This is an intentionally provocative headline. But I think it’s merited.
Republicans in the past always had a big edge when it came to small donor fundraising because they had a very robust direct mail infrastructure and because the demography of the GOP fit nicely with that kind of fundraising. That began to change dramatically a bit over a decade ago when new organizing and the cash channel of the internet got Democrats into the game with a vengeance – first most visibly with the 2004 Dean campaign and then at an entirely new level with President Obama. They were the most visible. But it was happening in smaller races around the country over the course of the decade. But we’re now seeing, at least on the GOP side, how the Supreme Court’s changes in campaign finance laws are rapidly diminishing the role of small donors.
We made two major upgrades to the site overnight.
One area where we’ve been behind for a while is on our mobile site. Overnight we launched an entirely new mobile site for smartphones. It’s been in development for a few months. It is dramatically faster and smoother than the old site. And it includes access to a number of parts of the site that were never available on smartphone mobile before.
KFC suing Chinese companies for spreading online rumors about KFC using mutant chickens.
John McCain not at all happy with what Rand Paul is doing on NSA: “I know what this is about — I think it’s very clear – this is, to some degree, a fundraising exercise. He obviously has a higher priority for his fundraising and political ambitions than for the security of the nation.”
Rachael Bade and Jennifer Haberkorn have a nice, concise piece on how the GOP big talkers on Obamacare repeal are finding it exceedingly difficult to walk the walk. Turns out health care policy is complicated.
Denny Hastert’s Alma Mater, Wheaton College, a highly regarded Christian college in Illinois, has removed his name for the school’s public policy center.
UPDATE: We’re now back up and running with a new and pretty dramatically improved version of the software that runs public comments and The Hive. We’ll be working on minor fixes through the day.
We’re currently doing an upgrade to the software that manages our commenting system and The Hive. So they are currently offline and will remain so overnight. We will update you here when they are back online.