{"id":216,"date":"2007-01-25T22:24:48","date_gmt":"2007-01-26T03:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/01\/25\/where-is-my-contribution-going-again\/"},"modified":"2007-01-25T22:27:29","modified_gmt":"2007-01-26T03:27:29","slug":"where-is-my-contribution-going-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/01\/25\/where-is-my-contribution-going-again\/","title":{"rendered":"What is my contribution accomplishing, again?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chris Bowers <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2007\/1\/25\/12351\/0845\">highlights<\/a> a recent Center for Public Integrity <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/consultants\/report.aspx?aid=533#correction\">study<\/a> of campaign finance reports.  Some noteworthy extracts:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>About 600 professional consultants were paid more than a combined $1.85 billion in the 2003-2004 federal campaigns.<\/li>\n<li>Media consultants, who offer political and strategic advice and handle political advertising, were paid $1.2 billion, or 65 percent of all consultant spending.\n<\/li>\n<li>Direct mail consultants billed the second-largest amount, $298 million, totaling 16 percent of all consultant spending.<\/li>\n<li>Consultants routinely pitch campaign plans that rely heavily on their own specialty because there is a financial incentive to do so.<\/li>\n<li>Fundraising consultants, whose services are necessitated in large part by the rising amounts campaigns spend on other consultants, cost candidates at least $59 million.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s a little shocking, in the aggregate, but it&#8217;s something to keep in mind when Chris says this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When it comes to political contributions and the progressive movement, the flow of money is almost entirely one-way. To the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, it is sucked out of the movement, and pocketed by the establishment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s something we should all keep in mind, the next time we&#8217;re asked for a contribution.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chris Bowers highlights a recent Center for Public Integrity study of campaign finance reports. Some noteworthy extracts: About 600 professional consultants were paid more than a combined $1.85 billion in the 2003-2004 federal campaigns. Media consultants, who offer political and strategic advice and handle political advertising, were paid $1.2 billion, or 65 percent of all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}