G.O.P. Looks to Rebuild Bush Fund-Raising Machine

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

The calls come at least once a week these days, with growing urgency: friends of the Republican presidential candidates, aides to the candidates, and often the candidates themselves, wondering if Al Hoffman Jr. might be ready to lend a hand.

“How are you doing? What are you feeling? What are you thinking?” Mr. Hoffman, a Florida real estate developer who was a co-chairman of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns, said in describing the calls. But Mr. Hoffman, one of the Republican Party’s most sought-after fund-raisers, remains unconvinced that he should tap into his extensive network of contacts to raise money for any of them.

“None of the candidates have instantly identified themselves as a leader for the Republican movement,” Mr. Hoffman said. “The Bush family were instantly identifiable as leaders.”

He is far from alone. Two and a half years after Mr. Bush left the White House, the formidable network of Republican donors he assembled has largely melted away. Fewer than one in five of Mr. Bush’s Rangers and Pioneers, the elite corps of “bundlers” who helped Mr. Bush smash fund-raising records in his two runs for the White House and remain the gold standard of Republican fund-raising, have contributed to any of the current Republican candidates, according to a New York Times analysis.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/politics/04donate.html?pagewanted=all

[AndyTiedye]

1. They Don't Need Them Anymore Now They've Got "Citizens United"

No more need for all that tiresome "bundling" of donations, now that the corporations can make unlimited contributions to their "super-pacs".

[pam4water]

2. So true.

[Downwinder]

3. Has anybody ever tried to register a Corporation to vote?

Now that they are citizens.

[No Elephants]

10. If the money were rolling in anywhere, Rethug candidates would not be so concerned about Hoffman.

[Cool Logic]

4. They can rebuild all the want...but they will not be able to build one as big as Obama's.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638

Goldman Sachs
Microsoft Corp
Google Inc
JPMorgan Chase & Co
Citigroup Inc
Time Warner
Sidley Austin LLP
UBS
IBM Corp
General Electric
Morgan Stanley

[Iliyah]

6. The gopers got all these huge

donors/corporations plus foreign monies coming in for them. They have voter suppression and re-districting. Plus, they've got the corporte media and the supreme courts as well as the appeals court and the daddy court the us supreme court. Also, they have "surprised" missing ballots set aside in case its a close race they can always say "oosp I found a bag of ballots".

Gopers got the voting machines geared in their favor, Carl Rove and other nasty groups to do their bidding on tv and radio and of course fake news.

[No Elephants]

11. You defend him for not using the 14th to raise the debt ceiling without cuts,

yet you attack him for taking money from the same corporate donors everyone else gets money from.

Hard to understand?

[Cool Logic]

15. It's only hard to understand for those who support men, rather than ideas.

When a man is governed by his own morally structured code of values, he supports the good and opposes the evil, irrespective of the man. For he knows that ideas are more important than men.

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL Bush (R)

[jmowreader]

7. They'll never be able to do it

You didn't donate money to Junior Bush, or hire Junior Bush, because you LIKED Junior Bush, you did it to get access to his father. I really don't think donating money to put Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain or Rick Santorum in the White House is going to give you the same access.

The GOP has changed dramatically since the time of the Bushes. Back then the big players were rich white guys who wanted to be richer white guys. Now it's all these zealots who want abortion, homosexuality and non-Christian religions banned. About the only similarity between the Old GOP and the current one is both hate taxes.

[BNJMN]

8. 'So Goes the Nation.'

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Deo

[sofa king]

9. Oh, so they're going back to the Saudi Arabians?

[No Elephants]

13. To be perfectly fair

Kuwait owed Poppy big time, too.

[No Elephants]

12. Maybe Republican donors are not all that worried about the outcome of the election.

Funniest line in a while:

“The Bush family were instantly identifiable as leaders."

Yeah, Poppy poking his fingers into the air, muttering about a thousand points of light (whatever that means) and "No new taxes." (People tried to read his lips, but couldn't find them.)

And. "All hat, no cattle" Baby Bush (Shrub) donning his cowboy boots for a limousine ride.

Instantly identifiable as Rethug leaders because ruthless, lying Atwater was standing behind one of them and his protege, ruthless, lying Rove was standing behind the other. You could tell right away they were both destined for.....what? Attacking Iraq?

[lunatica]

14. Gee wizz. Falling apart is such sorrow.

When you lose your have and have mores base life's a bitch.

Disclaimer: No sexism intended. I'm just using a figure of speech to make a point.

But if someone takes exception don't expect a response.