Linda, Meet Nancy: I’m Sure You Have a Lot to Talk About
A former Reagan administration official and once President Bush’s choice for labor secretary, Ms. Chavez now sits at the helm of a political empire that includes antiabortion, anti-union, anti-affirmative action and pro-Republican groups. What was fascinating, and disturbing, about The Post’s report was how little of the donations these groups collected were spent on their goals and how much went to various Chavez relatives. Of $24.5 million raised by the political action committees from 2003 to 2006, just $242,000 went to contributions to political candidates, and even less — $151,236 — was spent on political activity. Instead, the money was plowed back into fundraising and operations — and to pay Chavez family members: Ms. Chavez, her husband and her sons received more than $260,000 from the political action committees over the past five years and even more from the nonprofit groups. As Ms. Chavez told The Post, “I guess you could call it the family business.”
Although Linda Chavez represents antiabortion groups, I am sure that she and Nancy Keenan, National President of NARAL have a lot in common.
Neither spends spend much of the money they rake in on the actual interests they purport to represent: instead, it’s plowed into more fundraising.
Don’t reward failure. Tell your friends. Don’t give money to NARAL when they come knocking on your door to tell you that choice is going down the crapper unless you give them a lot of money, because what you’ll be giving money for is Nancy Keenan’s ability to point her little pinky over tea at Washington cocktail parties and tut-tut over the state of choice in this country at the hands of the fundamentalists. She’ll take no responsibility for the fact that NARAL will not fight, will not back those that fight, and worse yet, that NARAL sucks up all the pro-choice money so nobody else can mount a meaningful fight, either.
One Response to “Linda, Meet Nancy: I’m Sure You Have a Lot to Talk About”
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August 18th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I compare the pitches that ‘issue advocacy companies’ like NARAL, NRA and both the Republican and Democratic parties to sleazy life insurance salesmen:
“God forbid, something should happen to (x). You wouldn’t be able to do (y), and (z) would become mandatory. Everything would suck then. Can’t you give us a little money to prevent this?
Some of these businesses (and that’s what they are, businesses- no matter if there aren’t shareholders, people are making money from these pitches) have the advantage that there’s an opposing side whipping up their side as well so the issue doesn’t go away.
I think that’s why the Democrats gave Bush & Co. everything they wanted- it will make for better fundraising.