No Street Money
Apr 11th, 2008 at 7:27 am by Susie
This is a novel approach:
Fourteen months into a campaign that has the feel of a movement, Sen. Barack Obama has collided with the gritty political traditions of Philadelphia, where ward bosses love their candidates, but also expect them to pay up.
The dispute centers on the dispensing of “street money,” a long-standing Philadelphia ritual in which candidates deliver cash to the city’s Democratic operatives in return for getting out the vote.
Flush with payments from well-funded campaigns, the ward leaders and Democratic Party bosses typically spread out the cash in the days before the election, handing $10, $20 and $50 bills to the foot soldiers and loyalists who make up the party’s workforce.
It is all legal — but Obama’s people are telling the local bosses he won’t pay.
That sets up a culture clash, pitting a candidate who promises to transform American politics against the realities of a local political system important to his presidential hopes. Pennsylvania holds its primary April 22.
Obama’s posture confounds neighborhood political leaders sympathetic to his cause. They caution that if the senator from Illinois withholds money that gubernatorial, mayoral and presidential candidates have willingly paid out for decades, there could be defections to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. And the Clinton campaign, in contrast, will oblige in forking over the money, these ward leaders predict.
“We’ve heard directly from the Obama organizer who organizes our ward, and he told us it’s an entirely volunteer organization and that I should not expect to see anything from the Obama campaign other than ads on TV and the support that volunteers are giving us,” said Greg Paulmier, a ward leader in the northwest part of the city.
I can’t imagine what they’re thinking, unless they’re convinced that people will take the money and support Clinton anyway. I’ll tell you what, though - that street money is especially important in the poorest black wards, the places where you’d expect Obama to do well. I’m guessing the committee people just won’t work all that hard if they don’t get paid.
Or maybe the plan is, they’ll encourage them to take money from Clinton and work for Obama, anyway. Well, it doesn’t work that way here. The street workers will take money from both, and then screw one of them.
My committeeman is a nice guy and all, but I could never figure out what he actually does on election day besides stand at the polls and say hi to people.
Last pres. cycle, move-on had the whole neighborhood dialed in and had too many people there bugging people to vote.
It really pissed off the one republican on my block, who kept asking the young volunteers where they were from and telling them they should be home on there block working rather than in fishtown.
We’ll see if Clinton pays the “walking around” money or not. that should tell us something about who’s really down with the machine.
sorry, “their” block DUH!
Only because it is legal doesn’t mean it is *right*. It still smells like bribery, tradition or not.
Other than that, I really don’t care whether a candidate chooses to do so in PA or not.
It’s amazing that Clinton bloggers keep refusing to see why people support Obama. This is why. No matter what you think about his policy positions, he is not corrupt. We are sick and tired of the corruption that is killing our nation, and we.
Legal or not, this is what corruption looks like. Something isn’t made clean by making it legal.
Obama is out of the Chicago machine. So you can bet it’s not a matter of being above bribery, but being too cheap to fork over the money. Too funny!
Working to keep disenfranchized two states that didn’t vote for him, purging enthuastic would-be delegates in CA, turning uo his nose up at the Philly machine. Tell me again how it’s Clinton’s campaign making all the mistakes.
And, yes, I know Obama’s campaign reinstated most of the CA people, but it’s possible a lot of damage was still done.
sister of ye: “So you can bet it’s not a matter of being above bribery, but being too cheap to fork over the money.”
Care to provide any proof or does an unfounded accusation pulled out of thin air suffice where you live?
OF course she can’t bob. She’s just like every other fake liberal. They think the mere word ‘Chicago’ proves someone too corrupt to be trusted.
At some point, it’s become clear that these people are praying for the Democrats to lose if we nominate Obama.
Isn’t that the same sort of bullshit that LIEberman pulled with $300,000+ of his petty cash last campaign…bribes are what they are and the fact somebody says no should be hailed not disparaged.
Talk about a racket!
Somewhat off topic, but someone mentioned the Michigan and Florida primaries again. I heard that the Michigan Supreme Court recently held that the early primary date violated the Michigan state constitution — I don’t know whether it was the manner of moving the date or the early date violated something specific in the constitution. Does that mean that Michigan cannot certify its own votes? What does that mean for seating delegates at the convention?
i think this probably is a culture clash. i realize that just because obama is from chicago, everyone assumes he is corrupt, but actually the fact that federal indictments fly freely in chi-town and that obama has managed to keep himself clean probably means that he’s adverse to anything that doesn’t pass the smell test for him involving getting people to vote in elections.
i agree this is probably a stupid political move, but it is an admirable one. i still think “street money” is an invitation to corruption. and, in any case, obama probably will still win philly big.
soullite (synonymous with sees lots of words where they don’t exist) -
how does this story make it clear that “these people” are praying for the dems to lose if obama gets the nomination? that is just pure bullshit. i think you are an rnc mole.
for the record, this is the first time i ever heard of “street money.” and i think it’s kinda fucked up. however, i can see how people might think he’s being cheap, as opposed to principled, when he is spending so much money on ads. if i was some poor dude pounding the pavements i’d probably want him to share the love too.
I had never heard of “street money”, either. This could work in Obama’s favor if he or his campaign made it an example of how they want NEW politics and how his volunteer supporters exemplify this.
Don’t they share his view on this?
I’d think his campaign people in PA would have known about this policy well ahead of time. If this is a last-minute surprise, it may not go over as well.
People could come around to it, I have no doubt. How much time will they have to do so?
somegirl:
I’m surprised you haven’t heard of this quirk of Philly (and other cities). But yeah, it does exist: I believe in 2004 and 2006 a big stink was made in NJ (or maybe MD) over the issue. Here in Philly I usually hear it referred to as “walking around money”. I definitely think it borders on vote-buying, but I also think that Obama’s kinda making a dumb move by not participating.
Fumo is all about the walking around money: it’s helped him win a LOT of elections.
was it baltimore where the homeless people got paid a bunch of street money by the GOP to… it was something really nasty, I forget the details.
well brendan, you know i haven’t lived down here for very long, and i don’t pay that much attention to the local politics (too corrupt no matter where you live!). i think the baltimore thing you referred to was actually vote buying, which i think is a bit different from helping out people who are canvassing and such with some wam.
i’d think that if obama has consistently rejected this practice in his home town and elsewhere it would be mentioned somewhere previously to this. but if he’s just doing it here, it doesn’t seem like a smart move politically.
I’m a seasoned field operative (including state director on two pres campaigns) and, imo, this is just stupid. People depend upon this money, they expect it, work it into their paltry budgets, and, in most instances, work hard doing the final “pull” on election day that can mean victory in tight races. There are also social aspects to it, and it provides unemployed youth with a job for a few hours. There’s nothing illegal - no more than the money that is paid to companies which run robocalls day and night on election day, reminding you time and again to vote. Who would you rather get the money?
I’m Swiss in this election, but this is bad form on a number of levels, and I think it might backfire. Granted, perhaps Obama has evidence that he doesn’t need Philly like he thought he did (those Dems for a Day registered in record numbers, neh?) or that he needs more Sister Souljah moments to make up for Wright.
somegirl:
“but if he’s just doing it here, it doesn’t seem like a smart move politically.”
yeah, I’m with you on that one. It’s not the best move in Philly.
The incident I mean is when the GOP paid off some homeless guys to distribute misleading fliers at a Maryland election. It’s rather disgusting.
This could be another rookie mistake, or maybe Obama is setting the table to scream “Vote buying!” at the Clinton campaign when he loses Pennsylvania.
Somegirl, the story didn’t. Your comment did. You’re pretty much looking for any reason to hate Obama, and think chanting ‘Chicago, Chicago, Chicago’ is proof of corruption.
Obama won’t win Pennsylvania. Everyone knows that you give these people money and then they work for whoever they want to anyway. Most of them are party bosses already supporting the Clinton campaign. Giving them money would be nothing more than funding Clinton’s GOTV effort. Spare me your stories about bad politics. It’s good policy, and it’s good politics. He’s better off funding his own GOTV effort than relying on people who already support Clinton.
I think Susie may be on to something when she asserts that he may be reticent to provide funds to people of whose loyalty he cannot be sure.
Or maybe, being from Chi-town, he knows of too many horror stories where the cash is paid and it does not get into the right people’s hands.
Or maybe, he is a fan of “The Wire” and he remembers how Carcetti had all sorts of trouble with people like Clay Davis when he tried to pay them their “walking around” money?
PS
and for being a “rookie,” and making all kinds of “rookie mistakes,” he sure is kicking ass!
kind of like Ryan Howard!
Obama’s campaign eschewed street money in South Carolina as well, which was pretty well covered at the time…
I guess youz guyz just aren’t paying attention ALL that closely?
I grew up on small town PA politics. I owned a bar, and on election day the bars had to close. That didn’t stop the old politicos from pulling up in front of the polling sations hading out shots of liquor and 5 dollar bills. Obama’s purity is not going to “change” the system.
Call it what you want to, but it’s vote buying pure and simple… if it’s not illegal it sure as hell should be.
Besides, as has been mentioned, most of the party hacks are for Clinton anyway, and Obama would be wasting his money giving it to them.