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I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:
To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.
To post relevant news items or videos.

There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges.


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Wednesday, April 6, 2016

John Oliver on Congressional Fundraising




This is an excerpt about Congressional Fundraising from John Oliver's HBO show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. It's too bad this wasn't out when we covered the topic but fundraising is quite important now. The House is in play for the Democrats this year so Republicans are focusing on fundraising for their most vulnerable candidates and Obama is busy fundraising for Democratic Members. I knew and the class taught us that Reps. and Senators spend a decent amount of time fundraising but this video suggests that they spend even more time than I had envisioned and sometimes do ridiculous things for $$$! 2/3 of a Senator's time?!

The highlight is the interview with Steve Israel (D-NY), Committee Chair of the DCCC, near the end.

I personally feel that campaign finance reform is something that is seriously needed for reasons in principle and in practice. Trump, Clinton and Sanders have all indicated support for it to varying degrees while Cruz considers it a form of free speech.

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