Photo by Photo courtesy Bill Pittman
Bill Pittman is seen here in this photo circa 1995 according to Pittman. (BILL PITTMAN / SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL)
WASHINGTON — Bill Pittman may not be one of President Barack Obama's big-money donors, but he is a firm believer that Obama deserves another four years in office.
"I think he's doing a good job, as best of a job as he can do given the circumstances with the national budget," said Pittman, a retiree who lives in Alcoa.
Pittman has given $701 to Obama's re-election campaign, mostly in small increments of $10 to $25. In that sense, he is similar to many other Obama supporters who are opening up their wallets a few dollars at a time.
When it comes to overall campaign contributions, Republican Mitt Romney holds a huge advantage over Obama in East Tennessee. Romney has collected some $341,000, while Obama has raised $128,000.
But in terms of individual donors, it's Obama who is far out front: He has nearly twice as many donors in East Tennessee as Romney does.
Obama has received contributions from 401 individuals in East Tennessee, according to records on file with the Federal Election Commission. Romney has 226 donors. The records reflect donations made through the end of April.
Obama's donors in East Tennessee tend to give much smaller contributions than Romney's supporters do. The average donation to the Obama campaign is $108. Romney's average is 10 times that — $1,085.
Statewide, the story is much the same: Obama has raised $1 million from 2,527 individuals. Romney has raised $1.5 million from 1,028 donors. The average donation for Obama in Tennessee is $164. For Romney, it's $952.
The numbers indicate Obama is following the same fundraising strategy that he used during his first presidential campaign four years ago, said Bruce Oppenheimer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University.
"The Obama campaign four years ago, and I assume this year as well, relied heavily on raising money from smaller contributions through Internet donations," Oppenheimer said. "The reason they can do that is because a lot of the fixed costs that go into getting small donations are near zero on the Internet. You don't have stamps. You don't have postage. You don't have direct mail costs. You can put in the credit card, charge it, and you get the money right away."
Romney, on the other hand, has concentrated on big-ticket, fundraising events in which the goal is "to get people to max out their individual contributions," Oppenheimer said. "That means going to those more affluent zip codes."
The Romney team has focused on big-money events mostly out of necessity, said former Knoxville Vice Mayor Joe Bailey, the campaign's regional chairman for East Tennessee.
"We've talked about the desire by people who have $500 and less that would like to have an opportunity to give," Bailey said. "Not everybody can afford a $1,000 event. But with the political pace that he traveled with the primary, I think that was the model they had to use — just to do the larger, bigger ticketed events,"
Regardless of how the money is raised, neither campaign is likely to spend much of it in Tennessee.
Romney is expected to easily carry Tennessee — a recent Vanderbilt poll gave him a seven-point lead among registered voters — so money raised locally will almost certainly be spent elsewhere, probably in battleground states such as Ohio and Virginia, Oppenheimer said.
"If you looked at where is the money raised and where is it going, it would look like an airline map," he said.
Despite the state's reputation as solid red territory, Tennesseans are pretty moderate, so it's no surprise that Obama would have a large donor base in the state, said Gloria Johnson, chairwoman of the Knox County Democratic Party.
"More people get involved when it's somebody they feel is of the people," said Johnson, who didn't become politically active until she gave money to Obama and volunteered for his campaign in 2008.
"I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who have said, 'I've never given, but I'm giving,'" Johnson said. "Of course, nobody agrees with everything he does. But there's no question he has helped the economy. He has gotten us back on track, and most people see that."
Pittman said that, when he decided to give to Obama, he went to the campaign website and made his donation. Since then, the emails from the campaign haven't stopped coming. Political guru James Carville and First Lady Michelle Obama both sent pleas for more money. Yet another appeal came with an enticing offer: For $3, Pittman and other donors would be entered into a raffle to dine with Obama and former President Bill Clinton.
"It just doesn't end," Pittman said. "They must use some sort of process to direct what they are saying to you based upon your zip code and who you are, or maybe the demographics about your age."
FOREX-Euro rallies on optimism that bloc to stay intact - Reuters UK
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Forex Signals - EURUSD Fair Exchange Rate - International Business Times
Recap: We sat on the sidelines on Friday, like we normally do, due to the volatility that comes along with the low volume weekend trading.
The pair did not make any major moves, but did have a nice upward flagpole that broke an intraday falling resistance and now appears to be forming a bit of a flag consolidation period which could spell more gains for the pair.
Forex: USD/CHF at opening price, 0.9670 - FXStreet.com
Big Money And The Ballot Box - WAMU
You wouldn't think politicians would have any trouble raising enough money these days. The presidential race is expected to be a billion-dollar affair, and spending records have been shattered at the congressional level.
But many candidates are being outgunned by superPACs and other outside groups with nearly unlimited funds at their disposal. Those dollars have swayed primaries in states such as Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio. More than $500,000 in superPAC cash from a 21-year-old college student helped decide the winner of a contested GOP primary last week in Kentucky.
With billionaires dashing off multimillion-dollar checks to superPACs, political scientists and some politicians themselves are worried that candidates have become mere bystanders in their own campaigns.
"Those on the ballot are much more of an afterthought than they ever were before," says Jon Erpenbach, a Democratic state senator in Wisconsin. "In some cases, candidates don't even matter."
Is The System Broken?
All of this has triggered debate about whether it makes sense to have a system in which campaign finance limits apply mainly to political parties and candidates. Opinion on how best to fix the problem remains split roughly along party lines.
An increasing number of Republicans want to close what they consider the opposite of a loophole, saying it makes no sense to handcuff candidates when money is otherwise flowing so freely.
"The problem is the limits," Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander said at a recent Rules Committee hearing. "These new superPACs exist because of the contribution limits we've placed upon parties and candidates. Get rid of the limits on contributions, and superPACs will go away."
Abolishing those limits would only open the door to outright influence peddling, according to those who advocate keeping the rules in place.
"To suggest that the solution to the problem is for candidates to raise the money themselves would just double down the possibilities for corruption," says Josh Orton, political director of Progressives United, a liberal political action committee that favors campaign finance limits. "Can you imagine the kind of conversations that could happen if we lifted the restrictions on corporations giving to candidates themselves?"
Newt Gingrich, who was targeted by pro-Mitt Romney superPAC ads before ending his presidential bid, says he favors a system in which individuals give directly to campaigns instead of superPACs.
"We would be better off with a system that says any American can donate any personal amount of income after personal taxes as long as they report it online that night, and they give it to the candidate," Gingrich said Thursday. "And then the candidates would have to be responsible for the advertising. You would have a cleaner, more positive, healthier system."
Individuals are limited to donations of $2,500 per candidate per election, which means they can contribute that amount for both primary and general election campaigns. Limits on gifts to parties are higher; for instance, an individual may give a national party $30,800 per year and a state party $10,000.
The limits on what outside groups can spend on campaigns have largely been eroded since the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling in 2010. That decision has been hailed — and derided — for ushering in a new era of campaign finance law. But it was an earlier Supreme Court decision, in Buckley v. Valeo, that made it hard to make campaign finance restrictions stick.
That case found that money in politics is protected as equivalent to free speech. Ever since the 1976 Buckley decision, money has been like water, finding its way into the political system through new means, regardless of what restrictions have been enacted.
Here Today, But Maybe Not Tomorrow
"Right now, you have the worst of all worlds — unlimited contributions to third-party entities, with some, but certainly not instant, disclosure," says Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state from Kentucky who now directs the Harvard University Institute of Politics.
Grayson says he'd rather see money put in the hands of candidates and parties, who are more accountable to voters than campaign committees that may disappear after the election.
Currently, messages from candidates themselves in a contested race are likely to make up only a "small sliver" of total campaign advertising, says Ed Goeas, a Republican consultant who favors lifting limits while requiring disclosure of donors.
"Money is now at the end that's furthest away from the candidates and furthest away from the parties," Goeas says. "The money is with these other groups that are having more impact on the campaign than the campaign itself."
SuperPACs are not supposed to coordinate their messages or strategies with candidates, but many campaign finance advocates concede the line often gets blurry.
Still, they say erasing the line entirely would do great damage to the political system. Having politicians directly receive large or unlimited funds from entities they might regulate would be a surefire recipe for corruption, they say.
"We're in pretty bad shape right now, but there are still some lines," says Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center. "By funneling large amounts of money to politicians, what you would actually have is just more candidates elected who are beholden to a small elite."
Genie May Be Out Of The Bottle
Supporters of such limits point to possible models to stem the tide of money. Public financing systems in Maine and Arizona, as well as one being bandied about in New York State, for example, give politicians incentive to raise small amounts of money from constituents.
Earlier this month, Connecticut's Legislature passed a bill that would require corporations to be more transparent about their election spending. It's not clear whether Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy will sign it, due to concerns about its constitutionality.
And next month, the Supreme Court may decide to take up a Montana case that would determine whether corporations can be banned from contributing to state-level campaigns. But unless there's a change in the court's voting makeup or proclivities, it's unlikely any restrictions will remain in place to prevent large funds from pouring into campaigns in one form or another.
In a speech Wednesday, former Justice John Paul Stevens, who dissented in the Citizens United case, suggested the court would at some point have to revisit the logic of the 2010 decision. The court concluded that corporate donations amount to protected free speech but did not address whether the same holds true for foreign corporations. "It will be necessary to explain why the First Amendment provides greater protection of some nonvoters than to that of other nonvoters," Stevens said.
Even those who would seek to level the playing field by allowing candidates and parties to raise more money directly believe that the genie may already be out of the bottle. Many rich donors have come to like superPACs, which allow them to control their own messages.
"I do think the current system will get worse until we have significant reforms," says Nick Nyhart, president of the Public Campaign Action Fund, which favors fundraising limits.
"As bad as things are in 2012, they will continue to get worse in 2014 and 2016 unless we have some change," Nyhart says. "The current system cannot hold.
Forex: EUR/GBP down after Sentix index - FXStreet.com
Proposition 29 is facing long odds to overcome Big Tobacco's vast money advantage. - Inside Bay Area
SACRAMENTO -- It was midsummer 2006, and a Field Poll showed Californians favored an initiative for a stiff new tobacco tax by a 2-1 ratio.
Three months later, after tobacco companies poured in $66 million to fund a blistering TV ad campaign -- the last ad featuring a doctor in a white smock excoriating the initiative -- the proposition went down in flames.
Sound familiar?
After riding solid polls out of the gate in March, leading in one survey by 37 points, Proposition 29, the ballot measure that would raise taxes on cigarettes by $1 a pack to fund cancer research, looked like a sure thing. But that was before opponents -- using $46 million from tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds -- began waging an unrelenting TV and radio ad campaign, featuring the same doctor in a white smock.
A survey released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California showed Proposition 29's lead down to 11 points: 53 percent to 42 percent.
Though the measure still holds leads in most polls, the downward trajectory bodes ill for proponents heading into Tuesday's election.
Defeat, political analysts say, has been almost a certainty for ordinary citizens -- or merely less endowed campaigns -- who try to carry a ballot initiative past a powerful interest group with seemingly unlimited funds.
"The initiative system has biases in favor of groups that have money -- and of groups trying to stop something rather than pass
something," said Jack Pitney, a political-science professor at Claremont McKenna College. "If you can create doubts, you have a good chance of defeating a measure."Come-from-behind wins in initiative battles are not the sole province of tobacco companies. Oil firms pulled off a major turnaround in 2006, too. Voters initially backed a ballot measure to slap a tax on oil companies to fund alternative-energy programs by a ratio of nearly 3-to-1 in an early-summer Public Policy Institute of California poll. But after the oil industry went to work, outspending proponents $93 million to $62 million, Proposition 87 went down to defeat.
In each instance, a maxim of California ballot measure politics was fulfilled: It's easier to defeat initiatives because cranky voters are inclined to vote no on measures, particularly those asking for money. And when a no campaign can throw bushels of cash into a race to dominate the airwaves with a message that gets practically ingrained in the public's consciousness, the odds are even worse for the yes side.
"They pound the message over and over and after a while, people lose track of the basic purpose of the measure and become troubled by the alleged negatives," said Tracy Westen, founder of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies.
In the case of Proposition 29, opponents have steered the focus away from the central theme of the initiative: funding cancer research and potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives by lowering the rate of smoking through higher tobacco taxes.
The yes side, which has received $10 million in campaign contributions from health organizations, has even had a tough time casting the campaign as being about tobacco companies trying to protect their profits. That's a potentially winning message in California that has gone largely unheeded -- because proponents simply haven't been on the air enough to crash through the barrier of public awareness.
"A good message isn't going to persuade people if they never hear it," Pitney said.
Instead, voters have been exposed mostly to the no side's notion -- which has been debunked by the measure's proponents -- of a vast, newly created government bureaucracy that allows unelected officials to spend taxpayer money out of state. Political analysts say the ad campaign is filled with buzz phrases meant to appeal to Californians' general distrust of government.
Once in a while, however, all the money in the world won't work.
The one advantage Proposition 29 proponents cling to is that "voters believe tobacco is bad, and they want fewer people to smoke," said Melissa Michelson, a political-science professor at Menlo College in Atherton.
"The advertising has definitely been very one-sided, but I don't know if that means the yes side has no shot. This is the sort of issue where people are not as likely to be influenced by the advertising of the no side because they'll have an underlying view on whether tobacco should be taxed more."
Indeed, there have been recent examples of voters rising up against powerful industries in ballot fights. In 2010, voters defeated initiatives backed by PG&E and Mercury Insurance, which outspent their opponents by spectacular margins.
Opponents of PG&E's Proposition 16 -- which would have made it harder for cities to go into the utility business -- had only $133,000 at their disposal against PG&E's $43 million, but prevailed. Opponents defeated Mercury's Proposition 17 -- which consumer groups said would have raised auto-insurance rates -- despite being outspent $13 million to $1.7 million.
But those underdogs had the power of the no vote on their side.
Contact Steven Harmon at 916-441-2101. Follow him at Twitter.com/ssharmon. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
A handful of California ballot initiative races in the past decade have proved that heavily financed opposition campaigns can overcome early deficits in the polls.
Proposition
defeated What measure would have done Election Pro money Con money
27 Eliminate Citizen Redistricting Commission 2010 general $5.4 million $24.5 million
7 Require utilities to get more power from renewables 2008 general $9.3 million $29.8 million
75 Prevent unions from using dues for politics 2005 special $8.9 million $47.5 million
86 Increase cigarette taxes by $2.60 a pack 2006 general $16.5 million $66.4 million
87 Establish program to reduce oil consumption 2006 general $61.5 million $93 million
Source: Eric McGhee, fellow at Public Policy Institute of California
Big money trumps
early leads
A handful of California ballot initiative races in the past decade have proved that heavily financed opposition campaigns can overcome early deficits in the polls.
2010: Proposition 27
(to eliminate Citizen Redistricting Commission)
Pro money: $5.4 million
Con money: $24.5 million
2008: Proposition 7
(to require utilities to get more power from renewables)
Pro money: $9.3 million
Con money: $29.8 million
2005: Proposition 75
(to prevent unions from using dues for politics)
Pro money: $8.9 million
Con money: $47.5 million
2006: Proposition 86
(to increase cigarette taxes by $2.60 a pack)
Pro money: $16.5 million
Con money: $66.4 million
2006: Proposition 87
(to establish program to reduce oil consumption)
Pro money: $61.5 million
Con money: $93 million
Source: Eric McGhee, fellow at Public Policy Institute of California
Money matters could drive Florida State from ACC to Big 12 - USA Today
That is the simplest way to summarize a week spent in Kansas City.
Start first with the obvious: The Big 12 has money right now that the ACC doesn't.
Oklahoma State President Burns Hargis announced last Friday that the Big 12 agreed to distribute $19 million to eight of its members to close out the 2011-12 fiscal year. Departing members Missouri and Texas A&M did not receive payouts; neither did incoming members TCU and West Virginia.
That's $4.9 million more than Florida State received this year as a member of the ACC.
That's $4.9 million that Florida State's athletics department - heck, Florida State's entire campus - sorely needs right now.
That's raises for basketball coaches. That's a new paint job for Doak Campbell Stadium. That's restocking the cash reserves in the athletics department. That's transferring money over to FSU President Eric Barron's budget so he can save some teaching jobs or academic programs - or both.
That's a lot of money. And the Big 12 has it right now.
The pot for Big 12 teams is expected to grow next year. League officials confirmed during the Kansas City meetings that they have agreed to two separate television contracts - one with ESPN and the other with Fox Sports - that will bring in nearly $2.6 billion in total revenues.
Though there are details yet to be worked out syncing the two contracts together, the payouts next year are expected to be $20 million for Big 12 schools. (TCU and West Virginia will only be given a 50-percent share and will not receive full shares until 2016.)
Meanwhile, Florida State won't reach the $20-million mark until the back half of the ACC's deal with ESPN.
And that is why the ACC should be worried right now.
Worried, that it will fall behind in the ever-escalating arms race that rules big-time college athletics.
Worried, that it will continue to be considered a second-tier football league for years to come.
Worried, that the schools in its league that want to spend the money to compete for national championships in football may find another conference to call home.
This is a critical time for the ACC's leadership to reach out to each of its member teams and settle some nerves.
The message is simple: The ACC can catch up - it must catch up - in football.
Yes, the ACC has a chance to re-open its television contract in five years. By then, it's entirely possible Florida State will have rejoined the nation's elite and become a championship contender yet again.
That would make ACC football a more valuable product. That would bring more revenues into the league.
But the burden simply can't be placed on the shoulders of one program. The ACC's place in the pecking order of big-time football is a league problem.
Blame Florida State all you want for how its program has stumbled through the last 10 years, but do so at your own risk.
It's certainly true that FSU failed to compete at a championship level since Chris Weinke left town. But there was no law that prohibited Clemson, Virginia Tech, Miami, Georgia Tech or anyone else from winning national titles the last 10 years.
And that's why Florida State fans should not quickly dismiss the rumors that continue to swirl about a move to the Big 12.
One of the key reasons Florida State joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in the first place was money. Back then, basketball drove the money train in college athletics - and the ACC had the cash that other leagues didn't.
That's simply not the case any longer. Football climbed into the driver's seat in the last five years and, with a playoff system coming soon, the sport looks like it will continue to call the shots when it comes to television revenues.
The disparity in money is simply too much for FSU to completely ignore. A $4.9-million gap? In this economy? How do you not question things right now?
That's why it has to be repeated one more time: The Big 12 has money. The ACC should be worried.
And Florida State fans? Well, never say never.
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