This is what's wrong with Politics

Triathlon Forum
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BOSTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is considering delaying accepting his party’s nomination to gain time to raise and spend private contributions and lessen President Bush’s multimillion-dollar financial advantage, campaign officials said Friday.

The proposal would let Kerry hold off on spending his $75 million general-election budget for an extra month. The Democratic Party would still stage its national convention in Boston at the end of July, five weeks before the Republican National Convention in New York.

$75 Million isn’t enough?? I had no idea that the campaign budgets were this large. This is a joke. So now we are talking a minimum of $150 to listen to Bush and Kerry campaign. I could think of a better way to spend $150 million dollars. Starting with the education woes in California. Heck, divide it equally between the 50 states and give each state an extra $3 mil to pay new teacher salaries.

Just my $.02.

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$75 million is just the money from the federal presidential election fund - you know, that $1 box on your income tax form.

The reason Kerry is talking of holding off on acceptance is so he can attempt to keep up with Bush in the real funding/spending battle, before the federal limits kick in. 75 mil is nothing - try half a billion for the Republicans…

A side note on Presidential fundraising:

did you know that when a sitting President makes a fundraising trip, the local community picks up the tab for security?

A recent $1000 a plate dinner for President Bush cost our local police force(s) close to $100,000 by some accounts. Crazy.

No wonder the incumbent has such a huge advantage…

M

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More shocking to me, is that congress gets their full salary, for the rest of their life as retirement. If they die, their spouse gets it. Only downside is that they dont get social security.(poor things) Oh yeah, and if a cost of living raise is needed, all they have to do is vote it in, themselves.

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I always thought the the campaign money here in the States is rediculous. I totally agree with you that the money could be better invested.

What do you think if I would run for president and have the following campaign, could I win? Instead of waisting all that money on “not-so-important-stuff” I would, like you said, distribute that money among all 50 States. Money would have to be used for education, law enforcement, and environmental improvement (ocean cleaning, wildlife, public transportation systems, etc.). I’m sure that providing such money would get the medias attention and buy you plenty of votes. Of course you would still need to campaign a little. But telling the people where you really invest the money would definitely help. I think that showing action instead of talking promises would be a better way to win votes.

What do you think, could I win? hmm…doesn’t really matter, I’ don’t meet the required age yet, don’t have US citizenship, wasn’t born in the US, and clearly don’t have the “desired” political thinking.

oh no…was that my first reply to a political thread? I never thought that day would come. I’m in trouble. What’s next?

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You could save even more money by teaching in only 1 language. ENGLISH!. How much do our hospitals spend on illegals?? Way more than that.

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It didn’t help the bore-Gore in 2000. Slick Willy raised lots of money for him.

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This might be what’s silly with campaign finance laws as they encourage all sorts of silliness like this. For example, President Bush has to spend about another $75,000,000 before the convention or he can’t use it. So look forward to lots of ads approved by George W Bush between now and then. It won’t bother me because I’m a political activist and like political ads, but I doubt my view is that of the majority.

The amount of spending hardly shows that we spend too much on politics. All the money thrown into all of the federal elections this year (president, 435 house seats and either 33 or 34 senate seats) will be far less that the amount of money spent on either soft drink or beer advertising. Remember that around 100 million gets spent on Super Bowl ads. Considering that we are electing the leader of the free world and that this election will have an enormous impact on the immediate future of this and other nations, the amount that will be spend seems quite reasonable to me.

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“Heck, divide it equally between the 50 states and give each state an extra $3 mil to pay new teacher salaries.”

I like the sound of that, I could use a better bike.

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I forget where I heard it(probably Jon Stewart) but a couple of weeks ago someone was talking about how The Dems were complaining that George W has $185M to spend trying to keep a job that pays only $400K, while Kerry has only the pauper’s sum of $100M to get to same job. Hmmm.

The real story in Boston, though, is that they are effectively shutting down the entire city for the duration of the convention. Mind you, we are spending billions on a convention center specifically to host such events, but since it won’t be ready for X years(where X = as long as the corrupt Big Dig bastards can siphon off money before the Feds cut the purse strings), the convention is taking place at the Fleet Center.

The Fleet Center is in the heart of Downtown Boston. The Central Artery(one of the busiest highways in the US, and the only way to get from North to South in Boston) goes right by it. So they’re shutting it down. One of two key railway terminals sits underneath it, so they’re shutting it down.

Effectively, due to the delusion that any terrorist might have the slightest interest in killing any Democrat, all traffic in and out of Boston will be shut down for the duration of the convention.

So why are we hosting the convention? Because the city estimated it would generate $132M. But a new study shows that due to disruption of virtually every business in town, the business impact will create a net loss of over $50M, since people who work in the city won’t be able to get to work, and therefore there will be nobody frequenting any of the local businesses, nobody going to local restaraunts, nobody shopping in the stores, etc.

I work for a large financial firm in Boston, and we are being asked to submit our plans for getting to work that week. So far, about half the people who have responded to the survey(in my dept of 150) have said, “Screw it, I’m not coming in.” Which means that we’ll get nothing done that week.

Funny thing, though, New York doesn’t seem to be shutting down the city when the Republican convention comes to town.

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Dude, it’s Boston. Go to a pub!

I’m sure the pubs will do just fine during the convention, a party I truly wish Howard Dean would crash.

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You can’t go to a pub if you can’t get there. My point was that you won’t be able to drive into the city, and you won’t be able to take the train into the city, so unless you live west of the city and can take the one rail not affected by the shutdown, you are pretty much hosed for the week.

I will take your advice and go to a pub, though. Better safe than sorry. I’ll have a pint of Guinness and think of you. Oh, and that will be right after Lake Placid, so I’ll be recovering, and will not have to go home to work out.

It’s all coming together nicely. (Evil cackle.)

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You might want to check on the whole “all they have to do is vote it in, themselves”. I believe in the late 90’s Congress passed a bill to automatically increase retirement and wages unless they create a bill to prevent it.