03:38 pm
Hurricane Cindy and the RNC’s Potemkin Gustav Relief
On Monday, I had this to say about the the Cindy and Laura show, a.k.a. the Republicans’ hurricane Gustav relief efforts:
Cindy McCain look like, uh. . . . Well. Hmmmm.
How do I put this?
She looks like she spent more money on her dress, pearls, make-up, manicure, and hair than the Republicans will raise on behalf of Hurricane Gustav victims.
Turns out I was more right than I thought:
Yes, something from Arizona was certainly shining at the convention, but it wasn’t the sun. It was Cindy McCain’s citrine dress from Monday night. And her three-carat diamond earrings. Oh, and don’t forget the Chanel J12 white ceraminc watch.
Cindy’s dress, designed by Oscar de la Renta, cost $3,000, and the watch, another $4,500. Her four strand pearl necklace cost between $11,000 and $25,000, and her shoes set her back $600. But the real whoppers were the earrings, priced at $280,000, putting the total cost of the outfit beteween $299,100 and $313,000.
Here’s the only press report I could find about the RNC’s hurricane relief campaign. Just so you know, it’s from Fox:
As Gustav pummels the Gulf Coast, several delegates are missing the breezy, beautiful weather locally to man the phones at a telethon effort set up at the downtown Hilton in Minneapolis. About 150 red phones were set up in the ballroom and Cindy McCain not only helped make the calls, she and husband John McCain donated $25,000 dollars to relief efforts. In all, 90 delegates, volunteers, campaign staff and others in the Twin Cities for the convention were helping out at the telethon.
The telethon opened at 2 p.m. ET and had raised $1.165 million by 3 p.m. ET. One donation was in the form of $1 million, but officials would not release the identity of the donor.
If the $1 million pledge actually comes through, then the Republicans did a worthwhile thing (more on that in a second). But if it didn’t, that means that they raised $165,000, or $140,000 if you don’t count the McCains’ contributions — or about half of what Cindy’s outfit cost.
But even if the $1 million pledge comes through — and even if the RNC/McCain campaign managed to raise more money than this report indicates, there is still one little fact that isn’t going anywhere: Cindy McCain spent between twelve and fifteen times as much on her outfit as she and her husband donated to Hurricane Gustav relief efforts.
And they have the huevos to call Democrats elitist? As Vanity Fair put it, “Wow! No wonder McCain has so many houses: his wife has the price of a Scottsdale split-level hanging from her ears.”
A couple of questions for the McCain campaign:
1. How much did your relief efforts raise?
2. Did your campaign donate the time, website server costs, and other associated expenses? If so, can you account for it? How do you plan to report these expenses to the FEC?
3. Were the relief efforts run out of St. Paul separate from or part of the phone banks set up by the AidMatrix Foundation? If separate, how did you arrange for these funds to get to relief organizations?
4. Both FEC and IRS non-profit reporting rules require the identification of donors, particularly large donors. Why are you not identifying the donor who made the $1 million pledge?
5. How much did Cindy’s outfit really cost?
This whole McCain/RNC Gustav relief operation looks more and more unreal. Not illegal, mind you, but suspiciously like a Potemkin Village. Earlier this week, I raised other questions about the McCain relief effort, focusing on the relationship between he McCain campaign, the Bush Administration/FEMA, and AidMatrix, the charity that supposedly is managing the money (and which received a big FEMA contract in 2006):
Aidmatrix may be an entirely legitimate organization, but there’s a real lack of transparency regarding how they got the FEMA contract and how they got involved in the McCain campaign.
To learn the truth, Aidmatrix, FEMA, and the Bush Administration need to answer some questions:
1. How did Aidmatrix get its FEMA grant? Was it sole-sourced or competed? How much is it for? What percentage of Aidmatrix’s budget comes from the FEMA grant?
2. If [Aidmatrix's] main focus is logistics — using “advanced information technology to create efficiencies between donors and those in need” — what are they doing managing donations for the McCain website? And where will these donations go after they receive them?
3. Did Aidmatrix get the hurricane relief gig because of [Aidmatrix CEO, McCain supporter and former Wisconsin Governor Scott] McCallum’s connections with the McCain campaign?
4. If not, why did McCain choose Aidmatrix instead of better-known and more established non-partisan humanitarian relief organizations such as the Red Cross?
5. Did AIdmatrix inform and/or clear its involvement in the McCain campaign with FEMA or other U.S. government officials?
To see the full post, go here.