Pelosi: Betrayed By "Secret Money" (updated)

You know the game is lost when the coach starts making excuses before the end of the third quarter. The same holds true in politics. The election isn’t until next week, and yet, the Democrats are already whining about how "secret" special interest money “defeated” them. This is interesting not only because it shows just how demoralized they are, but also because the claim is false.

For a couple weeks now, the Democrats have claimed that special interests have bought this election for the Republicans. Obama said it, and implied that this money was secret foreign money (and odd claim for a boy from Kenya to make). Even the MSM called him on that one. Pelosi said it and proved just how delusional she is:

“Everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where — because they won't disclose it — is pouring in.”

Of course, that’s true if you define “great” as “planning to lose 60 seats.” And think about how insulting this claim is: people are too stupid to think for themselves and only vote for whoever spends the most money. Biden said it, but got his numbers wrong, claiming these groups spent “$200 billion.” (Being off by a factor of 1000 is actually pretty good for Joe.)

And behind the scenes, the Democrats are positively shrill about this money:

• “They’re widening the field, it’s just a stunning thing,” said a senior White House official.

• “Special interests bought the Congress they wanted. Corporations bought the new Republicans,” said a House aide.

• “The reality is that were it not for outside money there would be a lot less uncertainty in House, gubernatorial and Senate races around the country,” said a senior House official.

But is there any truth to these allegations? Nope.

• First, there is the hypocrisy problem: the Democrats benefitted from a similar phenomenon in 2006, when George Soros and friends spent lavishly to help them.

• Secondly, in election after election, the evidence has shown that no matter how much money a candidates spends, a bad candidate simply cannot win. Indeed, in 2006 and 2008, when the tide turned against the Republicans, the Democrats won numerous races where they were massively outspent.

• Third, the claim of massive secret money is just not true. Campaign experts estimate that only 10% of the money being spent in this election cycle is from these sources, the rest comes from traditional sources like the parties themselves.

• Further, the Democrats have their own identical sources of funding in groups like Soros’s group and union slush funds. In fact, AFSCME, a public employee union, is spending the most of any outside group this election cycle -- $87.5 million. . . all to help Democrats. When you look at the parties themselves, the DNC and its related committees have outspent the GOP by significant amounts.

• And finally, don’t forget the millions of dollars in should-be-illegal campaign ads being run by government agencies touting ObamaCare. . . that’s right, you’re paying to have Andy Griffith lie to you. And don’t forget all that free press the Democrats get from their fellow travelers in the MSM and Hollywood.

Despite these facts, the Democrats are running with this claim to justify their loss. Of course, this shouldn’t surprise us as the Democrats now specialize in unreality. And let’s not forget that this is the same party that’s been waging such a dirty campaign that even the New York Times had to take note of the Democrats’ dirty tricks, e.g. planting and funding fake Tea Party candidates to siphon off votes from Republicans. Thus, blaming their pending loss on a lie is hardly beyond the pale for Democrats.

Ultimately, I doubt this issue has legs. It may excite the Democratic base, who are too stupid to grasp that they’re being lied to, but it doesn’t resonate with anyone else because the Democrats are equally guilty. And even among Democrats, there is no constituency to clean up campaign funding, their constituencies are solely worried about getting their own vendettas put into law. . . and they rely on dirty money.

Thus, in the end, I think this issue will merely give people like Pelosi a way to sleep at night without having to ask herself the hard questions.


Update: Here is an update from Politico tonight. Apparently, the Democrats have outspent the Republicans by $270 million during this election. Making this claim about being outspent not just a lie, but a ridiculous lie.



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