http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/270-strategies>Yeah, there’s absolutely nothing fishy about this…
Two top veterans of President Obama’s campaigns are asking political campaigners to pay $5,000 per person for the chance to learn their secrets and then work for five weeks in an unpaid campaign job somewhere in America.
Democratic operatives and progressive activists are questioning this training program launched by Obama campaign architects Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird. The $5,000 program promises access to the wizardry of Obama’s presidential bids — and a five-week, unpaid gig on an “important Democratic campaign.”
Run by Bird and Stewart’s consulting company, 270 Strategies, the new program’s emphasis on placing paying customers in essentially volunteer roles on Democratic campaigns is atypical in the campaign training industry, and some Democrats say it sets a dangerous precedent. The firm’s first-ever “270/360 Training Intensive” program is scheduled to begin in September.
This is why we desperately need a constitutional convention to curb all the local, national and international money dominating politics–in campaigns and legislation! And why we probably won’t get it for a very long time, if ever. The most important factor in any legislation or campaign has become media exposure. And the media industry, like most big businesses are internationally focused and financed.
Be careful what you ask for, the present legislative majority has already tried to stack the deck against anything you might desire to happen.
http://my.firedoglake.com/danielmarks/2014/07/25/speaker-boehner-observed-by-international-whistle-blowers/
From the piece:
Follow the links in this section to the CMD’s PRWatch from February. Flipping the state Senate is crucial, more than Burke’s election as Gov.
Snake oil, anyone?
Although I don’t approve of this little gimmick, has been pay to play in other areas. Volunteers who work archaeological digs often pay their own way in order to participate. And once you have paid consultants and campaign companies, there should be no surprise that they will want to monetize their success.
Good post Zach! No doubt though that the same folks peddling “campaigner secrets” are also fervent advocates of an increased minimum wage. It is good to see progressive hypocrisy exposed at Blogging Blue.
And no doubt it took your entire ounce and a half of grey matter, stimulating your Wyle E Coyote genius, to reach your leap of grand delusion, cartoon conclusion, that a couple of self-absorbed “marketeers,” selling instructions based on their previous success at applying lipstick to a pig, would actually care anything about the minimum wage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STeVTzWelns
No doubt the two were decent at their job, but selling, “the enabler-in-chief to the one-percent,” to a willing LOTE electorate wasn’t all that difficult.
Great post. I do not like seeing money appropriated to private groups in general but definitely not with campaign expenses. The campaign infrastructure should be handled by the Democratic Party itself rather than ad and consulting firms. Any campaign running for office should know that President Obama did not win because of Mitch Stewart or Jeremy Bird or any other campaign consultant. What makes them any different than Mark Penn?
President Obama won because college students and activists across the nation were doing voter registration drives that turned out new voters from their social groups.
This reminds me of those golf instruction videos that do little or nothing to improve a recreational golfer’s game.