To say it’s a slow political day, this Christmas Day, is understating it by several factors of scale. Example… When I see CNN’s political ticker, [1] by way of Memeorandum pointing out that President Bush gave his wife a purse for Christmas and got some biking gear from his wife… I know it’s a slow day, like few others have been, or will be for the next 11 months.
Memeorandum -scanning has not been without profit, however…
I noticed an article from Chris Drew in the New York Times [2] this morning. As regards the Democrats and their efforts to as the article says “rein in fees on consulting”.
Without quoting the article directly,it appears that the gravy train for the Democratic consultants is over. The worst of the offenders is Bob Shrum and his crew. At least, that’s what the article suggests.
While it is certainly true that there’s been an awful lot of money floating around on the Democrat side in the consulting game, these last couple of cycles, and it’s also true that this is a a problem that the Democrats should have dealt with long time ago, the almost universal concern being shown over the costs involved with political consulting on the Democrat side these days is revealing another way, and it’s one that they probably didn’t intend. This newfound concern for the amount of money spent for political consultants is suggestive that the Democrats don’t have the money to spend, this time around. Granted, that that’s not a admission that most Democrats would like you to know. Which, is probably why they don’t stated as such in the article… the article is being printed after all, in what has become widely regarded as the DNC house organ.
But here’s the real tale….if I were looking for signs that a political party was in some kind of trouble, financially, one of the first places that I personally would look would be at their attempts at cost control. Particularly, I would be looking for changes in their cost control attempts. The report suggests a major change in the way the Democrats are doing business.
Oh… This newfound concern over money also suggests implicitly that the Democrats figure the election can still be bought, if they just spend it correctly.
Were that the Democrats were nearly as worried about how they spend your money and mine.