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It's not that simple. It's a quirk with the recall process. The incumbent is campaigning from the moment a recall is called. Meanwhile, only after a recall is confirmed can a challenger be decided. That means the challenger has less time to campaign. What this ignores is that Walker had to defend himself during both the attempt to call a recall and the election itself, while his opponent only had to worry about the latter stage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012...ll-money-statsQuote:
Originally Posted by Enoch the Red
This was the first cheese pie chart I found in a search. You already know what "Dark Money" means, and how the Citizens United decision changed everything regarding donations. Individual limits don't mean a damn thing anymore, even though corporations are people. :bored:
Is this some how relevant or refuting to what I said, or are you just using my post as fodder for free association?Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
From your source.
Are you saying the Walker campaign should have hamstrung their fundraising to somehow make it more fair for his opponent?Quote:
Unlimited: Maximum individual donation Walker may accept under state law
$10,000: Maximum individual donation Barrett may accept under state law
Yeah, Barrett was clearly the underdog here, an underdog without any support from Labor, his party, or PACs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Your Source
Talking to GGT is like talking to kat. The point that politics isn't all about money and that a strong ground operation more than compensates for lower overall spending must have been made a million times, yet GGT completely ignores that point the very next time she wants to whine about the GOP advantage in fundraising (not that she was complaining when Obama grossly outspent McCain).
I wonder if GGT was incredibly offended by Obama being the first presidential contender to forgo public funds in order to get more money into his campaign. This was of course after he promised he wouldn't do it. ;)
Its due to the Recall process, but to be fair it was the challenger's party who chose to have the Recall in the first place. I'm sure Walker would have been quite happy not to have had to face a mid-term Recall vote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Of course, it's still weird though.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
The UK has incredibly strict spending limits, but the limits only apply in a particular window. Technically outside of that window you can spend as much as you want - just the parties don't normally bother.
I believe that's part of the issue here. Once it was announced the recall would be happening Walker could raise as much as he could without any real primary, however the Democrats had a very expensive Primary. One losing Democrat spent over $5 million on her primary.
Maybe once they'd decided on having a mid-term recall the Democrats should have put their differences to one side and united behind one candidate without a Primary and spent all the money on fighting Walker instead of each other? Just a thought.
I did "whine" about Obama back-tracking on using public funds, actually. It was part of my overall complaint about campaign financing being FUBAR. :bored:
Enoch, WI made their laws on recall election rules and money limits, specific for their state. My beef has always been the obscene amount of money thrown to candidates and/or campaigns, that the rules meant for transparency and disclosure have so many loopholes they're practically useless. That's not "fair" to voters, who should be able to know who's funding the political ads --- especially attack ads with false info --- or offering free bus fare and lunch to "ground operations volunteers". It's a bipartisan complaint, since both sides do it. :sour:
While I'm always willing to be cynical about people's stupidity, I don't think it's fair to underestimate the electorate and think of them like mindless slugs stuck to a TV screen.
And I think it's naive to underestimate the impact "propaganda" has on the electorate. If negative TV attack ads don't serve their intended purpose, then it's an even more grotesque use of money....wasted on something that doesn't work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Sadly, negative ads continue to be made, because they "work". Repeated often enough, even after they're white noise in the background, they affect the psyche (and gut reaction) of voters. It doesn't even have to come from the TV screen, but can be banners on web sites that work subliminally. Marketing 101.
Ads have an impact, but that doesn't mean they capture a robotic electorate like a mousetrap.
Meanwhile, speaking of mousetraps, New York still awaits its revolution-
Quote:
NY POLITICS Updated June 10, 2012, 10:44 p.m. ET
Union Fund Gets Another Albany Assist
By JACOB GERSHMAN
The troubled insurance fund for 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East's personal-care workers will get a $70 million government bailout this year under a deal struck in Albany, the second taxpayer assist in less than a year for the powerful union's employee benefits fund.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo consented recently to prop up the union fund with about $50 million in Medicaid funding. The state Assembly—where lawmakers are closely allied with labor—pitched in with another $10 million drawn from a discretionary pool of Medicaid cash and disclosed in the budget. The Assembly contribution triggered a $10 million federal match.
Mr. Cuomo's deal was struck outside the normal budgeting process and didn't require legislative approval.
The 1199SEIU fund provides medical, prescription drug, dental and vision benefits to about 30,000 personal care aides who work at agencies under contract with the New York City Human Resources Administration. The aides are paid hourly rates to help elderly and infirm Medicaid patients with chores, groceries and bathing.
The fund had about $22 million at the end of 2010, according to federal records.
The fund received a $50 million bailout last year, and the union warned that, without another round of subsidies, it would have to charge its unionized personal-care aides higher premiums, driving thousands of them out of coverage.
The governor's office said the assistance won't become a permanent state subsidy. Cuomo health officials said the subsidies would eventually phase out, as workers qualify for federally subsidized medical insurance under President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul.
Matt Wing, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said: "This is a continuation of last year's allocation and serves only as a temporary bridge until the implemented health exchange can provide subsidized coverage, ensuring that people who depend on home attendants are not at risk of losing their caregiver."
Cuomo officials said they paid for the bailout the same way they financed it last year, tapping unspent cash from a pool of Medicaid already earmarked by the state Legislature for "worker recruitment and retention."
The bailout cash flows to union workers through higher Medicaid reimbursement rates. Last year, the Cuomo administration's deal with the 1199SEIU hit a snag when senior Bloomberg officials, including the city's Human Resources Administration commissioner, Robert Doar, and the deputy mayor for health and human services, Linda Gibbs, refused to recommend a rate increase.
The state Department of Health went ahead with the rate increase anyway.
1199SEIU's benefit fund has long had financial trouble. From January 2009 to January 2011, it spent $9 million more than it took in, according to federal records. Until recently, the fund had been managed by a private Medicaid managed-care company.
The union assumed control of its operations last year and has said it is doing a better job of controlling costs.
Under the Cuomo administration, 1199SEIU has won a number of important victories, while the governor's health-care team has squeezed other sectors of Medicaid, particularly home-care companies. The governor's budget last year included a wage mandate targeted at home-care companies who employ lower-paid home-health aides—who are similar to personal-care aides but also perform skilled nursing and therapeutic services—many of whom aren't unionized.
The mandate imposed New York City wage laws on a broad swath of workers, effectively forcing those companies to pay their workers what personal-care aides get under their collective bargaining contracts.
A similar wage floor was imposed on companies in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester, but that kicks in a year later, in 2013.
It was crucial victory for 1199SEIU to prevent a flood of cases flowing to a lower-wage market as the state shifted to managed long-term care. The union argued that higher wages would improve care by reducing turnover. The bailout shields personal-care aides from further cuts to their plans. They still can qualify for coverage by working as little as 80 hours a month. In comparison, home-health aides typically have to work at least 120 hours a month.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...454248068.html
Wrong thread, Dread? :p
Let's see, there's a troubled insurance fund for low-wage union healthcare workers, who take care of elderly and infirm Medicaid patients. The workers can't afford to buy their own health insurance, because they don't make enough money, and individual health insurance is cost prohibitive. Even their union dues and collective bargaining for group discounts can't close the gap. The Medicaid patients need help from the state, because their needs are too expensive to pay out-of-pocket, and/or they're destitute. Since they're elderly or infirm, it's not like they can find a job to get that great employer-subsidized insurance.
What a clusterfuck.
Many of those home-health aides and personal-care assistants are likely "accepting" their low wages in "exchange" for health insurance benefits. It's easier to find cheap food, bunk with other people to share housing costs, or use public transit....than it is to pay for physicians, specialists, meds, blood work or radiology, dental or optical needs, surgeries, hospitalizations, or emergency care.
You can hardly blame those workers, or their union, for trying to find a niche in our fucked up healthcare system, any more than you can blame those elderly and infirm for being....elderly and infirm. :donkey:
The union dominates the industry in the stat. The union can't make the numbers work, so they demand a bailout of their insurance fund. And the NY State government says, "This is temporary, in two years these people will be on welfare for their healthcare so we won't be responsible."
Meanwhile, taxpayers are on the hook for the fuzzy math.
But unions don't dominate the healthcare industry. We live in a world where insurance = care. Low-wage healthcare workers can't afford their own insurance, elderly and infirm can't afford their own insurance, but they still need and use healthcare. So yes, all those people will eventually be using Medicaid (or SSDI) unless some fundamental changes are made. Gotta proposal?
Kill the medical malpractice lawyers would be a great start.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Workers wanting a bonus that's in line with that awarded to other workers for working some of the toughest days of the year in sectors without which the Olympics would be a nightmare? Going on strike after employers refuse to meet to negotiate?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWd7KKrWXHI
The bonus was awarded to other workers because of similar blackmail. Can I take it these bus drivers are willing to give money back during days when travel is light? If they wanted a bonus for the Olympics, they should have put it in their last contract; the Olympics were announced something like 8 years ago.
Should be possible to sack striking workers for the fact they're not doing their job.
The Underground drivers are ensuring they'll get sacked soon enough, Boris should bring in driverless trains.
"Driverless" trains means countless engineers, logisticians, and productivity experts. If they don't get their promised salaries (or bonii) for having done their job....it's doubtful they'd fill in for striking bus drivers.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
These contracts should have been worked out 8 years ago, when the Olympic committee awarded 2012 Games to the UK. Don't blame union bus drivers for that failure.
No one is blaming the union drivers for failing to bring it up eight years ago. They are faulting the drivers for not bringing it up in any normal contract negotiation during the past eight years, and waiting until the last possible moment to extort a demand outside of the standard contract negotiation.
You mean the underground doesn't already have "countless engineers, logisticians, and productivity experts"? The Japanese have long had driverless trains on their network.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
They should do their job, blame them for not doing it.Quote:
These contracts should have been worked out 8 years ago, when the Olympic committee awarded 2012 Games to the UK. Don't blame union bus drivers for that failure.
The "revolution" appears to be on hold
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/j...UFPkZ41lRRp?og
A Wisconsin judge on Friday struck down nearly all of the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.
Got to love it when judges have to twist logic a million times before they get to the outcome they politically favor.
We'll see on appeal. :0Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Obviously, considering its the second sentence of the article :bored: Walker doesn't seem the kind of person to know when to back down.
Seriously? You're going to attack him for appealing a court decision? What's wrong with you?
This court decision will probably be upheld as garbage. There is no inherent constitutional right for public employees to unionize. There never has been, and decades of legislation has specifically outlined this distinction between public unions and private unions. What's best is the Wisconsin legislation doesn't ban unions. It just stops requiring the state to collectively bargain with them and using public salaries to feed the union machines.
The revolution against the corruption of government unions is far from over.
I would have thought that the right of free assembly would be considered today a right to unionise. However that doesn't mean an obligation on anyone to negotiate with that union.