| Funding for National Conventions always gets a lot of attention. Every cycle people fret about one party or both not making their funding needs. President Obama made it even harder this year for Democrats by disallowing money from corporations and limiting individual funding to under $100,000. According to the Washington Post only about half of the necessary funds have been raised. People are starting to blame convention fundraising head Jim Rogers who is embroiled in a brewing scandal involving the merger of Duke Energy and Progress Energy. Many had hoped that Jim Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy, the giant utility headquartered in downtown Charlotte, would be able to leverage his local credibility and national business connections to bring in the tens of millions of dollars needed to put on the event in early September. Instead, several people with close working knowledge of convention planning said this week that Rogers, consumed with his company’s $26 billion merger with Progress Energy and an ensuing corporate controversy, has been too distracted to devote sufficient time to the convention. - Washington Post
Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx is saying just the opposite Foxx said people shouldn’t believe everything they read but declined to clarify how much has actually been raised. He said fundraising is “right on track.” Pressed for details, Foxx reiterated the challenges of raising money without corporate assistance, but he declined to share any numbers. “Remember that we’re doing something that’s different than any convention in history … to not take money from corporations, PACs and lobbyists,” Foxx said. “And with all due respect to my colleague and friend Mayor Buckhorn, the convention down in Tampa is doing just that. That’s the way things have gone on in the past. We’re building a new kind of airplane.” - News & Observer
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/07/11/2190352/foxx-dnc-fundraising-on-track.html#storylink=cpy
Of course Foxx wouldn't say they're not making their goals. I actually think he is dead on focusing on the lack of corporate money. This was a decision that the Obama campaign made. If you've watched Obama you'll know that he always manages to turn what looks like a pending disaster into an amazingly calculated success. If the necessary funding doesn't come in, the Obama campaign can make up the difference. The goal in all of this is to win North Carolina. If the Democrats take the state again all of this talk of funding shortages will be meaningless. |
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