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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Political bits

Marc Ambinder reports of a conference call where Hillary Clinton tells her (pledged) delegates that it's okay to back Obama.

Ben Smith points out that she's not technically releasing them yet although she'll likely do so right at the convention. (Having her people there would help shape platform, future rules, etc., but I think as importantly, it guarantees that her people get to go to the convention rather than being replaced with Obama delegates.)

(DemConWatch) The Democratic convention is so flooded with volunteers (25,000) that they're cutting some shifts to one 4 hour shift for the whole week. Meanwhile, the GOP has only 4,000 of its 10,000 spots filled.

(CQ) From an article on McCain and "the base": "According to a Congressional Quarterly analysis, only about 5,000 of the 62,800 donors who gave the maximum contribution of $2,000 to Bush — roughly 8 percent — had given to McCain as of April 30."

4 Comments:

  • Just anecdotal, third-hand information, so take it with a grain of salt: the GOP has hired several local private investigators to look into all volunteers at the convention. I was told, straight-faced, that two of the criteria that will get a volunteer rejected are if they are a vegetarian and if they frequent book stores.

    Apparently these investigators get $1000 (cash) for Googling a potential volunteer and calling their mother up pretending to be an old friend.

    It would seem they are being extremely careful not to allow any 'disruptive elements' into the Convention, so it may be that only 4000 have passed muster.

    By Blogger Todd Dugdale , at 4:45 PM  

  • That's funny. I hadn't even thought of that, but after the code pink profile at the 2004 convention, I guess it makes sense.

    They can't be checking all 10,000 volunteers at $1,000. That's $10 mil. Maybe only convention floor or the ones that fail a cheap screening?

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 5:41 PM  

  • They can't be checking all 10,000 volunteers at $1,000. That's $10 mil. Maybe only convention floor or the ones that fail a cheap screening?

    Yeah, it can't be all of them. As I said, take it with a grain of salt.
    I definitely believe that they are investigating potential volunteers with the use of private investigators, though, since the person who told me this claimed to see the money change hands.

    By Blogger Todd Dugdale , at 6:48 PM  

  • You know, I don't doubt that at all.

    I'd be curious where the GOP/political screening ends and the Secret Service begins.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:13 PM  

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