Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are privately bristling over Howard Dean?s management of the Democratic National Committee and have made those sentiments clear after new fundraising numbers showed he has spent nearly all the committee?s cash and has little left to support their efforts to gain seats this cycle, ROLL CALL reports.
Congressional leaders were furious last week when they learned the DNC has just $5.5 million in the bank, compared to the Republican National Committee?s $34 million.
Senate and House Minority Leaders Harry Reid (Nev.) and Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), along with the Senate and House campaign committee chairmen Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), have made their concerns — directly or indirectly — known to Dean, claims the paper.
Emanuel was particularly upset last week upon seeing the latest DNC numbers.
?A lot of people are scratching their heads as to what?s going on,? said one senior Democratic aide.
Another Democratic source familiar with the party fundraising apparatus said there is ?obvious displeasure? among the leaders.
Add this to Dean throwing Harry Reid over the cliff yesterday:
WALLACE: You and other top Democrats are going after what you call a Republican culture of corruption, but you deny any Democrats are involved. And let me take a look at an exchange of that.
Question, “In the last couple of weeks, but through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.” Dean, “That’s not true either. There’s no evidence for that either.”
Governor, it is certainly true that Republicans got twice as much money from Abramoff-related contributions than Democrats did, but Democrats aren’t clean in this area either, are they?
DEAN: Yeah, they are pretty clean, Chris, and I’ll tell you why. First of all, every dime of Jack Abramoff’s money went to Republicans. Not one dime went to any Democrat or any Democratic organization ? his personal money.
Secondly, he did direct contributions to mostly Republicans, but a few Democrats. But the Democrats, A, didn’t know that he directed that ? his clients to give them money and, B, they never produced anything for Abramoff.
The problem the Republicans have with this is that they actually did things. Senator Burns did a number of things for Jack Abramoff in exchange for a contribution. And the proximity of those contributions to the actual act of doing something for the lobbyist ? that’s what’s illegal, and that’s what’s going to get them in trouble.
There’s not one shred of evidence that any Democrat, A, knew that he was getting a contribution from Jack Abramoff and, B, did anything in exchange for it. And that’s why this is a Republican finance scandal and not some sort of bipartisan scandal.[…]
WALLACE: I just want to ask you about this question of the Democratic involvement. I want to put up something from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. This comes directly from their Web page, and it says, “Here is a detailed look at Abramoff’s lobbying and political contributions from Abramoff, the tribes that hired him, and SunCruz Casinos, which is a company that Abramoff owned since 1999.”
It lists recipients by the amount of money they received. Well, the top two are the Republican campaign committees. The third and fourth biggest recipients were Democratic campaign committees. And if you go down the list, Democrats received more than $1 million from Abramoff-related interests.
DEAN: There’s two points to this. First of all, actually, we ? the DNC actually got $100,000-some odd. Now, I can assure you Jack Abramoff never directed that money. It is possible that some of Jack Abramoff’s clients may have decided on their own to give Democrats money. The key is…
WALLACE: I’m sorry, did you say, I’m sorry. Did you say that you’re sure that Abramoff didn’t direct them to give that money?
DEAN: No, what I said was that it is possible that some Democrats got money from some of the ? yeah. No, what I’m saying is that Abramoff may not have directed some of this money toward the Democrats.
WALLACE: In fact, he did, sir. We’ve got evidence of that.
DEAN: But the point is that not one Democrat either knew it or acted on it. Nobody got anything out of the Democrats from Jack Abramoff. No Democrat delivered anything, and there’s no accusation and no investigation that any Democrat ever delivered anything to Jack Abramoff. And that’s not true of the Republicans.
WALLACE: So if we find ? and I just want to ? we have to wrap this up. But if we find that there were some Democrats who wrote letters on behalf of some of the Indian tribes that Abramoff represented, then what do you say, sir?
DEAN: That’s a big problem, and those Democrats are in trouble, and they should be in trouble. And our party, if the American people will put us back in power in ’06, we will have on the president’s desk things that outlaw all those kinds of behaviors. Right now it’s a Republican scandal. Maybe they’ll find that some Democrats did something wrong, too. That hasn’t been the case yet.
A few minutes later Wallace drops the bombshell: (Via Uncorrelated)
Wallace then engages in a cordial farewell, come back soon exigence, but after Howard has vacated the studio and during the panel discussion, Wallace interrupts a discussion on Kerry’s bid for a filibuster to make an announcement.
“For those of you who were watching earlier on when we were talking with Governor Dean, he said that no Democrats ever did anything in response to the money that they got from Abramoff or Abramoff clients like the Indian tribes, and if they did, they were in trouble. Well the Washington Post reported in November that Senator Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, wrote a letter to the Interior Secretary back in March 5th, 2002, opposing a casino, that one of those Indian tribes opposed. On March 6th the next day, Abramoff tribal client wrote a $5,000 check to Mr. Reid’s Searchlight Leadership Fund. Mr. Reid’s spokesman said there was absolutely no connection between the letter and the fund-raising, but its worth noting Mr. Reid;s Abramoff-related total was $66,000 between 2001 and 2004. He says he’s not returning any of the money because he has done nothing wrong.”
Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) failed today to address rumors that Nevada Senator Harry Reid will step down next month as Senate Minority Leader. Reid has been stung by revelations that his political action committee (PAC) accepted more than $60,000 in contributions from Indian tribes linked to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Appearing on CNN’s Late Edition, Biden avoided discussing either the Reid situation or any upcoming changes in Senate Democratic leadership.
Gateway Pundit has even more Democrats who did favors for the tribes and then received cash:
As was Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) : “Harkin Wrote At Least Three Letters In 2003 Pressing The Government To Release Federal Money To Help The Sac & Fox Tribe In His State Cope With The Temporary Closing Of Its Casino Due To A Tribal Dispute, According To Interior Department Documents Obtained By The Associated Press And Records Provided By Harkin’s Office.”
The esteemed Senator Mary Landrieu, (D-La) joins them: “Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., Who Was Engaged In A Tight Re-Election Race In 2002, Sent Her Letter March 6, 2002. That Same Day, The Coushattas Sent $2,000 To Her Campaign And She Received $5,000 More By The End Of That Month. By Year’s End, The Total Had Grown To At Least $24,000.”
As does Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI): “[There Were] Half-Dozen Letters Written Or Signed By 14 Lawmakers On Behalf Of The Tribes. One Was Written Jan. 23, 2003 By [Democrat Sen.] … Debbie Stabenow … On The Saginaw’s Behalf.”
And, don’t forget Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI): “[There Were] Half-Dozen Letters Written Or Signed By 14 Lawmakers On Behalf Of The Tribes. One Was Written Jan. 23, 2003 By [Democrat Sen.] Carl Levin … On The Saginaw’s Behalf.”
Sure looks like a party in a disarray to me. The leader is failing badly at his job while the scandal the Democrats have been attempting to spin is spinning right back at them.
Either way you look at this thing, the Democrats will be hurt along with the Republicans in this scandal. There is no such thing as a lobbyist who works for only one party. Any Democrat who say’s otherwise is just putting their head into the sand. No matter how much they WISH this was only a Republican scandal, it won’t make it so. Poor widdle guys.
Another BIG problem the Democrats have is the direction the far left is taking them. They are a rudderless party at the moment and are slowly sailing to the point of no return. Unless someone with some sanity takes that party by the horns are rights it, they are doomed. Not like I would be disappointed, since this wackiness is a whole lot of fun to watch.
Other’s Blogging:
Sure looks like a party in a disarray to me. The leader is failing badly at his job while the scandal the Democrats have been attempting to spin is spinning right back at them.
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