Enter
including all seven freshmen” —
the group who arrived in Washington while the memory of Wall
Street’s economy-cratering cockup still loomed large — fell in with
Wall Street’s K Street masters, and
helped to weaken reform.
At the time, Miller offered
this diagnosis:
Washington Republicans live
in fear of the Republican base.
Washington Democrats, on the
other hand, use the Democratic
base as a foil. Washington Democrats — not grassroots Democrats — pick Democratic congressional candidates in swing
districts. Washington Democrats recruit candidates who
“don’t have particularly strong
views” on important issues so
they will not strike swing voters
as unduly partisan.
Democrats from swing districts get priority in committee
assignments, and the Financial
Services Committee is a plum
assignment. The committee is
known in Congress as a “money
committee.” Members of the
committee have a much easier
time raising money from the financial interests affected by the
committee’s decisions.
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
HUFFINGTON
07.28.13
Democratic members still
have to call and ask for money.
And call. And call. And call.
And the amount of time those
members spend on the phones,
begging, is far from insignificant.
Back in January, The Huffington Post obtained a PowerPoint
presentation that was shown to
incoming freshmen by the Democratic Congressional Campaign
The great majority of
junior Democrats, including all
seven freshmen... fell in with
Wall Street’s K Street masters,
and helped to weaken reform.”
Committee. That PowerPoint revealed that the “daily schedule
prescribed by the Democratic
leadership contemplates a nine
or 10-hour day while in Washington,” which includes four hours
of “call time” (read: hustling
for ca$h) and “another hour is
blocked off for ‘strategic outreach.’” (Read: more hustling).
Well, according to Politico’s MJ
Lee, those calls that went out did
not go unreturned — and the replies came with enough lucre to