Internet Donations -- Brown vs. Obama

I made a donation to the Scott Brown campaign the other day and my credit card information was processed as if I was making a purchase from Amazon or any other reputable online merchant.  I had to provide my full name, address and phone number -- the one that matches my Visa billing account information -- along with the security code from the back of the card.

I gave on Tuesday, the "moneybomb" day, when he hoped to raise $1 million.  According to the AP, he took in $1.3 million (and roughly a mil a day for the rest of the week) from about 16,000 contributors who gave an average of $78.

Compare this to the MSM-hailed Obama campaign, which was supposed to be THE grassroots, small-donor, internet savvy campaign.  From what I can find, the campaign never gave out figures on the number of people who contributed nor the average amount donated.  Maybe this article in the Washington Post provides a clue as to why:

Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations 
Contributions Reviewed After Deposits 

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Why do that? To launder the donations and make them untraceable. There really are no justifiable reasons except ones that stink to high heaven.

Brown is running a real grass-roots campaign.  I am not naive enough to think that he is not also getting big money contributions, but he certainly is getting a fair number of clams from guys like me -- and he can prove it.  Obama?  Not really. The MSM ran a few articles to "prove" they could be tough on him but quickly flushed the whole investigation down the memory hole.  Well, not all of us forget.

Martha Coakley press conference

Go Scott Brown!

All Politics Is Local

Tip O'Neill was famously quoted as saying "All politics is local".  He passed away (in '94) before the Web could really make the adage true.  Today, a guy like the Big Swede in NY can have a say in a state election that he cannot even vote in, like Massachusetts.  When a Mass pol can have a direct influence in what gets picked out of my pocket in NY by the federal government, and I can donate to the candidate whose fingers I think will be less sticky, well, that sure is local!

Scott Brown has a moneybomb going on today.

Mass. Hysteria

What is going on in Massachusetts?  Could the Swimmer's Senate seat -- after all, they do refer to it as Teddy's seat, as if he owned it -- possibly go to a Republican?  Scott Brown is certainly net-savvier than Martha Coakley, but the Dems are certainly going to run a very aggressive get-out-the-dead vote drive.

Dan Riehl is the go-to blogger on this campaign.

Windows 7 upgrade

Finally received the kit from HP.  Now installing it on my laptop while I surf the web on the desktop unit.

So, what's not to love about Harry Ried?  He is a laff riot!  What are the odds makers in Vegas saying about their homies' reelection prospects?

How about O's impartial health care expert, MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, turning out to be quite the entrepreneur!  He was paid $300k to promote the admin's plans.  How about that!  It's all over the NYT and WaPo, right?  Right?

The country might be speeding towards a fiscal cliff this year, but one eternal question will remain. What was the best BMW 3-Series?  The e30 (of 80's yuppie fame) or the e46 (the aughts uber sport sedan)?

Some topics are more important than others.

WHY DO THEY HATE US?

The liberals, I mean.

We have (at least for the time being) a reasonably well-run country. Not that the federal and various state governments haven't given it their all to wreck it. No, the USA, for all of its faults, is a pretty decent place to live. That is why people want to come here.

This is not a perfect place and, no matter what, it never will be. There will be crime, injustice, disasters, and all sorts of nasty things happening here and there is not a whole lot anyone can do about it. But, it still is the fairest place to live on the planet. We get to make our own mistakes, and many of us get to learn from them. We make our own way and take care of our own. We also willing help take care of almost anyone who asks us for help, too. Pretty amazing.

So, what is it about us, and our system, that the liberals in power so dislike?