Party of the rich? It ain't the GOP, it's the DUMBOCRATS

colaguy wrote:It's the UNIONS that provide most contributions to candidates - and we do not have to guess which Party the UNIONS overwhelmingly support.  

boards of FL wrote:

colaguy wrote:It's the UNIONS that provide most contributions to candidates - and we do not have to guess which Party the UNIONS overwhelmingly support.  

Can you show me whatever it is that leads you to this belief?  This has been refuted countless times, even several times on this forum, and yet we still see GOP supporters parroting this completely out of touch belief.

colaguy wrote:

boards of FL wrote:

colaguy wrote:It's the UNIONS that provide most contributions to candidates - and we do not have to guess which Party the UNIONS overwhelmingly support.  

Can you show me whatever it is that leads you to this belief?  This has been refuted countless times, even several times on this forum, and yet we still see GOP supporters parroting this completely out of touch belief.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/372630/fourteen-americas-25-biggest-campaign-donors-are-unions-veronique-de-rugy#!

"Fourteen labor unions were among the top 25 political campaign contributors."
http://www.unionfacts.com/article/political-money/

"According to The Center for Responsive Politics, eight of the top ten all-time political contributors are labor unions."
http://laborpains.org/2014/03/26/unions-fight-to-keep-political-cash-advantage/

"In unions’ case, this allows them to spend even more money pushing the union leaderships’ preferred candidates, even though exit polls show that roughly 40 percent of union members vote Republican at the federal level nationwide, while the overwhelming amount of union donations go to Democrats."


There's more to back up my assertion - let me know if you need further documentation.

boards of FL wrote:

colaguy wrote:

boards of FL wrote:

colaguy wrote:It's the UNIONS that provide most contributions to candidates - and we do not have to guess which Party the UNIONS overwhelmingly support.  

Can you show me whatever it is that leads you to this belief?  This has been refuted countless times, even several times on this forum, and yet we still see GOP supporters parroting this completely out of touch belief.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/372630/fourteen-americas-25-biggest-campaign-donors-are-unions-veronique-de-rugy#!

"Fourteen labor unions were among the top 25 political campaign contributors."
http://www.unionfacts.com/article/political-money/

"According to The Center for Responsive Politics, eight of the top ten all-time political contributors are labor unions."
http://laborpains.org/2014/03/26/unions-fight-to-keep-political-cash-advantage/

"In unions’ case, this allows them to spend even more money pushing the union leaderships’ preferred candidates, even though exit polls show that roughly 40 percent of union members vote Republican at the federal level nationwide, while the overwhelming amount of union donations go to Democrats."


There's more to back up my assertion - let me know if you need further documentation.

All of your links completely ignore outside spending by super PACs.  Are you at all familiar with super PACs?  

In other news, Tony Romo is the greatest quarterback in the NFL. That is, he has passed for far far more yards than any other quarterback in his same era.  And no one else even comes close. *





* - These numbers do not include Peyton Manning, Drew Breeze, Tom Brady, or Aaron Rodgers.

boards of FL wrote:http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance/independent-expenditures/totals


See if any of you can wrap your head around the numbers in the link above.  Then see if you can honestly come back here and tell me that it is unions that outspend everyone else in campaign finance.  

I'm amazed that I even have to show this to anyone.  Let's just put the facts aside for a second and think about this hilarious idea that colaguy and many other GOP supporters have been trying to float lately, purely on its face.  It is the average worker that is dominating every election cycle! Coughbullshitcough.  The average worker has managed to team up and dominate large, multi-national corporations with limitless resources at their disposal!   Coughhahahahahahacough.  

boards of FL wrote:Let's continue this here.
https://pensacoladiscussion.forumotion.com/t13731-gop-supporters-tricked-into-believing-and-repeating-the-idea-that-unions-outspend-everyone-else-in-campaign-finance

colaguy wrote:

boards of FL wrote:Let's continue this here.
https://pensacoladiscussion.forumotion.com/t13731-gop-supporters-tricked-into-believing-and-repeating-the-idea-that-unions-outspend-everyone-else-in-campaign-finance

No, let's not.  

But, the big question is "why is this important to some, when the outcome was that Obama was reelected, DESPITE the allegation that Republican-favored contributions exceeded Democrat-faveored contributions"?

boards of FL wrote:Exactly how dumb would someone have to be in order to buy into such a hilarious idea?  How little must someone know about campaign finance in order to be tricked into going out and publicly repeating something so completely full of shit as "It's the UNIONS that provide most contributions to candidates - and we do not have to guess which Party the UNIONS overwhelmingly support."?

That quote was from our very own colaguy, though many other GOP supporters here have parroted this idea as well.  

The RNC said labor unions raised $400 million for Obama in 2008.  This was the number that the RNC ran with for years after the 2008 election, and PolitiFact.com showed this number to be a complete lie. (Source)  But screw it.  Let's just pretend that number is legit.  That is, let's completely ignore reality for a second and instead pretend that the number that the RNC has been floating around is in fact a legitimate number that mirrors the real world.

That said, and according to the RNC, unions raised $400 million for Obama in 2008.  Let's now compare this with "outside spending sources" that favored Romney.  The link below lists the top 45 organizations that represent the outside spending channel of campaign finance.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance/independent-expenditures/totals


If we add up only the top 10 pro-Romney organizations on this list, they total $402,243,641.  One more time.  I'm not even totaling all of the pro-Romney organizations on this list of outside spending sources.  Rather, I am only totaling the top 10.  Of the 45 top spenders, 35 were pro-Romney, but, again, we are only totaling the top 10 of those.

So on one hand, we have the BS number provided by the RNC that states unions spent $400 million towards electing Obama in 2008.  On the other hand, we can look at just the top 10 outside spending contributors to the Romney campaign and see that they clearly and unequivocally total $402,243,641.

Now normally I would skip this next step, but since I know there may be GOP supporters reading this....

$402,243,641 > $400,000,000

And I need to mention one more time, $402,243,641  only represents the top 10 outside spending sources for Romney.

colaguy wrote:

boards of FL wrote:Let's continue this here.
https://pensacoladiscussion.forumotion.com/t13731-gop-supporters-tricked-into-believing-and-repeating-the-idea-that-unions-outspend-everyone-else-in-campaign-finance

No, let's not.  

But, the big question is "why is this important to some, when the outcome was that Obama was reelected, DESPITE the allegation that Republican-favored contributions exceeded Democrat-faveored contributions"?

colaguy wrote:

boards of FL wrote:Let's continue this here.
https://pensacoladiscussion.forumotion.com/t13731-gop-supporters-tricked-into-believing-and-repeating-the-idea-that-unions-outspend-everyone-else-in-campaign-finance

No, let's not.  

But, the big question is "why is this important to some, when the outcome was that Obama was reelected, DESPITE the allegation that Republican-favored contributions exceeded Democrat-faveored contributions"?

boards of FL wrote:Exactly how dumb would someone have to be in order to buy into such a hilarious idea?  How little must someone know about campaign finance in order to be tricked into going out and publicly repeating something so completely full of shit as "It's the UNIONS that provide most contributions to candidates - and we do not have to guess which Party the UNIONS overwhelmingly support."?

That quote was from our very own colaguy, though many other GOP supporters here have parroted this idea as well.  

The RNC said labor unions raised $400 million for Obama in 2008.  This was the number that the RNC ran with for years after the 2008 election, and PolitiFact.com showed this number to be a complete lie. (Source)  But screw it.  Let's just pretend that number is legit.  That is, let's completely ignore reality for a second and instead pretend that the number that the RNC has been floating around is in fact a legitimate number that mirrors the real world.

That said, and according to the RNC, unions raised $400 million for Obama in 2008.  Let's now compare this with "outside spending sources" that favored Romney.  The link below lists the top 45 organizations that represent the outside spending channel of campaign finance.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance/independent-expenditures/totals


If we add up only the top 10 pro-Romney organizations on this list, they total $402,243,641.  One more time.  I'm not even totaling all of the pro-Romney organizations on this list of outside spending sources.  Rather, I am only totaling the top 10.  Of the 45 top spenders, 35 were pro-Romney, but, again, we are only totaling the top 10 of those.

So on one hand, we have the BS number provided by the RNC that states unions spent $400 million towards electing Obama in 2008.  On the other hand, we can look at just the top 10 outside spending contributors to the Romney campaign and see that they clearly and unequivocally total $402,243,641.

Now normally I would skip this next step, but since I know there may be GOP supporters reading this....

$402,243,641 > $400,000,000

And I need to mention one more time, $402,243,641  only represents the top 10 outside spending sources for Romney.

boards of FL wrote:

colaguy wrote:

boards of FL wrote:Let's continue this here.
https://pensacoladiscussion.forumotion.com/t13731-gop-supporters-tricked-into-believing-and-repeating-the-idea-that-unions-outspend-everyone-else-in-campaign-finance

No, let's not.  

But, the big question is "why is this important to some, when the outcome was that Obama was reelected, DESPITE the allegation that Republican-favored contributions exceeded Democrat-faveored contributions"?

It's important because any time I see someone publicly stating as fact something that is obviously completely full of shit, I feel it is my duty to correct that misinformation.

colaguy wrote:

boards of FL wrote:

colaguy wrote:

boards of FL wrote:Let's continue this here.
https://pensacoladiscussion.forumotion.com/t13731-gop-supporters-tricked-into-believing-and-repeating-the-idea-that-unions-outspend-everyone-else-in-campaign-finance

No, let's not.  

But, the big question is "why is this important to some, when the outcome was that Obama was reelected, DESPITE the allegation that Republican-favored contributions exceeded Democrat-faveored contributions"?

It's important because any time I see someone publicly stating as fact something that is obviously completely full of shit, I feel it is my duty to correct that misinformation.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/biggest-spenders-wear-the-union-label/article/2546307

Democrats are out to make the Koch brothers the most infamous campaign donors in the 2014 election cycle.

But they are hardly the biggest spenders, nor is Americans for Prosperity, the 501(c)(4) they support, at the top of the list.

That distinction belongs to the nation's labor unions, whose ability to freely use worker dues to help favored candidates -- almost all of them Democrats -- puts them far above just about any other individual or group.

Labor union spending on both campaigns and lobbying can be difficult to track, however.

Unions are required to disclose donations to candidates and campaigns with the Federal Election Commission. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, that figure totaled $143 million during the 2011-2012 election cycle.

By comparison, Americans for Prosperity spent about $36 million on political activity during those two years, all of it spent against Democratic contenders, according to CRP.

But those numbers tell only part of the story.

A great deal of union spending on behalf of candidates includes not only direct donations but also spending on other activities that aid campaigns. Those efforts often include hiring workers to staff phone banks and staging get-out-the-vote efforts.

Those figures are reported to the Department of Labor. According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, a think tank critical of unions, the nation's largest labor groups reported to DOL that they spent a staggering $1.7 billion during the 2012 election cycle on electioneering and lobbying.

Stan Greer, a senior research associate with the think tank, said he believes the bulk of the money was spent on election work rather than lobbying.

“The Big Labor contribution is a large chunk of campaign spending,” Greer told the Washington Examiner. “And there is no one who is their equal in campaign politics.”

Not even the Kochs, who, according to CRP, rank 59th on its spending list, “Heavy Hitters: Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2014.”

colaguy wrote:Who spent the most in the 2012 presidential election?
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/  (from the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy. It maintains a public online database of its information)


Democrats raised $715,677,692 vs Republican's $446,135,997

Democrats spent $683,546,548 vs Republican's $433,281,516

boards of FL wrote:

colaguy wrote:Who spent the most in the 2012 presidential election?
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/  (from the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy. It maintains a public online database of its information)


Democrats raised $715,677,692 vs Republican's $446,135,997

Democrats spent $683,546,548 vs Republican's $433,281,516

Aside from the fact that you are now trying to change the subject away from union spending into a new discussion about simply "Which party spends more", you still appear to be struggling with this campaign finance thing.

Those numbers that you posted only represent direct spending by each candidate, which - again - ignores outside spending sources.

Had you scrolled your mouse wheel down just a bit more before excitedly copy-and-pasting the direct campaign finance numbers, you would have seen this...

Overall spending

Blue team: $1,107,114,464
Red team: $1,238,097,161

Hmmm.  Well that's weird.  How is it that Romney could raise roughly $260k less than Obama but his overall spending be over $100k greater than Obama's?   Could it be....outside spending?  Is this a foreign concept to you?  Ever heard of superPACs? PACs?  501(c)s?  Do these things not exist in GOP-supporter-land?

colaguy wrote:So the facts are that Obama outspent Romney, but overall Republicans raise more than Democrats.  So what? What does this matter?  Aren't you pleased about the 2012 presidential election outcome?  

What matters more to me is that since the 2010 Citizen United case we have a less transparent campaign finance landscape.  How is the average TV/Radio/Internet consumer to know who is behind that political ad?  [/color]