April 29, 2015

"Scott Walker enters the Republican presidential race with far stronger ties to the party’s biggest fund-raisers than any other candidate besides Jeb Bush."

Derek Willis at the NYT analyzes Federal Election Commission records and state records:
Roughly half of the nation’s top 250 Republican donors have given money to Mr. Walker in his campaigns for Wisconsin governor.... By comparison, 30 percent have given to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, 20 percent to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 10 percent to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey....

Mr. Walker’s previous support from Republican donors... can ease his path to raising money... Beyond money, the support from donors is a sign to other party leaders that he is a serious candidate....

Mr. Walker pulled in many of the top party donors during his 2012 recall contest, which attracted national attention....

17 comments:

Curious George said...

Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Blue Fisters, and moron liberals of Wisconsin, the gift that keeps on giving!

WisRich said...

The 2012 recall that keeps on giving.

I wonder if the Dem's have ever sit down, look in the mirror, and admit to themselves: "yeah, we really screwed up on that one."

tim maguire said...

It would be funny if the recall winds up playing a key role in the creation of President Walker. It's already played a key role in the creation of presidential candidate Walker.

tim maguire said...

WisRich said...I wonder if the Dem's have ever sit down, look in the mirror, and admit to themselves: "yeah, we really screwed up on that one."

Not a chance.

I'm Full of Soup said...

In NYT world, Walker's ties to Repub donors means Walker is EVIL.

And God forbid, these MSM reporters would spend as much time writing about the candidate's policy differences as they do on their campaign bank account balances.

Brando said...

A lot of the focus on presidential election "arms races" is comparable to the Cold War nuclear "arms race"--you want to reach a certain number, but anything over that doesn't really make a difference--once the US and USSR each can destroy the world once, any nukes beyond that don't make for much of a deterrant (though I suppose the analogy is weaker if extra weapons are needed to counteract any destroyed in a first strike, etc.).

In the campaign finance context, you need a certain number of millions of dollars to run a two-year, national primary and general election campaign. I recall it being a big deal when the "$100 million mark" was passed, and now they're talking about billion dollar campaigns. But somewhere in those numbers you have all you need--there's only so much ad time to buy on so many venues, and only so much literature to mail out (or phone banks to man, or pizzas to buy volunteers) before the extra spending doesn't help.

So whatever the magic number here is, the question is which candidates can reach it? In the GOP field, I suspect we'll see more adequately funded candidates than ever before.

Brando said...

Now would be a good time for Walker to take up the mantle of reform of police unions--such as the ones that protect abusive cops from prosecution. It'd be risky though--the "law and order" types might frown on that.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Those contributions to Walker in his races for Governor were not because they thought Walker was so great - they were not for Walker personally - those were contributions were for a cause.

Where also they felt the other side was being unfair and worse, and acting outside the law even.

And it was maybe a precedent.

That doesn't translate into support for him for the Presidential nomination.

clint said...

I'm not sure how real this effect is.

Governor Walker vs. the Unions was a nationalized state campaign. Lots of money flooded in from national sources on both sides.

Whether that means that Walker-for-President already has an in with those funding sources, because they supported his symbolic battle with the unions, is an open question.

Are political candidates like brands of toothpaste, with significant brand loyalty and inertia? Maybe. We'll see.

Mick said...

So 50% of the Top Republican donors are giving funds to Rubio and Cruz, who are not eligible natural born Citizens.

Rubio, born of the same circumstances as Wong Kim Ark (to legal resident alien parents) would not even have been considered a US Citizen in 1897.

Cruz, born in Canada, to a US Citizen mother and a Cuban father, would also not have been considered even a US Citizen in 1933. At that time his mother would have assumed the citizenship of her Cuban husband, and Cruz would have been born Cuban/ Canadian.

Althouse, the "law prof", thinks that naturalization laws enacted by Congress can amend the Constitution!

Both were NATURALIZED AT BIRTH, due to birth subject to the jurisdiction of the US (8 US Code 1401 (1)).

Carol said...

Able to raise money from big donors...yeah that's a terrible thing. RNC won't like that, hell no..

Thorley Winston said...

Now would be a good time for Walker to take up the mantle of reform of police unions--such as the ones that protect abusive cops from prosecution. It'd be risky though--the "law and order" types might frown on that.

I think that Governor Walker (and any of the other serious candidates) are happy to let Senator Paul try to court the “f*** the police” crowd from the Dems. Complaints about "abusive cops" are usually just a smokescreen because to the extent that they’re likely to vote, it’s going to be for whoever offers them the most free stuff and enables their belief that the state of their lives is someone else’s fault.




traditionalguy said...

Walker is still sailing above the others without breaking a sweat.

You have no idea how angry that is making the Cruz camp who are now accusing walker of taking money from Kochs who are by definition pro business and pro cheap labor.

But walker cut their legs out from under them by calmly opposing unnecessarily high levels of "legal immigration" while Senator Cruz supports a huge increase in special H-1b visas where there are no shortages at all.

By doing that, Walker also beat Warren to that populist pro labor issue.

buwaya said...

The campaign bank account balance, or related unreported financial incentives in the background, is how journalists (and their editors, publishers, and leadership up the line) get paid. Not a lot of them are doing all this out of pure ideology.
Hence this is a critical matter.
I don't know why the Kochs (for example) don't just buy a mouthpiece, like everyone else does.

Darrell said...

Yet, Hillary is sitting on $2.5 Billion in suspiciously obtained funds.

Michael K said...

" if the recall winds up playing a key role in the creation of President Walker. "

The unions may be having cold chills down their respective spines.

Mark said...
This comment has been removed by the author.