Gloucester Times: Leftover PAC money funneled into Warren's campaign

[ucrdem]

By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter, Gloucester (MA) Daily Times, May 2, 2019

BOSTON — As she runs for president, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has pledged not to accept money from lobbyists, political action committees or special interest groups.

Warren, one of 22 Democrats seeking the party's nomination to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020, has sworn off swanky fundraisers, big checks from wealthy donors and the flow of PAC money that typically permeates a presidential campaign. The pledge is a key plank of her campaign, and she references it in speeches and fundraising pitches.

"You won’t see Elizabeth take a dime from federally registered lobbyists, corporate PACs, or PACs of any kind," her campaign boasted in a recent email blast to supporters, urging them to contribute. "You won’t see Elizabeth cozy up to billionaires and nudge them to dump buckets of cash into a super PAC for her." A review of Warren's reports to the Federal Election Commission suggests that pledge is disingenuous.

Warren's presidential campaign collected $6 million in the first quarter of this year, banking 213,000 contributions from 135,000 donors, with an average donation of $28, her campaign said. She also transferred into her account $10 million in leftover campaign cash from her run for Senate last year, and a political committee she operates with other candidates, according to disclosures filed with the FEC.

https://www.gloucestertimes.com/election/leftover-pac-money-funneled-into-warren-s-campaign/article_f013b2ae-0a8d-53d1-afb1-ce9f80dfcc64.html

[George II]

1. Interesting how candidates, not just this one, shuffle money around.

[ucrdem]

2. The media don't look too closely at some of the claims.

Here's another example: Harris reported taking in just under $12 mil this quarter, which is slightly less than last quarter. And her campaign is telling reporters she received $2 million in the 24 hours after the debate and sold half a million $ in t-shirts.

Really.

[George II]

3. Look at the "fine print" in the emails going out from some candidates, bragging about....

....their widespread grass roots support they're getting. They subtly use the word "contributIONs", hoping many take that as "contributORs", and the low average $. Then look at the details of the filings, dozens of contributors make hundreds of individual "small" contributions to keep the average $ amount down and artificially increasing the number of contributions.

For example, in the first quarter one candidate received 28,000 contributions, but from only 9,200 contributors!

[ucrdem]

4. This month's FEC reports should make interesting reading.

I'm not counting on any of the cable outfits to read them though. Except Joe's of course. They'll read that one!

[George II]

5. I thought some of them would be posted yesterday, I guess they're on a 4-day weekend...

I downloaded all the major candidates' (O'Rourke, Gillibrand, Harris, Buttigieg, Warren, and Sanders) reports back in April and sorted them. Some interesting stuff, will be even more interesting as the data accumulates.

[ucrdem]

6. I read somewhere they have until July 15 to file 2nd quarter reports

And I'm guessing some of the lower tier won't bother.

[kcr]

7. Why not include the factual part they buried in their misleading hit piece?

To be sure, Warren's campaign had not held a fundraiser since the launch of her presidential exploratory committee and has not taken money directly from a PAC. The strategy apparently cost her a finance director, Michael Pratt, who reportedly resigned last month over objections to her policy of rejecting fundraisers.

[ucrdem]

8. The point is that she's using PAC money collected in previous campaigns.

And I imagine all 3 of the senators have warchests they can dip into when they want to report a bump.

[George II]

9. Key words:

...has not taken money directly from a PAC...