Top NJ Hillary fundraiser joins Obama campaign

by: Scott Weingart

Mon Jul 07, 2008 at 08:51:42 PM EDT

This is great news for Barack Obama, and here's why:

Back in February, when Obama lost the New Jersey Presidential primary to Hillary Clinton in February, he held only a narrow lead in general election heats against John McCain. But since March, Obama has opened up a solid lead in New Jersey, and ten staffers and 95 Obama fellows are quietly organizing the state ahead of the fall campaign.

Still, at least in New Jersey, higher poll numbers haven't translated to stronger fundraising for Obama. Even though he outraised Senator Clinton $149 million to $88 million overall since Super Tuesday, Clinton raised $146,000 more than Obama in New Jersey in the same four month period. In fact, New Jersey was one of Hillary Clinton's strongest fundraising states during the primary--by one measure even stronger than her home state of New York:

State	Clinton	Obama	Ratio	MOV*
Arkansas	$1,651,202	$241,324	6.84:1	43.8%
West Virginia	$437,149	$209,687	2.08:1	35.6%
Puerto Rico	$356,191	$211,538	1.68:1	36.8%
New Jersey	$7,524,587	$5,129,865	1.47:1	9.8%
New York	$33,048,552	$22,862,555	1.45:1	17.1%
Oklahoma	$945,016	$730,005	1.29:1	23.6%

(*primary margin of victory in each state for Hillary Clinton.)

At least on the fundraising front, the Obama campaign still has some work to do in New Jersey. Michael Kempner can do a lot of that work.

Kempner wants DNC retroactive rule change

by: Juan Melli

Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 07:15:49 PM EDT

The resolution notes that the undersigners include "many leaders and financial supporters" of the DNC. [...]

Kempner said he sent the petition to thousands of Democratic donors and activists. In his e-mail to them, he calls Obama's "tactics" in "seeking to disenfranchise more than two million voters in Florida and Michigan" those of "division and deception."

"For whatever reason, the DNC seems to be captive of the Obama campaign," he said in an interview. "The fact is that many, many long-time supporters both financially and non-financially, that have a very different point of view. We very much want to put them on notice."

This sounds a lot like the letter from the wealthy pro-Clinton DCCC fundraisers to Nancy Pelosi threatening to take their ball and go home if she doesn't renounce her position that superdelegates should respect the democratic will of the voters. Of course, she rightly told them to go fly a kite.

Although Kempner says that "the genesis for the idea came out of a meeting of the campaign's finance committee a few weeks ago," he insists it "should not be interpreted by DNC chairman Howard Dean as a threat to withhold donations."

Got that? The campaign's biggest fundraisers came up with the idea, but really - no, seriously! - this has nothing to do with money. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

One of the great things about Dean's 50 state strategy and the DNC's Democracy Bonds program is that they've become better at raising money from small-dollar donors. Wealthy power brokers can implicitly or explicitly threaten all they want, but their leverage over the last few years has been significantly diminished. I'd be really surprised if Dean agreed to their retroactive rule change request.

Update: Chris Bowers makes a good point:

That's all well and good, but did it ever occur to these geniuses to actually send the letter to the people with actual purview over the matter? This is just a suggestion, but maybe, just maybe, instead of sending the letter to Howard Dean, they should send it to the rules committee which stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates, to the members of the credentials committee who will hold jurisdiction over the matter, or to Nancy Pelosi, who will chair the convention itself. You know, the people with actual power over the matter.

Oh wait--doing that would require sending the letter to people like Harold Ickes, a member of Clinton's campaign and the DNC rules committee who voted to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates. I guess it would look kind of strange for the Clinton campaign to be sending petitions to members of its own campaign. So, instead of sending the petition to people who actually hold purview over the matter, they have decided instead to scapegoat Howard Dean.

At the Hillary Ball

by: Juan Melli

Tue Jul 31, 2007 at 09:59:05 AM EDT

The event was packed with over 200 guests including Governor Corzine, Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle, Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes, former Congressman Bill Hughes, Highland Park Mayor Meryl Frank, Englewood Cliffs Mayor Joe Parisi, Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello, 5th district Congressional Candidate-American Paul Aronsohn, 39th district Senate candidate Joe Aryan, and Camden County Clerk Jim Beach.

I was surprised to see that the mayor of Morristown was there. He's called those who oppose his anti-immigrant plan "Communists and Marxists". If I had to guess I don't think Clinton would support his plan, but he's apparently a big supporter of hers anyway.

Though there are those who legitimately believe in her, it's no secret or surprise that the state's political establishment is lining up behind Clinton simply because she's the frontrunner and they expect her to win. It's kind of lemmingish and boring, but that's how people play the game. They did it with Howard Dean to some degree, too. Publicly they'll say things like she's the "most qualified" or has the "most experience." But privately, a surprising number will admit that it's just about getting on the winning bandwagon.

I heard a few people mocking Edison mayor Jun Choi and Congressman Steve Rothman for not falling in line and instead endorsing Obama. Not on the merits - just because they think they're getting behind a losing candidate. "What's the point once the county chairs have gotten behind her?" And they really believe that.

$1 Million Clinton Fundraiser Planned for NJ

by: Juan Melli

Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 11:13:48 AM EDT