It was an honor to be heckled by you Dave - and I mean that in the nicest way.

My take is here:

http://www.bopnews.com/archives/000399.html#000399

David,

In what way is this considered sound thinking and good leadership??

"I am a MoveOn automaton: If they tell me to send them twenty bucks because Zack's dog needs aroma therapy, I send 'em $20."

Did you ever find out Exactly WHAT HAPPENED to the $50 MILLION you helped deliver to the Trippi Movement & Self-congratulations campaign??

If you have, or Anyone has, I've not heard of it. I'm guessing that story wasn't interesting to the "Lords and Ladies" of the Blogdom. I'm outta here for now, looking for such non-interesting stories.

JayT, it was sort of a joke.

I haven't seen the final accounting of the money. Here's what was known as of Feb. 1, as published in USA Today:

Raised $41
Had $8.5 left
Spent: $32.5

Staff expenses: $6.5
Consultants: $2
Ads: at least $7
Direct mail: At least $4.5
Total: $20

I don't know much (= anything) about campaign finance, but I assume there will be an accounting at some designated interval that will explain where the delta of $12.5M went. I'm not expecting any skullduggery.

David,

I get into this "sort-a is" "sort-a isn't" stuff at times, m'self. Anything can be overdone, tho.

Point being raised, however, is to me obviously of the pretty serious variety:

You and Halley and many in Blogaria were instrumental in raising $50 MILLION DOLLARS. Now the question, to me, is whether you were played... You don't expect any skullduggery, and you probably won't find the skullduggery. Because you have yet to see the skullduggery that's already plainly in evidence.

For example:

$2 MILLION in consultants??
6.5 MILLION to staff?? (and from what I gather the paid staff was mostly in their 20's, so you probably did NOT get what you paid for, in this case)
4.5 MILLION for direct mail?? I watched you and Halley write so many letters the summer and fall before, and that was supposedly one-a the strengths of the Trippi Movement, right?

To put it plainly, David, you are IN LARGE PART, responsible for an embarassing extravagance of funds, and that makes you (..logically, as a titled representative of the Dean Campaign, as well as one of the MANY (2 many) leaders of the MOB of "do-gooders"..) in some SMALL part for the extravagance of the expenditures.

It's April 11, and the fact that there is STILL a delta of an unexplained expense of $12.5 MILLION DOLLARS from 4Q, 2003 is, although not an example of skullduggery, plainly an example of irresponsibility.

One doesn't NEED to be a specialist in campaign finance, Blogaria, to be able to do plain math. And the designated interval for figuring out that there was a series of horrendous mistakes, which far over-shadowed any perceived successes, in the Trippi Movement and Self-congratulations campaign you all engineered...? Well, since the interval is self-designated, it will never arrive for some or many.

(And btw: It didn't require an engineering degree to engineer this thing, right?)

Why I get steamed up about this is that $50 MILLION DOLLARS would have bought (due to the exchange rates) an IMMENSE amount of food, medicine, jobs and other necessities of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, to mention just a couple places where the money would have done at least SOME good.

Yet you all continue to shout how important democracy is. Because bloggers, fundamentally, are people that like to hear themselves talk.

And I can almost hear some people saying, "it wouldn'a amounted to 'a pimple on a knat's arse' in these problems"... And perhaps so it is.

But, if you take responsibility for what the "Dean Campaign" did, then you'll note that both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry are projecting this election to cost HUNDREDS of millions of dollars. (You Deaniacs led the way, btw! Congratulations!!)-; Which shows, yet once again, that there's a time-and-place element to these SPLJ, as to when it works well and when it works extremely poorly.

:

And didn't even need Kevin Marks ideas on yeah/nay voting, as the voting/linking was plainly and really-obviously going on last summer and fall. With, to me, predictable consequences being creation, enforcement and continual "re-inforcement" of the echo chamber cause/effect. And it obviously DID NOT work out real well, despite nearly everybody's insistence that it did (and will work even better next time!!)-;

imo/o