I'm going to stay out of the comments and do some more hiatin'. See ya, crack(er)heads.

There are times that I read something and think "we are fucked".

Thanks, ogged.

This is just so disturbing.

Yeah, that article was hilarious. It so studiously avoided the use of the word "bribery". Of course, on the Republican side there has been a lot of discussion about who was going to hire the most influential and connected consulting firms, which would in turn determine their endorsements. White=consultant, black=pastor.

Article in the newest issue of The American Conservative that helped push me toward voting for Hilary if it is her vs. Obama:

http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_28/article.html

Of course, on the Republican side there has been a lot of discussion about who was going to hire the most influential and connected consulting firms, which would in turn determine their endorsements. White=consultant, black=pastor.

Yeah, I burst out laughing when it turned out that Pat Robertson or whoever had endorsed Giuliani. What a pathetic lowlife. Turns out that really was the last straw in terms of him having any influence over the actual religious people he has so much scorn for.

At lunch today there were a couple of people at the next table over who apparently worked for the Obama campaign and were discussing preparations for the NM primary on Super Tuesday. It was all boring logistical stuff, though (get someone to head up each county, ask them to call people to get them to canvass and phonebank, get elected officials to beg local lawyers to let us use their offices to set up the phonebanks, that sort of thing). No bribery or anything.

Thanks, Teo. You've actually made me feel quite a bit better.

Glad to help.

I paid him to do it, Ari.

Shhhh!

Oh, right. I'm not very good at this. I was working for Fred Thompson before.

Were you on the team organizing his departure from the race, or the team organizing his win in Louisiana mere hours later?

I was in charge of keeping him awake. It's a full-time job.

"I had an actual paying job with a campaign in '04 doing GOTV in South Carolina"

I wouldn't have guessed that. Shows how well I know my ogged.

Holy shit, Petey lurks here? I love Petey! Too nasty towards Yglesias (much nastier than Al, which is saying a lot), but a great analyst and political theoretician and a compelling advocate for Edwards.

Petey needs to start a blog.

When I was growing up, half-pint bottles of liquor were the prefered currency for vote-buying. Liquor sales were a state monopoly, so at some point, the state decided to eliminate the sale of half-pint bottles, on the theory that pint bottles would be too expensive for campaigns to afford.

Inflation being what it is, by the time I was in HS, the going rate was said to be a pint bottle with a $5 bill wrapped around it with a rubber band.

This voting thing sounds exciting and lucrative. I should really look into it.

(I don't see why people get so upset about buying votes. Secret ballots, baby! They can't tell which way you voted anyway! Take the pint-and-$5, and run...)

As a tale from my homeland has it, two party hacks are standing out in the cemetary writing down names from the tombstones to add to the voter rolls. One of them comes across a tombstone that reads "Andrzej Kowalczyk-Zawadzki".

"Boss, that one's just too dang hard," he says. "I'ma gonna skip that one."

And the party boss says, "Son, I am ashamed of you. That feller might have been a foreigner, but in this great country of ours, he has as much a right to vote as anyone else in this here cemetary."

Secret ballots, baby! They can't tell which way you voted anyway

They use a chain ballot, dude. To get started, someone sneaks out of the polling place with a ballot, which is then filled out and given to the first voter. To collect your bottle and your $5, you have to cast the already filled out ballot and bring out your own blank ballot, and the cycle continues.

People ask me why I don't vote. I'm holding out for the big bucks.

19: That's why election judges are so important to democracy: one of the main responsibilities is to make sure no one sneaks out with a ballot. Of course, who watches the watchers?

The election judge gets a whole case.

At least now I won't be shocked when Clinton wins SC.

Huh. I'm actually kind of shocked -- I haven't seen stories of actual vote buying reported around here. I wonder if I'm naive, or it's regional.

and sent someone driving like the devil to make it to our people before dark

"At least he died going fast and acting as the bagman for a vote-buying scheme."

In other news, my hometown district looks like it's about to turn blue for the first time in my life. Unless, of course, the Dems manage to turn 2008 into an absolute clusterfuck for the party against all odds!

Again, I think this is something where Obama is going to be bitten because of his race -- if Clinton pays people to vote, the media will ignore it. If Obama pays black people to vote, that's a story.

Not saying that vote buying is right in the first place, of course.

24: Did you not watch Season 4 of The Wire, LB? They didn't just make that shit up.

I've watched the first three episodes of seaason 1, and then I got busy with other stuff.

Perhaps this could be used to highlight Democrats economic skill.

Rominy spent how much money to get how many votes?

The Dems spend less and get more votes by putting the money directly in the hands of the voters.

The Republican trickle down effect isnt working.

Huh. I'm actually kind of shocked -- I haven't seen stories of actual vote buying reported around here. I wonder if I'm naive, or it's regional.

Typical Northerner. Blaming the southerners when the northerners are just as bad. Have you no shame?

People ask me why I don't vote.

Because it only encourages them.

Oh, but who cares who's using corrupt campaign tactics? Corruption is good, because it means you're hard and tough and will be better able to beat the GOP, right? And presumably all that corruption will magically vanish once they get into office.

How much does each gazillionaire get bribed to vote Republicon?

In other news, my hometown district looks like it's about to turn blue for the first time in my life.

Stras, we're from the same hometown. Do you still live there?

Not because anyone's said this, but just cause: Regardless of the truth of whether or not vote-buying is widespread (and honestly, this should get prosecuted if it's true), tighter ID regulations don't have any application to solving this problem.

I'd read stories of vote buying but not of pastors being paid. When I saw it done in the form of 'consulting fees', it was not in the least surprising. Just another learned tidbit. Am I too jaded?

How much does each gazillionaire get bribed to vote Republicon?

An ambassadorship.

prosecuted

Why? At the risk of sounding cynical, people who choose their leaders the way they choose soda place a low value on their choice. (I would actually expect that people who listen to their pastors take the judgement more seriously than say Applebees diners, so in my mind at least, this question is race-neutral.) Why is paying people that much worse, or in any de facto rather than de jure sense different, than organizing buses to make sure they're looking at a voting machine's screen rather than a television on election day?

This leads me to again recommend The Great McGinty.

35: Nope, I've been living in Providence for the last several years.

not of pastors being paid

Same as it ever was.

Stras -- email me if you want to get into what high schools we went to, whether we know anybody in common, etc.

Pastors being paid doesn't surprise me. Aside from the tax-law implications, it's not even unsavory -- someone who's influential in the community being paid to campaign for a candidate isn't wrong at all. Straight-up vote buying, I'm surprised by.

I did think it would be impossible to make sure of how one individual voter had voted in this day and age. Thus the vote-buying would have a nonzero chance of being counterproductive and only found out when the results from that polling station were released.

Aside from the tax-law implications, it's not even unsavory -- someone who's influential in the community being paid to campaign for a candidate isn't wrong at all.

Really? That seems pretty unsavoury to me.

If it's done openly, what's wrong with it? What else is a community organizer?

Openly is the key. Of course, often you might not find out until after the election if it is a last minute endorsement.

There really isnt much of a line between cash to a consultant and "I'll build a new school/road/whatever" in your district if elected.

What else is a community organizer?

A volunteer?

44- I suspect vote buying isn't nearly as prevalent as just rounding up people and getting them to the polls. Just that act is endearing to people otherwise largely ignored.

In '04, I went to my pole in mid-afternoon to avoid the lines. But a bus load of seniors was in the process of disembarking and heading straight to the entrance. I cut across the lawn just in time to slip in front of that line at the front door. That saved me at least 45 minutes.

It's not regional, or if it is, it's more than one region. After the 1993 election, Ed Rollins, Christy Todd Whitman's campaign manager bragged openly that he bribed New Jersey ministers to sit the election out. It made the newspapers, and after the scandal, Rollins kept a low profile for a few years. Ed Rollins is curently running Huckabee's campaign.

Aslo in the mid 1990's, a State Senate election was actually found invalid by a Philadelphia Court because one of the parties was buying absentee ballots. That was in a lower class White neighborhood. There was a special election rematch of the same two candidates.

A volunteer?

People mostly volunteer out of self-interest.

If it is open, then the electorate can decide whether the paid consultant's opinion is worth anything.

A volunteer?

People mostly volunteer out of self-interest.

If it is open, then the electorate can decide whether the paid consultant's opinion is worth anything.

There really isn't much of a line between cash to a consultant and "I'll build a new school/road/whatever" in your district if elected.

Sure, there is.

Aside from the tax-law implications, it's not even unsavory -- someone who's influential in the community being paid to campaign for a candidate isn't wrong at all.

Sure it is. The pastor's influence is dependent, in large degree, on some sort of reputation as a moral authority. If I'm a member of a congregation, and my pastor is telling me to vote for Candidate X, there's an expectation that my pastor's endorsement of Candidate X is different from James Carville's endorsement of Bill Clinton in 1992, or Michael Jordan's endorsement of Nike. The expectation is that this guy's endorsement is ostensibly motivated by some moral code and not by crass material considerations.

As cold cynical atheists, we might just shrug and say "pastors, consultants, same difference," but the point is that cold cynical atheists aren't sitting in those pews, and cold cynical atheists aren't the people who those pastors depend on for their support. So the fact that Darrell Jackson supports Clinton over Obama purely on the basis of who pays him more is pretty foul. It's a betrayal of his parishioners, who don't expect these decisions to be made simply by money changing hands, but by some sort of moral calculus.

54:

Which one do you have more information about?

If I say that I am supporting Candidate X, you generally find out that I received $5,000.00. You might not know if Candidate X promised me a road to land that I own.

As cold cynical atheists, we might just shrug and say "pastors, consultants, same difference," but the point is that cold cynical atheists aren't sitting in those pews, and cold cynical atheists aren't the people who those pastors depend on for their support. So the fact that Darrell Jackson supports Clinton over Obama purely on the basis of who pays him more is pretty foul. It's a betrayal of his parishioners, who don't expect these decisions to be made simply by money changing hands, but by some sort of moral calculus.

Thus, you disclose it. If the parishioners care, then they dont listen.

Thus, you disclose it. If the parishioners care, then they dont listen.

What does "disclosure" mean in this context? It's publicly available information, sure, but I doubt that these pastors mention their financial arrangement with these campaigns every time they say something nice about a candidate.

55 gets it right.

Thus, you disclose it. If the parishioners care, then they dont listen.

I would be fine if Reverend Darrell Jackson went door to door telling people "Barack Obama gave me $135,000 and that's why he deserves your vote." Somehow I think that's not what's happening.

So what do you suggest?

Candidates cannot make promises about what they will do? Arent those promises much more secret and hard to figure out?

55 and 58 are right.

56- Well, one has a public benefit (pork) and the other doesn't. Wouldn't it be easier to hide cash than a construction project?

Eh. Maybe I am too cynical, but I don't think parishioners are going to be any more innocent about this stuff than anyone else. If it's not wrong for someone to do something (and for tax reasons, it's illegal for a tax-exempt church or people in their capacity as its employees to be doing partisan political work, but assuming that's worked out somehow), it's not wrong for them to do it for pay, under the assumption that they're not concealing the fact that they're paid.

You'll note that Obama's people aren't outraged by this, and aren't making an issue of it. They've made a tactical choice not to use these methods widely, but they aren't really denying that they would, or do, use such methods.

"Walking around money" in various forms is a political custom in the U.S. that is well-known and I assume is ubiquitous. I'm guessing, but I think part of the reason that voters tolerate it - and voters do tolerate it; this isn't a big secret - is they support the influence and prosperity of their pastor or community leader.

44- From my readings, cash payouts are to people to organize and transport people, not handing out 5 dollar bills to individual voters. Under your definition, that's just community organization.

Yeah. There's an argument to be made that identifying/being able to get into contact with the genuinely influential people in a community, and persuading them to take your money rather than the other guy's money, is actually politically meaningful.

High level campaign people are paid, but we assume, mostly, that they're also ideologically aligned with their candidates -- that they wouldn't take a salary from someone they thought would be a bad person to have in office. (There's an argument that this is naive of me, but it's not insane on its face.) The same reasoning applies to people influential in a community -- presumably, if they're not complete shitheads, they're going to take money primarily from candidates they think are politically acceptable.

f it's not wrong for someone to do something ... it's not wrong for them to do it for pay

But surely that's wrong? There are all kinds of things we accept that people can and will do without financial incentive and which we think are immoral if they are done for pay.

4: I'm not really sure why you're letting that article affect you.

I speedbumped on the first sentence: The nation's Obama swoon has eased, arrested by Hillary's swell of tears. Then I got to the point where he quoted "one young light of the progressive blogosphere", but for some strange reason couldn't bring himself to use Ezra's name, and stopped reading.

66 was to 64. To 65, if all we're talking about is "cash payouts... to people to organize and transport people", that doesn't shock me at all -- it seems completely different from payments to voters for a promise to vote in a particular way. But Ogged said he was talking about literal bribery to voters, didn't he?

"Walking around money" in various forms is a political custom in the U.S. that is well-known and I assume is ubiquitous. I'm guessing, but I think part of the reason that voters tolerate it

I am willing to bet that if I asked 100 random voters 99 of them would have no idea what "Walking around money" is or how campaigns work so it isn't really a widely known thing that people just tolerate.

presumably, if they're not complete shitheads, they're going to take money primarily from candidates they think are politically acceptable.

We shouldn't be structuring our policy decisions around relying on people not to be shitheads. It should be illegal to take money from political campaigns, except where there's full disclosure and the money is being used for legitimate [and audit-able] expenses.

67: Other than prostitution, I'm not coming up with much. What were you thinking of?

71: Full disclosure is fine -- I'd be perfectly happy with a requirement that anyone who takes money from a campaign has to announce that they're working for that campaign. But that sort of disclosure isn't required by law now, so I'm not worried that it doesn't always happen spontaneously.

re: 72

Lots of things. The making of political decisions, bearing witness in trials, etc. There's a whole bunch of things that we take it that people should be doing without financial incentive.

re: 73

It should be required by law. I am often amazed at the extent to which money has penetrated the US political system.*

*not that it's not involved here, but the sums involved are multiple orders of magnitude less and the scope for it quite closely circumscribed.

69- I read the post and see what you're saying. I'd love to hear from Ogged how that was done since he's seen it first hand.

Stras offers sarcasm:

Oh, but who cares who's using corrupt campaign tactics? Corruption is good, because it means you're hard and tough and will be better able to beat the GOP, right?

As we ponder whether to use this as a cudgel to beat on Hillary, please consider:

When Mr. Obama first started trying to organize the state earlier this year, he began in the usual way, seeking endorsements of traditional power brokers. The campaign offered a $5,000-a-month consulting contract to state Sen. Darrell Jackson of Columbia, a longtime legislator and pastor of an 11,000-member church, who also runs an ad agency.

Also:

Mr. Jackson's ability to turn out the vote -- or suppress it against rivals -- is the stuff of local legend. In 2004, he helped clinch a primary win for North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, even as Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was coming off wins in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Dogmatic insistence on absolute purity is a loser's strategy, and is sometimes corrupt in other ways. I wish Clinton and Obama would aggressively oppose telecom immunity - on this I am pretty dogmatic in my demand for purity - but giving out walking around money is just politics.

74: People are paid for bearing witness in trials all the time, if they're experts. And they're paid for making political decisions all the time, if they work in government. In both of those cases, whether or not they get paid is often controlled by someone with a strong interest in what decisions they're making -- expert witnesses hired by one side to a controversy; political appointees whose careers depend on pleasing the politicians who appointed them.

We rely on social norms, and mechanisms of social control to keep them fairly honest, but there's no way to keep personal interest out of it. Worrying about it at the low-income community organizer level, but realizing that it's inevitable at the political appointee level, seems like a double standard to me.

I wonder how much a rationalization of the primaries system and a shift from electoral college winner to popular vote winner would help stop some of this.

I figure in a general election, due to the vast number of people voting, these sort of small-scale high-cost GOTV measures that can swing a few thousand at most simply won't be cost effective. You would need to spend millions to move even a few hundred thousand votes, and that's a very slim margin in such elections.

It seems like the primaries would be much more intractable since they're deliberately set up at the moment to allow for "retail" politics, which as far as I can tell, mostly consists of buying votes through meals and flattering face time when it's not outright bribes.

Tell me again why we can't have candidates publish their platforms, require major newpapers and TV stations to devote some space/time to those platforms, put on some long-form debates, then have national approval-system balloting for primaries (one person, many votes)?

Politicalfootball, any comment on Obama's being up 12 in South Carolina?

75- The other day I listened to MLK's Vietnam speech Kotsko posted. Listening to the words and tone, I thought here's a guy that nobody bought. To the point that when he was killed, he was staying in the equivalent of Motel 6. That speech is awesome.

The same reasoning applies to people influential in a community -- presumably, if they're not complete shitheads, they're going to take money primarily from candidates they think are politically acceptable.

"The money has nothing to do with my endorsement! I would have endorse him/her regardless."

Stock response from expert:

"I get paid for my time, not my testimony."

but giving out walking around money is just politics.

That's true. The only way I'd be shocked if a candidate's campaign people showed up on a corner and passed out money to individuals for votes. I think it's more like here's some decent expense money, Mr. Organizer, to get people to the polls. I think there's room for that in Ogged's description.

one of the main responsibilities is to make sure no one sneaks out with a ballot

On the other hand, we are trained not to interfere with an individual's voting decisions, including deciding in the booth that they don't want to vote at all. I was party judge in a small, rural precinct that saw all of 170-some voters in the county elections last year and observed nothing that suggested vote-buying but a part of our training was an explicit admonition that if a voter walks into a booth with a ballot, then walks out and right past the ballot box and keeps going without ever casting their ballot, it's not our job to chase them down; it's our job to respect their decision not to vote for whatever their reasons might be. Once they're out the door they're not coming back, no, and if they walk in with a ballot already in their hand then they're not getting another one, no, but what if they have one in their pocket?

In truth, the way our booths work, we'd have a chance to see and notice if they swapped ballots. This was a part of my job last year, explicitly, to watch the booths to make sure nothing detectably funny was going on. On a busy day in a presidential election year it would be easier to slip something past any individual judge but we'd have a lot more judges present and I haven't worked one of those so I can't really estimate our odds of catching them.

Politicalfootball, any comment on Obama's being up 12 in South Carolina?

Not sure what you're looking for here. I was aware he had a big lead when I wrote my previous comments, and don't think that this information would modify them in any fashion. What do you think?

How does

...aaand to pay people to vote.

square with

I think it's more like here's some decent expense money, Mr. Organizer, to get people to the polls. I think there's room for that in Ogged's description.?

It's unclear to me exactly how ubiquitous straight-up vote bribery is. I say this because I've been asked to drive people to the polls (was never able to), and wouldn't have been trusted with bribery; I've known poll drivers, and they've never seen bribery; I poll at a station that should be filled with bribed voters (across from a soup kitchen, frex), but isn't. Not saying AT ALL that it is uncommon; just that it may not be the kind of universal that has been suggested above.

I thought here's a guy that nobody bought.

I have been told by civil rights types of that era that walking around money is a modern innovation, and wasn't used back in those days with anything resembling the modern regularity of it.

Obama's being up 12 in South Carolina

Meanwhile Edwards is catching up with Clinton there.

just that it may not be the kind of universal that has been suggested above.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's small-scale regional -- I don't mean North/South, but, like, Orange County yes, Steuben County no, Northern Ohio yes, Southern Ohio no, and so on. This seems like the sort of thing that would be heavily local norms dependent.

yeah i don't see how this is any different from having geographic districts.

how exactly do these pastors campaign? I thought it was immensly laughable when my parents 'bible' church had stacks of 'voter guides' on the table with the other flyers. Am i that much more cynical than other peopel.?

There really isn't much of a line between cash to a consultant and "I'll build a new school/road/whatever" in your district if elected.

Sure, there is.

one uses taxpayer money, and one uses freely donated money?

So the cash is better?

*not that it's not involved here, but the sums involved are multiple orders of magnitude less and the scope for it quite closely circumscribed.

i would have guessed that the labour machine was just as corrupt, just in slightly more philosophically justifiable ways because of the more institutionalized way it works (in my mental guess).

78: On expert advocacy, here's Ariel Rubenstein from Haaretz, reviewing Freakonomics:

"The comparison between architects and prostitutes can be applied to mathematicians and economists. The former are more skilled, highly educated, and intelligent. Levit has never encountered a girl who dreams of being a prostitute and I have never met a child who dreams of being an economist. Like porostitutes, the skill required of economists is "not necessarily 'specialized'. And finally, here is the explanation for the salary gap between mathematicians and economists: Many economists are hired to justify a viewpoint but I have never heard of a mathematician who proved a theorem to satisfy their masters"

Link. Rubenstein is an economist of some importance.

You didn't know about Rubenstein, John? He's wonderful. Nice guy to check out in getting a sense of the diversity of the field.

But he is a theorist, and so does not engage directly in political fights.

John, check out this review paper of his own work, the most relevant stuff starts on page 877:

http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/74.pdf

The discussion of the "jungle model" on pp. 880-881 is particularly delightful. I suspect you will love it.

Rubenstein does as much as he can politically within the framework of being a theorist who does not directly advise governments.

I suppose it indicates how white Flippanter Pater is, or how small the churches were that he served, or perhaps how different New England is politically from some southern states, that he was never to my knowledge given an opportunity gently but firmly to decline a politician's filthy perfectly legitimate money.

99: Did the Flip-pater endorse, or publicly work for candidates? Whites in mainline churches have different political traditions than other churchgoers.

Another good tale from Knechtland:

In a backwoods courthouse on election day, the county clerk and his assistant are emptying the ballot boxes and recording the vote. As usual, the vote is running 100% for the Democrats. All of the sudden, the assistant gasps, holds up a ballot, and says "Boss! We've got a vote for the Republican! What should I do with it?"

The old county clerk strokes his beard and says "I don't rightly know. I've never seen one of them before. Just put it over to the side and we'll figure out what to do with it later."

They continue counting ballots, and suddenly the assistant gasps again and says "Boss! Here's another vote for the Republican."

The county clerk shakes his head sorrowfully and says, "Son, you'd better throw 'em both away. That son of a bitch has done gone and voted twice."

Did the Flip-pater endorse, or publicly work for candidates?

God, no. I think his churches were far too small for his endorsement to be worth anything, even if the endorsement of a middle-aged eccentric audiophile were worth much. However, none of his friends who were ministers at African American churches were, to my knowledge (imperfect as a child's knowledge may be), much more active in politics, either.

87- I see your point. I would be shocked, though, if he meant campaign people getting money from ATMs to go directly to individual voters with expressed instruction on how to vote.

103: I'm pretty sure that's what he meant to be saying, and that's what shocked me.

campaign people getting money from ATMs to go directly to individual voters

Not as I understand it. The campaign gives money to local community organizers, who distribute it. I wasn't on the scene of the rock-throwing, but my take was that the money had run out and everyone knew where it was supposed to come from. Again, I wasn't there and could be wrong about the mechanics.

The dormouse is awake again.

But your clear understanding was that someone was handing money to individual voters, saying, "Vote for Candidate A," even if that person was a middleman. Money for the guy who drives the van and rounds people up to get to the polls I expected, money for that guy to hand out to voters suprised me -- really, that's just straight-up corrupt.

But your clear understanding was that someone was handing money to individual voters, saying, "Vote for Candidate A," even if that person was a middleman.

Right.

Where did you get all these old-timey election jokes, Knyecht?

107- I'll buy that. What surprises me now is the extent people saw the money as entitlement and threw rocks when the money dried up. It doesn't shock me, though.

What surprises me now is the extent people saw the money as entitlement and threw rocks when the money dried up.

All sorts of people tend to get a little tetchy when what they've been promised fails to materialize: punch and pie, free beer, Hannah Montana tickets, a George W. Bush victory in Florida. A crowd of disappointed people can turn up a few shouters, shovers and throwers pretty quickly.

I can also see people feeling more entitled the less they thought of it as a straightforward commercial transaction. "I vote for whoever pays me, you don't pay me, I don't vote for you," wouldn't produce much bitterness. "I vote Democratic because they're my party, and they're the one's who are on my side and take care of my community. One of the things they do to provide for me and my community is to make Election Day payments. This year they're not going to come through?" would be much more of a piss-off.

William Safire has the scoop. From a 1993 column:

A campaign would give a few hundred bucks to a captain to have in his pocket for incidental expenses -- not to "buy votes," heaven forfend -- just to pay for a baby sitter or stimulate a canvasser or hire a bus on Election Day.

There's a lot of justified loathing in the world for Safire, but he was a good writer, fun to read and genuinely informative. Contrast that with David Brooks or, God help us, Bill Kristol.

unimaginative's anecdote in 51 is what popped into my head first as well. I always thought that the scandal Rollins produced with his fleeting bit of honesty was far too slight. Somehow, it strikes me as more pernicious to pay ministers to, in essence, discourage folks from making use of their franchise. But the scandal really was fleeting, as it seemed to be not in the a rather large cross section of people not to let on how the sausage is made.

A crowd of disappointed people can turn up a few shouters, shovers and throwers pretty quickly.

Unless teh crowd consists of elected Dems, of course.

INSERT: "interest of." DUH.

stimulate a canvasser

And we're back to 72.

99, 100: I don't think there's anything in New England protestantism quite like the explicitly political tradition in African American and conservative evangelical churches. I'm familiar enough with the Episcopal diocese here in RI, and a few of its leftier priests, but while they may give sermons about universal health care and support social justice-related causes, they don't do endorsements or explicitly organize for electoral politics. There are obviously a host of cultural and historical reasons why churches emerged as a source of community activism and political leadership in black America, especially during the civil rights movement, in a way that didn't happen with northern white churches.

Now having written this comment, it seems so obvious it borders on too absurd to post. Oh, well, it's done, so there, too late now!

118: Yes, the Pater often alluded to or mentioned politics in his sermons, but more thematically (e.g., "George W. Bush is agitating for war but Our L.&S. J.C. says something to the contrary") than otherwise (e.g., "vote for Jane Antiwar for Congress").

Where did you get all these old-timey election jokes, Knecht?

The less said about that, the better.

Tell us more about your days on the vaudeville circuit, Knecht.

I wish Clinton and Obama would aggressively oppose telecom immunity - on this I am pretty dogmatic in my demand for purity - but giving out walking around money is just politics.

This seems right to me.

My intuition about paying people for votes is that it's a practice that has gone on forever, I don't think it's worth the effort, I only expect there to be some pressure to limit the most egregious examples.

Actually, this reminds me, that I know people who organize local concerts, and one of the things that they say when handing out concert posters is, "put one up at work or wherever you want, but one of the most useful place for a concert poster is on someone's refrigerator." "Walking around money" seems equivalent to me. You need to give a lot of your money to TV stations, but why should that be the preferred way to spend your advertising money. If you can get a flyer on someone's refrigerator, that's more effective advertising than TV spots, it's just hard to get flyers on people's fridges.

Our L.&S. J.C...

This abbreviation, combined with the question in 109, reminds me of a (true, this time) story from my misspent youth. It was the early days of the Clinton administration, and the White House was planning a surprise visit to the state capital where I worked. The WH advance team swooped in, and the local Dem party apparatus (in which I was an extremely minor cog) swung into action. The advance team ascertained that there would be a convention of a religious group in town at the same time, and they were concerned that it might lead to an unwanted scene with anti-abortion protestors or something like that. So the advance team sent me and a colleague (a skinny red-haired girl) to do some due diligence on the convention. We drove over to the convention center and, putting on our best hick accents, told someone at the entrance that we were with the group meeting there, the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He looked at us really funny and directed us inside. We found a registration desk and repeated our story, and once again we got really suspicious stares. They sent us to another desk to get credentials, and we walk into a foyer full of hundreds of African Americans. Turns out that the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ is a Black pentecostal church, referred to by its adherents as "the COOL Jaycees".

We were able to report back that the White House had nothing to fear from this group, and the Clinton visit proceeded as planned.

118: You'd think it would be obvious, but you often hear smart white people who fail to grasp this. Here's an uncharacteristically incoherent piece from Greenwald, who seems to be completely missing this point (among other points he is completely missing).

121: Take my vote....please.

124: Wow, that's an unusually daft Greenwald post.

Meanwhile Edwards is catching up with Clinton there.

Oh, apo, you're just setting me up for more heartbreak.

I'm a little bit concerned about Obama's South Carolina strategy--not the not vote buying part, but the tactics of Steve Hildebrand and his anti-barber shop bias. I volunteered in Flo/rence, SC for a week for Dean. The stuff we did that worked wasn't what the campaign wanted us to do. They guy who normally worked for Rep. Jack/son understood the situation much better.

I phone banked and canvassed. I couldn't get one guy to believe me when I told him that Bush had cut a lot of veterans benefits (one of his big issues) and another woman who sort of considered herself a Democrat said that gay marriage was her big issue, meaning that she was against it. Having the campaign staffer go to church, which he would have done anyway, was probably effective. When I went to the local Episcopal church, I didn't mention why I was in town, though. The barbershop was the place that you could actually reach people. I missed the fish fry, but I think that's the closest that they came to vote buying there.

I missed the fish fry, but I think that's the closest that they came to vote buying there.

Hell yes, I'll vote for anyone who provides me with sweet, sweet fried catfish.

Bush feeding reporters lobster ravioli and Dove bars: unethical, or politics as usual?

Bush feeding reporters lobster ravioli and Dove bars: unethical, or politics as usual?

I'm more concerned about Bush's habit of feeding the complete bullshit.

They do seem to lap it up either way, don't they?

If the Republicans had starved the press corps, would they, for want of a sundae bar, have exposed his drunk driving arrests and Cheney's snacking on innocent polar bear cubs?

ogged!
though i'm sad you interrupt hiatus only to oppress some people of colour
could be out of nobler impulses
though money distributing techniques may be worth studying

The NY Times has endorsed Clinton.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think I've been barking up the wrong tree with all of this democracy/election-judging/good government nonsense. I'm an anarchist, for chrissakes! To that end (anarchy), I'm going to set up an organization which I hope will sound the death knell for bourgeois liberalism and representative democracy by flooding the electoral process with even more filthy lucre: EMIL RAITT's List*

*Easy Money Is Like Red Algae: It Triggers Toxicity

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