Local political stengography, post-Cheney visit
So, my daily Google News Alert for Randy Kuhl comes in email today. A few articles, mostly about Cheney coming to fundraise for Kuhl. Yawn, we’ve been there. Literally. The snippet in one of the articles, from News 10 caught my eye:
Cheney visits Rochester, endorses Kuhl for Congress
9/23/06
Vice President Dick Cheney brought in a chunk of change for Congressman Randy Kuhl Friday night. In Rochester, about 200 hundred people paid a total of $200 thousand dollars to meet Cheney and hear him endorse Kuhl for New York’s 29th Congressional District.
It’s amazing they would be able to irritate me in so many ways, with such sloppy journalism, in a single paragraph. Here’s why:
1) Every new story I hear about the fundraiser conflates the number of folks attending. First it was 150, then 180, now 200? I had the good fortune to check out WROC’s News8 Now right after the event, when their crack reporter, Dave McKinley, said how it really went down. If any of you have an in with News 8, and can get a clip of it, I would appreciate it. I want everyone to see it. It’s really so simple and yet star journalism in my book. He reported that there were about 40 empty seats up until the VP got there, and they filed in about 40 volunteers to fill up the seats.
2) $200 thousand? Really? Says who? My history teacher in high school would’ve seriously dinged me if I’d just stated a “fact” like that with nothing to back it up, not even a “Kuhl campaign says”. At least do the lame fall-back of “some analysists say”, instead of “we don’t have to attribute anything, we get our info direct from the mothership circling Alpha Centauri!”
3) Let’s do some math. 140 people * $150/seat = $21000. Even if each one of those paying customers got their pic taken at $1000 each, that’s still only $140,000. Plus $21K for the dinner gives you $160 K. I GUESS you could round up to $200 K but with the relatively small amounts of cash on hand in this race, $40K makes a big difference, and my suspicion is that they made a lot less than what this article reports. Money goes to money, even to the perception of money. Overstating the amount (by a LOT) has the potential to excite their base, and demoralize ours. We’re not a bunch of wilting flowers, but come on, press, at least ACT like you’re trying to do the right thing.
I’m curious what reality Kuhl’s campaign filings will show.
4) They don’t even attribute the article to anyone. No reporter, nothing. Or maybe the reporter knew it was such a chop job that they didn’t want their name put on it.
Yep, once again, file under “Liberal Media? Yeah right.” Score another one for the GOPs Mystery Stenographer Corps.
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I thought the best part of the story was Kuhl’s quote on what went on at the reception:
“Some of the people here gave him some good ideas that he mentioned that he’d never heard of before. That could save us millions upon millions of dollars as we go forward,â€ÂÂ
Right…
I hate to think of who “us” is, given that he was in a crowd of rich Republicans, and the specifics of how those millions are going to be saved. I can just see it now…”VP Cheney, your Most Terrible and Honorableness, sir.” “You may speak.” “Why don’t we “save” millions in Medicaid costs– by eliminating the program!” “Yesss…yessss!!! I like how you think. Rise, and join me in my limo.”
Tax cuts “saved” lots of money. For the wealthiest in the country. And costed joe taxpayer more since the small cut we’ve seen has been more than eaten up by rising costs and stagnant/negative wage growth.
I think they’re lying about how much money they took in.
[...] It would be interesting to know how much Cheney’s visit cost Monroe County taxpayers. Rerouting buses, sending out extra policemen to deal with traffic problems and the like — these things cost money. And the time thousands of local residents had to wait in traffic ought to be worth something too. I’ll bet that when you add it all up and factor in the cost that the federal government paid for Cheney’s air travel, that it comes to a lot more than the $175,000 Kuhl claims to have raised at the fundraiser. [...]