Comments on: AP: Barr campaign provided staffer with ‘clothing allowance’

By: JimDavidson

JimDavidson — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:11:14 +0000

Here’s something for independent voters:
http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2008/12/a_healthy_democ.html

Total Democratic Presidential Votes Since 1932: 745,250,333

Total Republican Presidential Votes Since 1932: 745,219,199

Total Third-Party Presidential Votes Since 1932: 66,011,946

How’s that for parity? That’s a difference of 31,134 votes out of over 1.5 billion cast.

Source: uselectionatlas.org

See first link for source of above text.

By: JimDavidson

JimDavidson — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:08:40 +0000

There’s not necessarily any discrepancy. George writes of a reported debt, on 10/15. Given his proclivities, I would guess George saw that on an FEC report. Naturally, this does not mean that Barr could not have lent the campaign money in order to close it in the red. My guess is also that he neglected to mention the thousands of dollars owed to Angela O’Dell in his report of 10/15 – that money had been owed since the start of petitioning in West Virginia.

I guess the liar Shane Cory, who said that Angela would be paid, neglected to report the debt to Barr? Nah, that would be too much to believe.

By: Fred Church Ortiz

Fred Church Ortiz — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:45:25 +0000

http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/11/barr-campaign-50000-in-debt-after-the-election/

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:40:16 +0000

I thought it was like 50k…where did I see that?

By: George Phillies

George Phillies — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:39:30 +0000

The last reported debt, on 10/15, was $1000 that Barr owed to himself. Period. It must be really hard to wear that down.

By: Michael Seebeck

Michael Seebeck — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:15:51 +0000

As for the rest of what George wrote, I’ll stick to thermocouples.

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:15:44 +0000

Anyone know how Barr is doing on getting his campaign debt down?

By: Michael Seebeck

Michael Seebeck — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:14:36 +0000

Reading through what happened, it may be a technical vioaltion of BCRA (which as a libertarian I oppose anyway), but since it appears the expense was repaid and was a relative emergency situation, it should really be a non-issue. If anything it was a “loan” by the campaign.

By: George Phillies

George Phillies — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:10:34 +0000

In reading the following, which says that ‘authoring expenses’ are to be viewed as personal, not something that may be taken as a campaign expense and charged to your donors, note that for many politicians ‘writing’ means something different than it does to us. When I add to my current manuscript

“Electrophoresis and sedimentation should reveal similar information about polymer solution dynamics. In sedimentation, the enhancement of buoyant forces by the ultracentrifuge causes macromolecules to settle or rise. In electrophoresis, an applied electrical field causes charged macromolecules to migrate with respect to the solution. With either method, the drift velocity of the sedimenting molecules reveals their properties and properties of the medium surrounding them.

One reasonably expects that electrophoretic studies can in principle be done in complete parallel to sedimentation studies. In principle, one might observe the migration of monodisperse polymers at different concentrations. One might also observe the migration of probe particles or probe chains through solution solutions of a neutral, non-migrating, non-dilute polymer. Finally, just as one can observe probe sedimentation through a matrix species that sediments on the same time scale as the probe, so also might one study probe electrophoresis through a polyelectrolyte solution to examine direct and hydrodynamic interactions between the various migrating species.”

I actually had to decide what to say, and typed what was said. When many politicians ‘write’ a book, the writing process may stop with signing a memo approving an ‘authoring fee’. and now I note

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002993287

“Campaign finance laws prohibit the use of campaign funds to cover personal expenses, and the FEC has released two draft opinions suggesting costs associated with books would fall under that category. But there is a chance that the commission could decide this afternoon to allow lawmakers to use their political action committees to cover the costs associated with writing or promoting books. “

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:50:10 +0000

I agree. I kept seeing this one pop up in google news alerts and kept passing it up because it seemed too trivial. It was a close call though – it got reported a lot of places.

By: hogarth

hogarth — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:43:37 +0000

It’s one thing for Libertarians and/or Barr’s campaign donors to criticize Barr’s expenditures, but this is nothing but silly busybodying by people with absolutely no stake in the matter.

As a popular refrain goes here in NC: “Screw BCRA”

By: Gene Trosper

Gene Trosper — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:21:30 +0000

$500 is small potatoes, but I’d really like to know why MacPherson needed that money for clothes.

By: Fred Church Ortiz

Fred Church Ortiz — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:47:55 +0000

I agree, but as far as I know the AC, limos, etc never made it to the wire service.

I don’t think Barr would have gotten this one if he wasn’t sharing the complaint with 4 sitting congressmen.

By: JimDavidson

JimDavidson — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:42:16 +0000

What did Andrew MacPherson do for the campaign? A $500 allowance sounds like two suits and a pair of shoes. If he was appearing in public to represent the campaign, and was in danger of doing so naked, maybe his pay should have been stepped up a bit.

This amount seems small, compared to the Palin budget, or the Barr limousine services, or the big air conditioner for the Barr campaign offices. Watchdogging is a good thing, though. Good dog!