After 4 decades working in government, Barney gives $200K to his own campaign
According to the (indispensable) Almanac of American Politics, the closest thing the unhappy Barney Frank has had to a private sector job was when, from 1978-1980, he served as a teaching fellow at the Harvard/JFK School of Government — while serving (simultaneously) in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. After graduating from Harvard (and abandoning his doctoral work), Barney went to work for Boston’s very well-educated mayor Kevin White, then served as Administrative Assistance for U.S. Rep. Michael Harrington before entering the world of electoral politics himself when he ran from the Massachusetts House.
He has never held a job unrelated to government.
So, where, one blogger asks, “do all of these “public servants” get these vast amounts of personal wealth?“ Barney, you see, has recently “given his re-election campaign $200,000 as he faces his toughest race in years.” Also noting that “Frank isn’t a tremendously wealthy guy“, Allahpundit asks, “What on earth are his internal polls showing him to make him cough up 200 grand?”
R.S. McCain doesn’t mince words when he speculates why the self-righteous career politician might be in trouble:
Hey, when a congressman and his heckler boyfriend fly to the Virgin Islands aboard the private jet of a hedge-fund billionaire in the midst of an economic apocalypse the congressman arguably helped cause . . .
Do you really need polls to tell you that might hurt his chances for re-election? Yeah, I know it’s Massachusetts, but the economy’s in a ditch, and Barney’s up there sippin’ on a Slurpee, so to to speak.
Thirty years in Congress, thirty-eight in elective office, over four decades working in government, you think maybe this guy has lost touch how to talk to the people in his district?
If he’s losing favor now, don’t think a cupla hundred grand of his own money will help much.
And you can help the man whose energetic campaign has got Barney on the ropes by clicking here.
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Barney has been very careful with his spending money. He shops at Goodwill and he never gives to charity. This was probably a very, very painful 200 Large for him to give. Now there is a small hole in his Louis Vuitton suitcase stash of carefully collected walking around money.
Comment by Heliotrope — October 20, 2010 @ 8:18 am - October 20, 2010
Dan, leaving aside the issue of Frank’s electability, I would have thought you knew how it works when it comes to candidates loaning $200k or $900k to their campaign. Personal wealth has -0- to do with it.
The candidate goes to a friendly banker, carries with him/her a letter of credit from a bigger campaign committee –say the DC3– promising that if the candidate loses, the campaign committee will step in and repay the loan with interest in place of the congressman.
The congressman gets the cash, “loans” it to his own campaign committee with the promise that it will repay him when the election is over so that he can repay the loan to the bank.
Presto change-o, the candidate has $200k to loan to the committee based on the assurance of a larger enterprise. It’s not that hard to do or that unusual. In Michigan, the current GOP nominee for Gov has loaned his campaign tons of $$$ and the campaign committee will raise and return those funds to his personal ledger within 1 yr of his election.
The real question for seasoned political observers with a little bit more savvy here is why is Frank in such a hole that he needs to resort to the easy measure of a personal loan to the committee? His campaign mgr and finance chair should be fired for putting the candidate in that position and not having done their homework to raise the $$$ needed to win way back in 2009.
But, as I understand it, Frank is a horrible planner. And an even worse campaigner with ADD-political stripes that couldn’t be controlled with a truckload of meds. He spends campaign $$$ on spur of the moment, non-message campaign gimmicks, hires personal staff clearly unqualified to be campaigners and other OOCC (out-of-control candidiate) actions. And he hates raising money for himself… his staff helped him raise about $3.6m for this cycle –and it was like pulling teeth to get him before a group to pitch his message and ask for their $$$.
It isn’t personal worth. I thought seasoned political observers would know that.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — October 20, 2010 @ 8:33 am - October 20, 2010
Barney Frank is desperate; it’s good to see him sweat. Now, he needs to lose his job.
Comment by Sebastian Shaw — October 20, 2010 @ 9:24 am - October 20, 2010
As with aging movie divas of both sexes, it so sad when politicians just don’t know when it’s time for a graceful exit…and just leave.
Comment by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) — October 20, 2010 @ 9:27 am - October 20, 2010
Actually, Metallica said it best:
Fortune, fame, mirror vain
Gone insane, but the memory remains
Heavy rings on fingers wave
Another star denies the grave
See the nowhere crowd cry the nowhere tears of honor
Like twisted vines that grow
Hide and swallow mansions whole
And dim the light of an already faded prima donna
Comment by The_Livewire — October 20, 2010 @ 9:59 am - October 20, 2010
MichMatt,
I are confused by your rather straight forward explanation. 1) The candidate can loan himself limitless amounts of money under election law.
2) The bank loans personal funds to Barney which is backed by a letter of credit of another entity covering repayment of the loan.
3) Another source repays the loan (or hands Barney the money and Barney repays the loan) and
4) Election Law and the IRS just give it a wink and a nod?
5) Really?
Comment by Heliotrope — October 20, 2010 @ 10:00 am - October 20, 2010
[...] to Barney's boyfriend ("partner" being the politically correct term), let's point out that gay conservatives like Daniel Blatt are fed up with having Barney Frank as the Official Gay Political Poster Boy — in much the same way that [...]
Pingback by The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Barney's Boyfriend and the Bitter End — October 20, 2010 @ 1:30 pm - October 20, 2010
There’s an article written by Jake Sherman at politico.com that also sums this up:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43860.html
Notice that Sherman didn’t give us any poll numbers on this race. I take it to mean that Ms. Fwank is losing ground against Bielat. If it was the Republican that was slipping backward, you can bet your bottom dollar Jake would have told us that in a heartbeat.
The last paragraph is the tipoff: Barney is such a selfless public servant he has relatively little cash in the bank. My favorite line: “A longtime public servant, Frank isn’t exactly a rich man. Financial disclosures filed with the House show he has assets between $560,000 and $1.5 million.”
THIS is the picture of someone who “isn’t exactly a rich man?” Yeah, right. And Dorothy wishes she could go back to Kansas.
I hate to tell Bawney Fwank, but his buddy in the Oval Orifice thinks that people who make that kind of money are “too rich.”
Look at all the rich friends he has. He’s flying around on their jets and staying at their mansions. After all the billions of taxpayer dollars he funneled to his friends at the banks? (Remember, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac happened under HIS watch!)
I’m willing to bet that he’s got a lot more than $1.5 million stashed away by his financier friends in secret accounts.
Barney Frank the poverty case? Then I’m The Situation.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — October 20, 2010 @ 2:47 pm - October 20, 2010
I’m wondering how long it will be before someone claims that “sipping on a Slurpee” is coded homophobic language.
Comment by Draybee — October 20, 2010 @ 3:29 pm - October 20, 2010
I suppose it’s possible that Barney saved his way to riches. After all, this is a guy who raised a major stink because he wasn’t given a residency discount to visit Fire Island. If he’s that cheap, then I can see how he would have saved most of his income for investment purposes.
Comment by Calvin Dodge — October 20, 2010 @ 8:58 pm - October 20, 2010
Helio, yes is it straight forward and all within the federal and Massachusetts state election laws. It’s allowed in 32 states; no state expressly forbids it. And it’s bipartisan.
This year, in Michigan, we’ve got a moderate sized group of 1st time candidates without the $$$ to operate a $250k state legislative campaign. If a state political campaign committee thinks the candidate has a good opportunity to win and hold office… and won’t piss away the $$$ on stupid, no-effective campaign expenditures, they can get the loans. It’s easy to raise money AFTER you’ve won office; it’s tough to raise $$ if you lost your bid.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — October 21, 2010 @ 7:44 am - October 21, 2010
Wait a minute, MichMat, you are talking about state office in your reply. Federal election law would not apply. But Frank is subject to Federal election law.
I am not a lawyer and I do not play one on the internet. I remain amazed if the scenario you lay out in #2 would be consistent with federal election laws.
Comment by Heliotrope — October 21, 2010 @ 8:54 am - October 21, 2010
Yeah, MichiganMatt is full of crap.
<i.It’s not that hard to do or that unusual. In Michigan, the current GOP nominee for Gov has loaned his campaign tons of $$$ and the campaign committee will raise and return those funds to his personal ledger within 1 yr of his election.
Um, Rick Snyder is a multi-millionaire, if not a billionaire. No one is repaying him that money; it’s his own that came from his Gateway stock options from back in the day. Further, he spent most of the money on the primary, and there’s no reason for the NRCC to give money for Republicans to fight each other. Epic fail!
Heliotrope called you onto the carpet for the legal analysis (which is completely correct); I’m calling you out for your b.s. example. Besides, as a pragmatic point, the “big organisations” don’t have unlimited funds to lend to anyone in trouble – they have these things called “budgets” and need to stick to them.
Comment by Roxeanne de Luca — October 23, 2010 @ 12:18 am - October 23, 2010
“It’s easy to raise money AFTER you’ve won office; it’s tough to raise $$ if you lost your bid.”
You’re kidding me, right? After the election is over, people really open their wallets to retire campaign debt for a candidate who has already won? Comical line of thinking.
Comment by Roxeanne de Luca — October 23, 2010 @ 12:20 am - October 23, 2010
Okay, I’m going to keep whaling on MichiganMatt’s b.s.:
“His campaign mgr and finance chair should be fired for putting the candidate in that position and not having done their homework to raise the $$$ needed to win way back in 2009.”
Actually, you brain trust, Barney had raised several million dollars (more than any other congressional candidate in Massachusetts), so his staff isn’t to blame for inadequate fund raising.
Moreover, Barney has never had a good challenger. “Way back in 2009″, career criminal and wife-beater Earl Sholley was the only person running against Frank, and he usually only took about 20% of the vote Bielat launched his campaign in the spring of 2010, and has only shown to be a credible threat in the last few months. So I guess you can hold Barney’s staffers responsible for not seeing, with a crystal ball, that more money than everyone else in Massachusetts wouldn’t be enough because a double-Ivy Marine would come along and give him the first real campaign since the 1980s, but that’s stupid.
Comment by Roxeanne de Luca — October 23, 2010 @ 12:27 am - October 23, 2010
Guys, we can agree on one thing: the first person who should have seen the tsunami heading his way is probably the last person who realized it’s right over him.
Sean Bielat realized he had, at last, a chance in Hell to become a Congressman when Scott Brown won in Frank’s fiefdom. Frank just slept in his laurels, safe in his incumbency… until now. What are those internal polls telling Frank that he doesn’t want Bielat (or anyone else) to know?
Ladies and gents, Barney “the Dinosaur” Frank has seen the proverbial Writing on the Wall.
“The days of your reign are counted: this is The End.”
“You have been weighted in the scales and found wanting.”
“Your kingdom will be taken away from you and given to someone else.”
It’s time to make this “dinosaur” Extinct!
Comment by newton — October 29, 2010 @ 12:37 am - October 29, 2010
“Allahpundit ass”
Looks like a ‘k’ went AWOL.
Comment by rosignol — October 31, 2010 @ 11:23 pm - October 31, 2010
Thanks for catching that. Since fixed.
Now that was am embarrassing error.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — November 1, 2010 @ 12:05 am - November 1, 2010