Greg Sargent posts the DCCC’s morning fundraising e-mail, written (or “written”) by Nancy Pelosi, informing donors of a memo (obtained by Up With Chris Hayes) from a consulting firm offering a $850,000 PR campaign against Occupy Wall Street. “The bottom line here,” says Sargent, “is that national Dems are not flinching from defending the protests.”
Is it? Let’s just focus (in bold) on how “Pelosi” talks about the subject of the memo.
If you need further proof that Congressional Republicans are putting big Wall Street banks before middle class families, look no further than an explosive memo prepared by former John Boehner staffers-turned-banking lobbyists.
This just-leaked memo details an $850,000 “message war” plan to attack and discredit grassroots citizen movements working to hold special interests accountable.
With just days left until the FEC deadline, we must have a powerful showing to demonstrate our strength and stand up to the Republican assault on hardworking Americans.
Can we count on your support?
Contribute $3 or more today and your generous support will be matched dollar-for-dollar by House Democrats
Republicans and big corporate backers may have Washington special interests, but we have an army of grassroots Democrats made up of committed citizens like you standing with us.
Why are Republican lobbyists panicking? One of the overriding concerns of the memo’s authors is how it will look for their executives to collect multi-million dollar year-end bonuses at a time middle class families are struggling to make ends meet. This is just another example of the misguided priorities of the Republican Party.
The memo goes on to describe a Democratic victory in November as detrimental to Republican special interests. They know a Democratic Majority in Congress will fight for middle class families, and make sure that millionaires pay their fair share and close corporate tax loopholes.
Three words don’t appear in the email: Occupy, Wall, and Street. That’s weird. On October 10, the DCCC sent out an email asking people to sign a petition and “stand with” Occupy Wall Street.
Protestors are assembling in New York and around the country to let billionaires, big oil and big bankers know that we’re not going to let the richest 1% force draconian economic policies and massive cuts to crucial programs on Main Street Americans.
Out-of-touch Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor said he is “increasingly concerned by the growing mobs.” Mobs? That must be what Republicans refer to as the middle class, or maybe the millions of unemployed Americans across the country.
As Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “The message of the American people is that no longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street…”
The new email is vague. There’s not even a link to the Up With Chris Hayes story. But the memo was specific: It was about how the Occupy movement, specifically, could be discredited.
This isn’t mysterious. According to a Gallup poll released yesterday – the second poll like this – the Occupy movement itself is waning in popularity. Approval of the way the movement has “conducted itself” swung from +5 to -11. But approval of the movement’s goals was rising, from +7 to +9. Democrats have to pull a complicated gymnastic trick here, aligning themselves with the message of the movement while distancing themselves from the protests. If the DCCC wanted to declare solidarity with college kids getting pepper-sprayed, it could. Instead, it declared solidarity with people who dislike lobbyists. Pelosi, who lives a short BART ride from Oakland, has nothing to say about how those protests are being conducted. (I see that the Drudge Report is hyping the DCCC email, which tells us that conservatives aren’t going to let Democrats split this difference.)
