RNC drops $1,946 at risque night club but says Steele wasn’t the big spender
Politics and money can lead to some naughty things. Take RNC Chairman Michael Steele, for example. He was forced to deny a claim that he spent megabucks at a risque West Hollywood night club last month. The only trouble is that even if he didn’t, the Republican National Committee did.
Official documents show the RNC forked over $1,946 for meals at Voyeur, a high-end nightclub in West Hollywood where guests can enjoy drinks, cucumber tea sandwiches and live female performances that will “titillate the senses while still remaining classy and tasteful.”
RNC disclosure documents on file with the Federal Election Commission include the Voyeur expense in a monthly report that also shows the committee spending $9,099 at the Beverly Hills Hotel and $6,596 at the nearby Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire.
The Daily Caller, a Web site co-founded by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, says those giant and controversial expenditures were incurred during Steele’s travel in California. It alleges that the spending is part of the RNC chairman’s lavish style and adds that the committee also spent $17,514 on private aircraft and $12,691 on limousines during February.
The Democratic National Committee was positively giddy about the report, gleefully describing its political rival as the “Risque National Committee” in media releases.
But the RNC had some accusations (and denials) of its own, saying the Daily Caller had “willfully and erroneously” tied the Voyeur expense to Steele. ”This was a reimbursement made to a non-committee staffer. The chairman was never at the location in question, he had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable,” said a statement attributed to RNC spokesman Doug Heye.
Democrats lead on fundraising for 2010, but the gap may be closing
If new campaign dollars were votes, Democrats would be leading Republicans in the early returns for the 2010 congressional elections by about 7 percentage points overall. But that’s with Republicans closing the gap and eight months to go before Election Day.
A report by the Federal Election Commission says the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pulled in $183 million in new donations during 2009, the first half of the 2009-2010 congressional election cycle.
That put Democrats about 9 percent ahead of their Republican counterparts – the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee – which raised $168.6 million together.
But Republicans may be gaining momentum: committee fund-raising figures that also include the month of January show the Democrats with a $202 million 13-month total and a lead narrowing to 7 percentage points, vs. the GOP’s $188.7 million tally.
The Washington Post, which reported on the FEC numbers in its Thursday editions, notes that Democrats have had difficulties given gridlock in Congress and President Barack Obama’s diminished popularity. Democrats are also the object of unhappiness on Wall Street over the prospects for financial and healthcare reforms.
But the FEC figures show the Democratic Party is still pulling in money from big donors, with $37.3 million from individuals who gave $10,000 or more during 2009. Republicans could boast only $15.6 million from the high-end crowd.
Precisely the reason that campaign finance must be overhauled. When corporations can enter politics with nearly unlimited financial resources they can buy the legislation that they need to secure a monopoly in any market. The corporate takeover of healthcare reform is just the latest example.
Gingrich once again at head of Republican pack
Once, a first-term Democratic president failed to deliver on healthcare reform and found his party swept from office by a wave of voter anger that brought Republican Newt Gingrich to the forefront of American politics. Could this history lesson from the Clinton era be repeated?
Healthcare reform is stalled, voters are angry and Gingrich — who rose to prominence as House speaker after Republicans won Congress in 1994 — is again leading the pack, this time among potential White House hopefuls for 2012.
The Washington-based political news outlet, Politico, says Gingrich’s political action committee is raising money far faster than those of 2008 campaign veterans including Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Gingrich’s group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, pulled in $6.4 million in the second half of 2009, says Politico, citing finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. That compares with about $1.6 million for Romney’s PAC, $1.4 million for Palin’s and $519,00 for Huckabee’s.
The PACs exist ostensibly to support Republican candidates, promote the party and advance conservative policy. But according to Politico, they also help boost the visibility of White House wannabes. (Gingrich’s PAC spent $585,000 just to fly him around the country.)
Meanwhile, Palin, whose PAC paid $50,000 for policy advice, wants Rahm Emanuel to resign for using the epithet ”f*#!ing retarded” to describe liberal Democrats who wanted to launch attack ads against party conservatives concerned about healthcare reform. The New York Daily News reports that Emanuel apologized to advocates for the disabled in the White House on Wednesday.
Palin, the mother of a child with Down syndrome, slammed Emanuel’s remark as unacceptable and heartbreaking and called for his resignation on her Facebook page.
This pseudo-intellectual clown hasn’t held public office since the ’90s. He was driven from his leadership post in disgrace — by members of his own party — nearly 12 years ago. The GOP must really have shallow bench if Gingrich is considered one of their front-runners.
Yep, it’s a gay/bondage club all right. But it’s tax deductible and therefore non-newsworthy because the RNC was only there doing research on their base.