corrente

Nice!

The College Republican National Committee is under fire for using front organizations to collect millions of dollars in contributions, including money from elderly people with dementia.

During the 2004 campaign, the group sent out direct-mail solicitations under such letterheads as "Republican Headquarters 2004" and "Republican Election Committee."

One four-page letter asked prospects to send $1,000 together with an American flag pin for President Bush to wear to "Republican Headquarters" to ensure that Bush knows "there are millions who are giving him the shield of God to protect him in the difficult days ahead."

Shameless.

Dan Centinello, New York College Republicans chairman, complained that the national leaders have not taken prompt and decisive action to correct the situation. "I don't want to see hard work by all of us be tarnished by a fundraising scandal," he said.

The [Seattle, hah] Times reported that a number of elderly donors gave far more money than they could afford.

"I don't have any more money," Cecilia Barbier, 90, a retired church worker in New York who made more than 300 donations totaling nearly $100,000, told the paper. "That was all the savings. . . . Now I'm scrounging."

Monda Jo Millsap, 68, of Van Buren, Ark., told the Times that she emptied a savings account, then got a $5,000 bank loan to give a total of $59,000.

In the immediate aftermath, Hoplin e-mailed top state officials of the organization, telling them not to speak to the news media. "We need the story to go away," he wrote. "The story is full of lies and distortions written by a well-known liberal who is out to get us. If the press asks you about it, tell them you have no comment."
(via WaPo)

And we want to put the Republicans in charge of Social Security? When they loot the savings accounts of the elderly of their savings for a political campaign? Say, come to think of it, it's about the same thing, isn't it?

Good to see the DNC and the Beltway Dems and all those consultants really hammering this point home. After all, saving Social Security is important, right? Oh, wait...