Disclosure: I worked for the Lamont campaign doing web design and production and some writing for the official blog (from 9/5/06 to 11/07/06).

Thursday, September 21, 2006

 

Friends of Joe

Turns out former RNC finance chair Mel Sembler, who hosted Sen. Lieberman for a huge big-money fundraiser last night in Florida, is also the chairman of Scooter Libby's defense fund:

What do Scooter Libby and Joe Lieberman have in common? A lot of rich friends, apparently.

Following closely on the news that Joe Lieberman's biggest public apologist, Marty Peretz, had joined Libby's Defense Fund, we learn that the Chair of Libby's Defense Fund, Mel Sembler, is hosting a pricey fundraiser for Holy Joe. Sembler, you'll remember, also happens to have been the Ambassador to Italy when SISMI started sending bogus Niger claims to the CIA.


Defending indicted Bush Administration officials by day, raising money for Sen. Lieberman's campaign by night.

It will be interesting to see the names on last night's guest list when the next FEC reports come out. How many of Scooter's backers are paying for Sen. Lieberman's campaign? And what does having the support of Libby's finance man portend for Sen. Lieberman's willingness - or ability - to provide any real oversight of the Cheney administration in a new Congress?

In the meantime, here's the rest of Sembler's personal contributions this cycle, including contributions to the RNC ($25,000), Katherine Harris ($4,200), and Tom DeLay ($1,000).

Again, Gerstein:

Gerstein also vowed to personally investigate the matter of Republican contributions to the Lieberman campaign, saying he didn't think the senator had "taken a significant amount of money from registered Republicans."

Comments:
Dan is an utterly good and decent guy.
 
I'm beginning to doubt that these "fundraisers" are actually for the campaigns.

Shays has aWol showing up for a private fundraiser. Johnson sneaking up to a hotel for a fundraiser sponsored by Rowland cronies. Lieberman raking in Republican money by the truckload.

Why would these candidates want to be publicly associated with any of these "supporters"? Does Shays think having word get out that aWol is coming is going to help sway moderates? Or the stink of Johnson rubbing elbows with Rowlandites? And since most of the big money Lieberman is pulling in is from Republicans it undermines his Unity™ sloganeering.

Is this fundraising for the campaign or is it fundraising to bring in money that the candidate gets to keep after they lose. It all smells of "pay-off," not campaign contribution.
 
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