KING-5's Up Front with Robert Mak reports on mailings that Congressman Dave Reichert sent to his constituents under the centuries-old "franking privilege".
Mak delivers the damning indictment at 3:23 into the video: It's "all perfectly legal". Oh, well. No Pulitzer for this exposé.
Nevertheless, the segment also features Democrat campaign consultant and lobbyist Ron Dotzauer crying foul that Reichert's constituent communications portray the Congressman in a positive light and that the incumbent Reichert has an unfair advantage over his challenger.
Now Lobbyist Ron! knows full well that incumbents can be beaten -- he claims credit for "leading Maria Cantwell to a victory in the U.S. Senate over a three-term incumbent". But Cantwell, for all her faults, was a credible challenger, having served in both the state legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives before her conceivably legitimate 2,229 vote victory over Slade Gorton in 2000. If Lobbyist Ron! wants to help Democrats defeat Congressman Reichert, he would be better off recruiting a credible challenger instead of whining about Reichert's perfectly legal constituent communications.
Well how about all those automated hit-phone-calls from Democrat front groups constantly going out all over to the 8th district? THEY PORTRAY REICHERT IN A NEGATIVE LIGHT and have the potential to put Reichert at a disadvantage! And what is Lobbyist Ron's response to THAT???
Goodness, these people want to fling arrows all daylong and then get mad when their target defends himself. Do they not SEE the illogic of their whining???
Posted by: Michele on July 12, 2006 11:45 AMOn the flip side, you have some races where even if you don't think the person should be in office anymore, there is no credible challenger running against them. Take Jim McDermott, for example. There is no excuse for him to still be in office, but Republicans haven't nominated anyone who stands a chance against him.
The Cantwell-McGavitt (sp?) race looks like it will be interesting. Here's hoping McGavitt keep's Rove and companies dirty hands out of the campaign and the campaign is run on issues and not negative ads. Here's hoping McGavitt sticks to his early commercials and is above party politics. He potentially has my vote right now, but not if he goes negative or allows Rove and company to get involved.
Posted by: tc on July 12, 2006 12:18 PMYes. Paid for by tax dollars. As are the wonderful, glorious mailings I get from Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver.
And if it's legal, then yes, it is OK. Until it's changed. According to your 'logic' Reichert should stop because he's a Republican and the Democrats should do what?
Franking is as old as old gets, and yet it only seems to be a problem when a Republican does it. Spare me your government spending strawman. Franking doesn't even amount to a thimble of a drop in the bucket.
Posted by: jimg on July 12, 2006 12:22 PMThe money quote was from Reichert when asked what the difference was between franked mail and campaign propaganda: campaign literature is paid for by the campaign.
Your tax dollars at work.
Posted by: Ben Diamond on July 12, 2006 12:44 PMI suppose the mailings I get from the D's in Olympia are paid for out of their paychecks...Right.
Can't win with those idiots. If Reichert wasn't sending out those mailings, the moonbats would cry that he doesn't keep his constituents informed.
What a bunch of losers. No wonder they're in the minority in DC and will probably stay that way. Loser status also goes a long way towards explaining why the last D presidential candidate to get over 50% of the popular vote was Jimmy Carter, 30 years ago, and we know what a loser he is.
Posted by: Obi-Wan on July 12, 2006 01:12 PMCongressional Representatives from Washington State, Jennifer Dunn (R) and Doc Hastings (R), spent less than $2,500 on mass mail postage in the same 9 month period.
Not only that, I met Baird in front of a local grocery store at a table doing an impromptu "Town Hall meeting" at which he was passing out some of these taxpayer funded fliers.
Now I'm getting fewer mailings and more unsolicited e-mail updates/surveys from Baird (7 since February) and Cantwell in this election year.
The following suggestions could help:
1) Reinstate the mass mailing spending limits that applied to Congress until about 7 years ago.
2) Limit mass mailings to two in the year before an election (like state legislators' limits)This should apply to local elections (county/city) too.
3) limit e-mails in election years
OK, Sparky, then tell us just who is sending you mailings?
Right now we are getting this same kind of mail from Jay Inslee but no one is doing half hour specials on his mailings.
I am not a fan of this waste of taxpayer money, that at best ends up in the recycle bin, but when they make these rules an incumbent would be a fool not to take advantage of them because you can be sure that the other guy is.
"I guess Stafan's logic is, if it's legal, it must be okay"
katomar:
"Well, I guess Ben is just one more of those liberals who can't tell the difference between what is legal and what he wishes was legal {or in this case illegal}."
Katomar, reading is fundamental.
Posted by: Ben Diamond on July 12, 2006 03:56 PMNow there's an author with fully-considered, persuasive arguments on the campaign issues. Also one who's uncritically sucked up all the DNC personal smears on Karl Rove. Is said Author a typical Democrat, or just a loose cannon?
Posted by: Hank Bradley on July 12, 2006 04:59 PMIt's legal, dumba$$.
Here, let me say it again: It's legal, dumba$$.
Now if you don't like it (and you don't appear to like much of anything) why don't you start an initiative to have the privilege outlawed. You won't get spit for signups (even if you got up off your lazy butt), but at least you'd be doing something.
Or how about lobbying your Dhimmicrat representatives. See how far that gets ya!
BTW: all of the rest of us understood Katomar's comment just fine. What, are you retarded?
Posted by: alphabet soup on July 12, 2006 06:04 PMWow alphabet soup, and I'm the one who's retarded?
Yeah, I'll just start an initiative to overturn the federal franking privelege, in effect for well over 200 years and governed by a congressional commission.
I would be happy if Reichert used the franking privilege to its original intended ends- responding to voter mail.
My congressman, Dave Reichert, spent more than a third of his budget (half a million dollars) sending junk mail.
Legal? Yes, as I've said more than once. Does that make it right? No, and a lot of people agree.
Posted by: Ben Diamond on July 12, 2006 06:42 PMWell yea, if you count the voices in your head...
Posted by: alphabet soup on July 12, 2006 06:59 PMI think it is acceptable for the taxpayers to pay for some communicative mail from our representatives.
However, what constitues election information versus informative updates can be a very fine line.
Right now, I believe the law is that there can only be 3 mailings per year. During election years, the Senate can not send out franked mail within 90 days of the election and Congress can't send them out within 60 days of an election.
I also do worry about 98% incumbancy re-election rates. Doesn't seem like we have the ability to "throw the bums out" on a regular enough basis. It seems to me that this tends to create a psuedo-aristocracy - at least in the minds of some of the longer-term representatives.
Oh well.
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. Winston Churchill
Posted by: SouthernRoots on July 12, 2006 07:40 PMPosted by alphabet soup
You might try listening to the voice of reason. it might be easier if your head wasn't so far up your...on second thought, shove it up further. It's perfectly legal, after all.
Posted by: Ben Diamond on July 12, 2006 07:43 PMI'm actually not surprised. Disappointed perhaps, definitely repelled, but not surprised.
No thanks. What you feeeeeel is "reason" is the shrill cacophony of losers, freaks, and perverts squealing their outrage at the fact that they have relegated themselves to the ashbin of history.
Next time you go looking for some reason, maybe you'll find that gerbil you lost...
Posted by: alphabet soup on July 12, 2006 08:05 PMI mean shouldn't the bigger issue be that members of congress have this much of a budget in the first place? If Reichert can run his office in such a way that he has a third of his budget left over just for mass mailings, doesn't that mean he's running it pretty efficiantly overall? Or does it mean members of Congress are budgeted way too much money and most of them simply can't budget their office finances very well?
Posted by: Mike H on July 13, 2006 01:07 AMMike, that's one way to spin in. Congressman Ron Paul actually returns that money to the general fund every year, and doesn't spend it on junk mail. How many of us in the 8th are jumping for joy, saying, "Yay, Reichert sent me more pretty pictures of his face?!"
Posted by: Ben Diamond on July 13, 2006 07:30 AM