Update on "Never Let a Crisis..." Post: A Decent Proposal

    My post on Monday ("Never Let a Crisis...") on David Axelrod's email regarding Barack Obama's speech on the Newtown, CT, massacre has gotten a fair amount of attention over the past two days.  A common response by defenders of Axelrod (and the president by extension) is that the email that linked to the BarackObama.com website blog was not a fund raising email, and that the format of the blog displays those "Donate" buttons regardless of the topic.  While that may be true, it misses the point.  As the folks at Twitchy pointed out:

Notably, Axelrod did not link to the post about the speech at the White House website. Rather, he linked to a post at President Obama’s official campaign site.

     In addition to the the White House website, the speech is on YouTube multiple times and doubtless at other outlets, as well.  Using the campaign website and email list that Team Obama crafted to set fundraising records during the campaign was simply asking for trouble.  Earlier, I linked to a Business Week article that detailed how the campaign lifted the fundraising email to an art form:

One fascination in a presidential race mostly bereft of intrigue was the strange, incessant, and weirdly overfamiliar e-mails that emanated from the Obama campaign... 

But they worked. Most of the $690 million Obama raised online came from fundraising e-mails. During the campaign, Obama’s staff wouldn’t answer questions about them or the alchemy that made them so successful. Now, with the election over, they’re opening the black box...

Writers, analysts, and managers routinely bet on which lines would perform best and worst. “We were so bad at predicting what would win that it only reinforced the need to constantly keep testing,” says Showalter. “Every time something really ugly won, it would shock me: giant-size fonts for links, plain-text links vs. pretty ‘Donate’ buttons.

    This brings me to my proposal.  In my original post, I noted that:

...in fairness that Axelrod might not have intentionally connected his email with the "Donate" buttons that are ever-present on the BarackObama.com website.  But if/when someone realizes the crassness of the current setup, perhaps a link to the Newtown memorials will be forthcoming. 

    So far, Obama for America has not chosen to change its set up or add any links for ways to donate to Newtown-related causes.  But based on the BusinessWeek article above, OFA has enough high-tech savvy to know exactly how much they ended up raising from this email, even if it was unintentional (see graphic from Business Week article to the right.)  Why not make a public statement that those funds will be redirected to some kind of Newtown memorial fund or funds?  There may be some legal technicality with using campaign funds that way, but I am confident that OFA's attorneys could find a way to circumvent any difficulties.

    Not only would this tangibly help people who are facing this devastating tragedy, but it would diffuse the fund-raising accusation.  Personally, I have hoped from the beginning that, as bad as it looked, this was not a conscious effort to capitalize on the circumstances of last Friday.  Redirecting those funds would be a small price for the Obama campaign to pay to show both its heart and wallet are in the right place.

Never Let a Crisis... [Updated]

Note:  Due to the reaction to this post, I have submitted a proposal for the Obama campaign in a new post here.  [Update: Point of clarification, since there has been confusion elsewhere: the "Donate" buttons are not in the email itself, only at the link.]

* * * * * * *

    Sometime it almost feels wrong to point out bad taste, because it feel like the original offense is compounded.  But tonight I got an email from David Axelrod via Obama for America:

Friend -- 

Our hearts broke on Friday as we learned of the tragic and senseless deaths of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. 

Last night, President Obama addressed the families of Newtown, offering the love and prayers of a nation, and vowing to use whatever power his office holds to protect our children from such unthinkable acts of violence. 

He spoke from the heart -- as a president and a parent. Watch this speech: 

                           

http://my.barackobama.com/Newtown 

As we reflect on the lives lost last week, we must also, as the President urged, consider how each of us can play a part in making our country worthy of the memory of those little children.  

I hope you and the ones you love have a happy and safe holiday.  

Thanks,
David

    As I clicked on the link provided, I thought to myself, maybe once, just once, the Obama team will play against type and surprise me, given the scope of this horrific tragedy.  But it was not to be:

    Not one, but two buttons - two opportunities to donate... to the Obama campaign.  Not to the Red Cross, or to a memorial fund for the children and adults killed in Newtown.  How hard would it have been to shift the focus, disable the buttons, for just one email, just one blog post?  But the show must go on.

Note: Although I am not feeling very charitable towards Obama for America at the moment, I should note in fairness that Axelrod might not have intentionally connected his email with the "Donate" buttons that are ever-present on the BarackObama.com website.  But if/when someone realizes the crassness of the current setup, perhaps a link to the Newtown memorials will be forthcoming.  I will update if that happens.
Update: If anyone thinks I am being too hard on Team Obama, read this article (that I wrote about here) that documents how carefully the emails from the Obama campaign are crafted.

* * * * * * *

Here is a link to an article with a list of the charities chosen by the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown.  And here's a Red Cross link.

Axelrod: Maybe Super PACs Aren't So Bad After All

    Late on election night, after the race was called for Barack Obama, I tweeted:

    Now The Hill reports that the still-mustachioed David Axelrod concurs:

Obama campaign senior strategist David Axelrod said Thursday that if he were a Republican billionaire who donated to a conservative super-PACs during this election, he would want his money back.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call two days after Obama won reelection, Axelrod said one key takeaway of the presidential race and other congressional races, is the ineffectiveness of the super-PACs.
“If I were one of these billionaires, I'd be wanting to talk to someone and asking where my refund is, because they didn't get much for their money,” Axelrod said. “Just looking at the heartening news is that you can't buy the White House. You can't overwhelm the Congress with these super-PAC dollars.”

    This is quite a change from the tune Axelrod was singing back in June. Politico reported at the time:

Obama campaign senior strategist David Axelrod said Thursday that free-spending super PACs are hurting the fabric of democracy — and that President Barack Obama's administration would move to reform the campaign finance system in a possible second term.
"It's a great concern," Axelrod said in an interview with WJLA ABC 7, a station owned by POLITICO's corporate parent. "People are writing $10 million checks in one fell swoop to these super PACs — in many cases, they're undisclosed."

     Since it now appears the "fabric of democracy" was in no more danger than Axelrod's mustache, it will be interesting to see if the Obama administration follows through on the promised "reforms":

Axelrod said a second term Obama administration would bring about reforms in the campaign finance system.
"I hope that when we win this election, one thing we can do is bring some common sense back to our system," Axelrod said.

    I am more than a little skeptical that these reforms will be pursued with much vigor, especially given what Axelrod left out of his super PAC comments in June:

Left unsaid is the fact that Obama also has a super PAC — Priorities USA Action — run by two former White House staffers. The group has struggled to keep pace with efforts on the GOP side — with many wealthy Obama donors recoiling at what the super PAC represents.

    The ultimate irony would be Axelrod himself jumping into the super PAC arena as his time with the Obama administration and campaign winds down over the next several years.  With Axelrod's background and with a fairly secure future as a political guru for years to come, this scenario seems to me to be almost a certainty.  I am tempted to grow a mustache myself just so I can promise to shave it off if I am wrong.

Judging a Man By the Color of His Politics

    In a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post, Fredrick Harris, professor of political science and the director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, wrote that we in America are "still waiting for our first black president."  This may come as a surprise to anyone who was an inhabitant of earth in November 2008 or has arrived since.  But according to Mr. Harris, Barack Obama has not properly fulfilled the role that his black father apparently bequeathed to the future president merely by virtue of his race.  Mr. Harris fills his essay with phrases such as "issues of specific interest to African Americans," "issues of particular interest to us [blacks]," and "it appears that the nation is instead becoming non-racial," but the following passage just boggles the mind:

Politicians such as former governor Doug Wilder of Virginia, former Seattle mayor Norman Rice and former New York mayor David Dinkins ran campaigns that largely deemphasized race, stressing the need for racial unity and advocating policies that they said would benefit everyone, rather than any particular groups. It was probably necessary to shatter the glass ceiling and win office in majority-white jurisdictions, but these victories came at an unintended cost: They undermined the ability of black voters and activists to place race-specific policy issues on the electoral agenda.
After winning office, such race-neutral politicians don’t normally embrace issues and positions that black voters might prefer. Instead, the imperatives of reelection take over. To maintain their winning coalitions, these politicians usually need to govern in a racially neutral manner as well. (Black Americans understand this: In the 2008 ABC News-USA Today-Columbia University Black Politics Survey, nearly half of all black respondents believed that African Americans must play down their racial identity to get ahead in the United States.) [emphasis added]

    Mr. Harris is making the case that US politics is in danger of losing race as an issue, and these "race-neutral politicians" (one gets the sense Mr. Harris is using this label as a pejorative) are responsible.  The advances made by millions of individual blacks and their families are interfering with the ability of Mr. Harris and his allies to segregate the black race into a homogenous voice to advance Harris's political and social goals.

    President Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod expressed similar sentiments in reaction to talk of the conservative Marco Rubio being on the short-list of possible Romney running mates.  The Washington Times reports:

"I think it would be an insult to the Hispanic community to choose Senator Rubio ... if Governor Romney thinks that's sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of the things and the positions that he's taken," Mr. Axelrod said.

    Why an insult?  Because Rubio does not fit the stereotype that Axelrod believes Hispanics/Latinos should box themselves into.  Rubio is a hypocrite for allowing his ideology to trump his racial makeup.
 
    The Democratic Party has comfortably settled into its strategy of division and group politics, even reflecting it in their campaign websites and outreach.  In an ostensible attempt to achieve equality of outcomes, the decision was made to abandon color-blindness for (as Harris puts it) "communities of color." What we are left with now is the spectacle of Fredrick Harris lamenting that Obama's "early discussions of injustice gave way to calls for policies to benefit all Americans and tough-love speeches for African Americans."   [emphasis added]  When "policies to benefit all Americans" is seen as a step down, the towel has been throw in.

    In the midst of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Martin Luther King famously said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Traditional racists say they can tell you what kind of person someone is by the color of his skin.  Frederick Harris and David Axelrod look at the color of someone's skin and tell you what kind of person he should be.  Not much of a dream, is it?