Snake Oil Salesmen
Get a load of this crapola.
Two top veterans of President Obama’s campaigns are asking political campaigners to pay $5,000 per person for the chance to learn their secrets and then work for five weeks in an unpaid campaign job somewhere in America.
Yeah, it’s Jeremy Bird doing his damnest to turn Democratic politics into WalMart.
He also owns Battleground Texas (where they fight each other) and Ready for Hillary (where they openly admit that they want you to collect emails and phone numbers for them so they can “sell” them to Hillary if she decides to run).
When you put politics in the hands of people who want to get rich off of free labor, you’re might as well try to make honey out of pig poop or go on and elect the Tea Party because that’s what they want, too.
Worthless as corn flake recipes. I’ll tell you something – I’d rather have a four card flush than these guys.
Progressive Texans don’t know whether to laugh our butts off or to be totally mortified. Mostly, we’re pretty damn mortified. Here’s what the Texas Democratic Party does. We train them for free and pay them to work and get experience. You know, like American do.
Thanks to everybody for the heads up.
Free enterprise and all that. I also think that people should volunteer to work the polls but somehow we don’t get enough volunteers to staff the polls. I appreciate all the Battleground Texas workers for getting tons of potential voters registered. I think they also ought to promise not to use the names and addresses for candidates but I guess that is just too big a temptation.
1Juanita Jean and Marge Wood, more “Snake Oil Salesmen,” as examples of the failure of trickle down economics. It doesn’t trickle down, when the sticky fingers at the top grab onto every loose dollar. But, that’s the Republicans.
Marge Wood, volunteers are wonderful, but the reality is it’s the remaining segment of our society who are either retired and can afford the time, or those of us who can afford to take some time out from earning a buck to donate some time, are a dwindling breed, no thanks to austerity economics.
Senator Warren scares the living Scrooge out of the Rethugs. Imagine all the college energy that would be volunteering, if not for their student loan debt and need to work a job or two to live on Top Ramen. Minimum wage, equal wage, fair wages and a path to citizenship? All poison to the Repukes who rig elections, gerrymander districts and do every dirty trick in the book to delay their final ouster/demise.
2014, ladies and gentlemen, let’s metaphorically water board the GOP into oblivion. The sooner they go, the better the future of our country.
2Polite Kool Marxist, so true!
And the retired so often can’t work on “causes” these days because they are pitching in with child-care, etc. to help out their adult offspring.
The harder the 1% make it for the former Middle Class, the less time that Middle Class has to fight back.
Historically this kind of situation has ended with a huge number of citizens left with nothing else to lose–and then there is big messy upheaval that could have avoided had there been wise governance.
3OldMayfly, you nailed more parts of the diabolical Koch run GOP plan. Too sad, too bad for the ancient sons of the John Birch Society, Fred Koch the tyrant. With social media and wonderful people like Juanita Jean, their billions are losing to candidates who “get” what we the people want.
No wonder after all their greedy 1% media grabs, they are now trying to destroy net neutrality. Cannot pretend to understand them, beyond the biological level of parasites that would destroy their hosts.
Way to go Chuckie and Duvidele, destroy the working and middle classes. Prediction. If you have your own way, you’ll die of starvation sitting in soiled Attends. We won’t be around to change them for you. Seriously, boys, do you even know where your own kitchens are or how the food got there?
Bring back the death tax to ensure there’s not another generation of moochers ready to destroy the environment.
4Never could understand internships, like the ones colleges think are so good for the students. Recently met a student on an internship. For that matter, a year of internships, a new one every quarter. Had to do that in order to graduate with the degree program of her choice. Well, I bet her choice would have been NOT to have to work at a paying job every day after the internship finished, just to have a roof over her head at night and to pay the college tuition. Frankly, I think all she ever really learned was what it was like to be a slave! Take that, top notch college!
5Yeah, I saw a Tweet from local uber-activist Erik Vidor about this (appearing to offer his services similarly), and thought he was just being, you know, entrepreneurial.
Capitalism is a wonderful thing, but it requires a certain number of rubes to have the most successful business model. Good thing we have plenty of those in Texas.
Is this a part of the Texas economy we should thank Rick Perry for?
6Regarding help at the polls, here in Pennsyltucky, local high schools require students to do some form of com8munity service (spend a day cleaning a park, help at Special Olympics, etc.) One option is poll worker. They get paid and get to take a day off (it’s a long day, 6:30 am to 9 pm) but the ones that have worked with me have enjoyed it. (Okay, I feed them and tell them embarrassing stories about myself.) Some conservative leaning kids get their first exposure to liberals in my polling place.
7PDiddie, politics for corporate profit is indeed an ugly business. There’s something very different about a candidate asking for volunteers to get elected and a corporation asking for volunteers to make money for them.
8I completely agree, JJ.
9Damn. I didn’t realize that Battleground Texas was a private enterprise. I thought it was a project funded by the national party and was working with the state party.
10I had a big run-in a year ago with Battleground Tx when I was pulling together our county party’s booth at the West Tx Fair and Rodeo. Couldn’t get a contact, couldn’t get a central phone number, couldn’t get any literature for the booth. We had 1 danged bumpersticker on display because I had received it in the mail after a contribution. Had no idea I had contributed my measly $25 to a corporation, instead of a philanthropic/political volunteer organization. I had a slew of volunteers go down to become voter registrars at the booth, didn’t get so much as a sign saying Register Here, Battleground Texas. I was chosen back in January to “be an intern”, but then had to take on the major care of my 82 year old Mom, which may or may not be as many hours as the kid who is now in Abilene, working as the Battleground Tx Coordinator. I let him crash on my couch for the first week he was here, we basically never even saw one another except in passing by the coffee pot in the morning since I had to get over to “do the Mom routine” fairly early, he slept in, and didn’t get back to my place around 11 pm at night…. long after I had collapsed in bed with a big glass of wine and a bag of chocolates. I fed him, doggy-bagged him leftovers from Mom’s meals, made sure he had a breakfast of sorts, before he spent hours on the phone recruiting volunteers and doing phone banks. Last I heard, he was in need of another crashpad, after staying with our county chair for a month…. and last I heard, they were having a hard time getting another good soul to put the kid up for a while in their house for free. What a screwed up mess Battleground Texas is…. but then I knew that a year ago. Now, to find out it is a “for profit enterprise?” Grrrrrrrr……
11Yeah, Miss Prissybritches, Ole Bubba and I housed one of their “interns” for 6 weeks last summer. She was a charming young woman from Florida who was headed for Harvard. We fed her, housed her, gave her gas money, and some extra for necessities because she came from a very modest background. Please understand that we were delighted to help, except when we found out how much money was being fed back to 270.
12There were two major selling points when BGTX invaded the state to rape us. 1) We are going to register all these new voters and 2) we are going to increase turnout. Now I realize I was in the hospital when visited by these folks in Feb or March of 2013, but my problems were not mental, so I remember the conversation vividly. I have watched as foks drank the Kool Aide and people who have been friends and allies have literally turned agsint one another to see who willl get the credit and/or the money and I only have to ask this question. Just where are these loads of newly registered voters. Surely there should be some number
13out there to prove this has happened. I mean if on Feb 1, 2013 you have 10 registered voters, then on July 1, 2014 you have 12…you registered 2…Get the picture. And about this increasing turnout. We had something called a Texas Dmocrtic Primary back in March. Seems to me I remember real well it was one of the lowest turnouts Texas hs seen for a Democratic primary. Now I know there was bad weather and wendy was unopposed and folks supposedly just weren’t interested, but we are going to increase turnout and in fact turnout dive bombs. Last time I checked the Texans or Cowboys don’t just put the players on the field with no training or a couple of exhibition games..and that is what primaries are for the uninformed…before league play starts. Well, if the BGTX experience with turnout was our primary, guess what, in every school I ever attended, I would have received an F for the effort put forth as evidence and my team will be run over liked smushed armadillo in the middle of 59S And then, my friends, there is the matter of money….Just what in the hell has all this money that has been donated gone to do? What benefit has been servived from it. Seems a little shakey to me when all I can see is bloated salaries paid to fok I would wager a bet will not be around as soon as the polls close November 5 – never to return to Texas until or if there is a gathering of dumb ass Texans gathered in one location they can drag the bucket thru and the gullible and desperate are promised the multiple orgasmic effects of electoral benefits. My bet is Texas Democrats go to bed alone, without any covers left on the bed and shivering as though we were in ALaska while the “big” folks laugh their asses off at us.
IS Battleground Texas a corporation? I looked around and couldn’t find that. And all corporations are not bad. My ignorance is vast and limitless.
14When it comes to getting a campaign job, I’ve always heard that you have to volunteer first unless you “know someone” who can hook you up immediately to do something other than endless door-knocking and phone-banking. Now you have to *pay* to volunteer? Really? We are going backwards.
I don’t like the emphasis on foreign students for this course either. That brings in folks who have the money to travel overseas, but forgets about the rest of us who are already here and who could really use the training but can’t afford it. I’ve tried to take two political campaign training courses in the past, but I could not afford the tuition which was just a fraction of what these 270 people are charging. I applied for scholarships, but I did not have anyone to sponsor me (e.g., a political organization or a labor union), so I was rejected for the scholarships and couldn’t get the campaign training. I could have used the training and subsequently the paying job I would have gotten out of it. This paying-to-volunteer-on-a-campaign idea does set a negative precedent, and if it succeeds, this will become the norm.
15Ah. See, I never aspired to have a job running a campaign or anything like that. Foreign students? Why? Our students aren’t good enough?
16This makes me sick to my stomach. We just had a Battleground Texas person speak to our county Democratic Club at my invitation. I was not aware of this BS that Jeremy Bird is pulling or that he “owns” Battleground Texas. I thought Battleground was a “grass roots” organization. Shoulda’ done my homework. The young woman from BT was well informed and well spoken. She did not ask for donations to Battle Ground, only volunteers for phone bank and voter registration. She has a huge multi-county territory to cover and I truly felt sorry for her. I wonder if their volunteers even know about this.
17I wonder how much $$$ Wendy’s campaign is paying to Jeremy Bird et al to “be her ground operation” . . ? ? ? Makes me livid.
18Juanita Jean: Don’t get me wrong… I was more than happy to let the Battleground Tx kid crash on my couch, after a 10 pm emergency phone call one night… because it was either my couch, or his car… and I had no problem letting him do the same thing until some other place could be secured. Throwing a tuna sandwich in his direction at 11 am, or 11 pm, not a problem. Handing him a SeaBreeze at the end of a very long day, or a glass of wine. No big deal. He is “A Machine”. Throwing his thrice-worn tshirts and underwear into my washing machine… no problem…. (He was letting his clothes “air out on my patio” at night.) Letting him come and go as his schedule dictated… ditto. I was so busy dealing with my Mom, by comparison, Michael was a piece of cake… especially in light of the fact that my Mom has to have her blood sugar checked 4 times per day, shoot up with insulin, and is in stage 4 renal failure…. Michael was literally a piece of cake. Like you, I am SO PEEVED that kids like this are knocking themselves out (Michael is from Idaho, and about 22 years of age, or so), and folks like Jeremy Bird are raking off the cream. Not amused. Not amused at all.
19@Marge #16 – I reckon our own homegrown American volunteers are too damn poor to afford the $5,000 tuition, so wealthy foreigners are being targeted. This is the workshop website “270 Strategies”:
http://www.270strategies.com/page/content/360training/
and this is the paragraph that pushes for “international organizers” to apply (read that as: “wealthy Europeans who can afford this luxury since unemployed and poorly paid Americans can’t”):
“Participants from outside the United States are encouraged to apply. The 270///360 Training is designed to give international organizers experience in state-of-the-art US campaigning. You’ll learn how to build strong teams of volunteers; use the press to help your cause; amplify your digital efforts on Twitter, Facebook and email; and develop data and analytics skills to make sure your voters come to the polls on Election Day.”
20Boy, 270 has the gall of a canal mule. I’m all for starting your own business but this is kind of a different kettle of fish. If 270 wants to help young folks they oughta at least have some scholarships.
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