You mean we have to hire unqualified firemen? Gee, people like us would have to be nuts to vote for him again."
Cut to the candidate: "Hi, I'm Mitt Romney. In my administration, your police and fire departments will be free to hire the best qualified applicants. Your safety is more important than racial quotas."
That would have carried Minnesota.
"How does mass immigration affect revenues and profits? THe more mass immigration, the more revenues because you have more customers."
ReplyDeleteYes. Because if those migrants stayed in their home countries, they could never be customers of corporations. That would only be true if there were such a thing as multinational corporations, but of course they don't exist.
"This is a problem for GOPers. You'd think their ad people would be as effective as the Dem ad people."
Here's an ad that could have worked last week: Show Romney and his five sons grabbing relief supplies out of a truck and distributing them to Hurricane Sandy evacuaees in Staten Island or New Jersey. Have him chat with them as he distributes the stuff. All he'd have to say is "how are you holding up?" and cold, miserable people would start complaining about the government not helping them out enough, etc. Just edit it down. Would have shown Romney's compassion, hands-on practicality, and citizens' disapproval of incumbent in one fell swoop.
Believe it or not you're on the same page as Krugman on the Rove issue:
ReplyDeletehttp://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/karl-roves-mission-accomplished/
The liberal Jewish controlled media okays the Democratic demagoguery of 'War Against Women' charge against Republicans, but if Republicans accused Obama of 'war against whites', that would be denounced as 'fear-mongering demagoguery'.
ReplyDeleteMedia get to call what is fair, what is not; what is permissible, what is not; what is hateful, what is not.
Seriously, American conservatism MUST address the issue of Jewish power first and foremost.
"That would have carried Minnesota."
ReplyDeleteJust like Jesse Helms won North Carolina by showing how affirmative action works in a TV commercial. And he's never been forgiven for it.
"Did Romney even mention disparate impact?"
ReplyDeleteOf course not. As Steve suggests, that would have been raciss. For Republicans, being called raciss is worse than losing.
Are you really, seriously imputing impure motives to that self-styled (and pompous) bastion of 'high-mind journalistic idealism' ?
ReplyDelete- You know, those deadly earnest people who take their vocation more seriously than the college of cardinals.
reagan and bush appointed 3 justices and bush II appointed 2, but all but the black guy turned out to be conservative. too funny. what wasted choices.
ReplyDeleteSlim must have made his fortune in some other business. Long distance telephone calls between US and Mexico cannot be the most profitable business in the world.
ReplyDeleteDoesnt he have a monopoly, or close to it, on phone services within Mexico?
$300 million? Chump change. Scraps. A pittance.
ReplyDeleteSomebody needs to monetize the value of the media's Obama worship. What is it worth to have Bruce Springsteen pimp for you? What is it worth to be pimped on The View, Letterman and so on, over and over? What is the dollar value of the media maintaining absolute silence on Fast & Furious and so many more scandals? What is it worth to have the entire education establishment on your side? These are all payments in kind and should be illegal campaign contributions.
The value of coverage and support Obama received FOR FREE would add up to multiple billions -- who knows how many? 10? 20? 50? -- and it dwarfs that pathetic $300 mil.
Yet we are always -- ALWAYS -- told to focus on that DIRTY REPUBLICAN MONEY because that's the real evil in politics. The billions and billions the Dems get in totally free coverage and pimping out? Oh, that's just a reflection of reality.
It's more noise, it's more squirrels, it's more spin, it's more hypnosis. The media wins. Period.
Levantines have the smart money in America!
ReplyDeleteWhat is it worth to have Bruce Springsteen pimp for you?
ReplyDeleteAt least he is more a person than any corporation has ever been and will ever be.
You mean a super-rich and powerful Jewish guy didn't get his way? B-but how is that even possible?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it's all part of the Jewish Conspiracy somehow.
The real smart money turned out to be, perhaps unsurprisingly, the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, who loaned $200 million to the New York Times in 2008 to keep it afloat, which he's likely to get paid back in full. Slim makes monopolistic profits on phone calls between America and Mexico, so he profits exorbitantly off illegal immigration, which his New York Times has so vociferously supported.
ReplyDeleteSTEVE!!!
Remember Obamaphone Woman?
CARLOS SLIM HELU RUNS THE OBAMAPHONE PROGRAM!!!
The system is utterly and completely corrupt.
You mean a super-rich and powerful Jewish guy didn't get his way? B-but how is that even possible?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it's all part of the Jewish Conspiracy somehow.
Of course Jews fund both "sides."
http://mondoweiss.net/2007/12/oy-my-people-ar.html
(...)
...the Washington Post reported some years ago that more than half of Democratic presidential giving is coming from Jews, while Steve Rabinowitz, Clinton friend, told me this year that if anyone did a study of how much Dem money comes from Jews, it would fuel conspiracy theories… We helped invent the service and information economy. We’re all over the hedge funds that have altered the flows of capital around the world, we are all over the media.
(...)
Sheldon Adelson is the biggest supporter of the new Republican pro-Iraq war group Freedom’s Watch, while Steve Grossman is one of the leading fundraisers for Hillary in New England, and Grossman attacks Desmond Tutu for speaking about Palestinian suffering; and when the political establishment/Hillary push ahead to confront Iran, Sy Hersh says it’s about "Jewish money." I go to a concert at the beautiful Paramount in Peekskill, N.Y., and the chairman of the Paramount board is a guy named Rubin. At times it seems like Jewish money is the only game in town. Like when Obama folded, sickeningly, on a Walt-and-Mearsheimer book ad on his website. Or when the New York Theatre Workshop folded, grotesquely, on the Rachel Corrie play. The thinktanks in Washington–forget about it. Two years back I heard that Cato scholars were being told to watch what they said about Israel, because of funding concerns.
(...)
You mean a super-rich and powerful Jewish guy didn't get his way? B-but how is that even possible?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it's all part of the Jewish Conspiracy somehow.
It certainly is mysterious.
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2011/10/neocons-and-the-incredible-jewish-ethnic-infrastructure/
(...)
As just one example, über-Zionist Haim Saban is quoted listing the sources of political influence: Donations to political parties, establishing think tanks, and controlling media outlets.
Saban has practiced what he preaches: He controls Univision, the Spanish language network and led a group that bought Kirsch Media Group, a German media conglomerate; he has contributed millions of dollars to Democratic political causes and lesser amounts to Republicans; and he funded the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the [left-leaning] Brookings Institution to the tune of $13 million. This strategy, which ultimately stems from Jewish wealth and active engagement in the political process, has given Jews influence far beyond their numbers.
(...)
Whereas Saban funds ultra-Zionism from the political left, the financial angel of the neocons is Bruce Kovner, a New York hedge fund billionaire who “over two decades, has underwritten the infrastructure the neocons have used to achieve their current prominence.” Kovner funds the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and the New York Sun. He was also a major backer of President George W. Bush: “when George Bush’s chestnuts were in the fire [over the Iraq war], Kovner helped to pull them out. He wrote checks for $110,000 to a 527 called Softer Voices that was aimed at ‘security moms’ in swing states. Softer Voices is led by, among others, the writer Midge Decter, the wife of Norman Podhoretz, and Nina Rosenwald, a force in the pro-Israel lobby. Kovner was its largest financial backer.” (Nevertheless, as Philip Weiss notes, “the biggest money game in town on the Republican side is Sheldon Adelson, a Zionist Jew, who got engaged in 2000 with the specific aim of nullifying the ‘peace process.’”)
(...)
As Steve is always pointing out: Something has to be done to get these guys interested in college football!
"Why can't that rich Jewish guy donate a few million dollars to poor Jewish bloggers like me?
ReplyDeleteBecause you are not going to war with Iran. We are. If our leaders can be bought off they will send us there, and Romney was likelier than Obama to do the sending. You aren't even going to make Aliyah. Life is just too good living among us antisemites, and a whole heckuva lot safer than living in Israel. (Have you seen the way those people drive?)
"What is it worth to have Bruce Springsteen pimp for you?
ReplyDeleteAt least he is more a person than any corporation has ever been and will ever be."
Springsteen and wife are rich @ssholes. As a friend (and lover) of NY nannies and a habitué of NY nanny bars in a previous life, I can tell you that Springsteen's True Blue be-jeaned "Man of the People" shtick is just that: shtick for the chumps.
I had a stone racist Southern grandfather who treated his colored servants with more respect.
But while outside spending affected the election in innumerable ways — reshaping the Republican presidential nominating contest, clogging the airwaves with unprecedented amounts of negative advertising and shoring up embattled Republican incumbents in the House — the prizes most sought by the emerging class of megadonors remained outside their grasp. President Obama will return to the White House in January, and the Democrats have strengthened their lock on the Senate. ...
ReplyDeleteGod grief! Even for the New York Times, aka Pravda On The Hudson, that's amazingly biased. There were no "magadonors" giving money to the Dems, eh? It was all black school kids going without lunch to donate the money to Obama?
Nothing new under the sun: Republicans no doubt spent a fortune during the 30s against FDR and still lost. Robert Heinlein said in Take back your government (published 1946) that you can't buy an election. He also made the point about campaign managers owning the advertising agencies which picked up the cash spent on it by parties.
ReplyDeleteAs a VA resident I saw a lot of ads from Rove and Armey's groups for months. They vastly outspent the Dem side in the Senate race and were beaten.
ReplyDeleteThe number one theme of their ads was denouncing Obama as a big spender. They never explained how this hurt the average voter. The ads from Dems with people laid off from Bain packed a big emotion punch.
You make VA voters sound far too dumb to live, never mind to vote.
"You mean a super-rich and powerful Jewish guy didn't get his way? B-but how is that even possible?"
ReplyDeletecuz big media run by even richer Jews got their way.
'What is it worth to have Bruce Springsteen pimp for you?'
ReplyDelete'At least he is more a person than any corporation has ever been and will ever be.'
He is now Springsteen Inc.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete2) Use of visuals: why the hell both Romney and Ryan didn't carry out a several inch thick binder of the 2700+ page health bill, I'll never know."
My guess is that Romney never intended to overturn Obamacare at all. He certainly never made a big deal about it. All he ever said was that it would "cost too much" - he never said that it was a gross affront to our liberty. The Insurance companies have already made their plans, assuming that it stays - they don't want the applecart upset now.
A few other things that Romney would have done nothing about: immigration (except maybe to increase it), affirmative action, disparate impact suits brought by the DoJ, the ever-expanding police state (DHS, TSA, BATF, etc.), outsourcing of jobs and the hollowing out of American manurfacturing.
Romney lost because he offered nothing more than the third term of GW Bush, same as McCain did. He offered to pretend to represent white middle-class interests, not to actually represent them. In the words of Dee Snyder: If that's your best, then your best won't do.
"Slim must have made his fortune in some other business"
ReplyDeleteHere in Brazil he has a telephone company, that I´m pretty sure is all over South America.
He is the owner of the equilivant of a South American AT&T or Sprint.
It´s called Claro here, I don´t konw about the rest of SA
"The ads from Dems with people laid off from Bain packed a big emotion punch."
ReplyDeleteThe ad of Romney´s cómpany getting factory workers laid off, made me not vote for him.
I´m not for Unions, not blue-collar, and I live in a Suburb of NYC, but that shit pisses me off. Wish I could have voted for Buchanan.
Rove. The 'architect' or the annihilator of his own candidates.
ReplyDeleteIn what was an otherwise extraordinarily valuable comment, SF's hypothetical political ad betrays the gingerliness all too common in campaigns against obama.
ReplyDeleteIf this were Axelrod's ad, at least one family member would have perished in the fire.
Maybe Sheldon will direct his checks elsewhere. He must be asking: What's a more effective way to achieve the goal of Bibi über alles?
ReplyDeletePay someone to smuggle a suitcase nuke into a major American city?
We live in interesting times.
Romney lost because he offered nothing more than the third term of GW Bush, same as McCain did.
ReplyDeletePeople like you are a nullity in terms of elections. You did not vote for Bush, McCain, or Romney. In your own conceited mind sitting on your hands is a sign of your power and influence. In fact every politician in the country can safely ignore you.
Control of the Narrative is the most precious power.
ReplyDeleteBingo! If I get to set the narrative, you can have the military, the federal gov't, the state gov't, industry, and everything else.
In 100 years, your grandkids will be singing my tune, and my grandkids will be telling the military who to shoot, the federal gov't where to spend its money, etc.
"Control of the narrative is the most precious power."
ReplyDeleteSO TRUE. Its all in the way you frame the argument. Gay marriage is a "civil right" (and who doesn't support that) and only "bigots" oppose it (and who wants to be called a "bigot" in this day and age?)
Rove. The 'architect' or the annihilator of his own candidates.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzShxEa1LMo
Just like Jesse Helms won North Carolina by showing how affirmative action works in a TV commercial. And he's never been forgiven for it.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why you keep bringing up that he's never been forgiven for it. It sounds like you're suggesting "therefore, don't do it."