Warren, Buttigieg, and finger-pointing about fund raising...the candidates need to focus on real issues...
quote:
Chase Williams grinned broadly as he stood for a photo next to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, chatting briefly with the senator from Massachusetts before moving on so someone else could have their turn.
It was the kind of moment that has become a ubiquitous part of Warren’s presidential campaign and its long “selfie lines,” where supporters wait for hours to pose with her at no charge.
But this shot, taken in October 2017, was at an entirely different kind of event: an exclusive “backstage” reception that took place in the vault of a former Cleveland bank. And that was the day’s low-rent affair — donors who agreed to pay more attended an even more exclusive shindig with Warren that day, according to two people familiar with her schedule.
The events were part of a high-dollar fundraising program that Warren had embraced her entire political career, from her first Senate run in 2011 through her reelection last year. Warren was so successful at it that she was able to transfer $10 million of her Senate cash to help launch her presidential bid.
But in the past year Warren has undergone a transformation, moving from one of the Democratic Party’s biggest draws at high-dollar fundraisers to a presidential candidate who has sworn them off as sinister attempts to sell access.
In a debate last week, Warren criticized rival Pete Buttigieg for having an exclusive fundraiser in a crystal-filled wine cave in Napa Valley, prompting the South Bend, Ind., mayor to respond that she shouldn’t issue “purity tests you cannot yourself pass.”
Williams, who supports Buttigieg in the presidential race, said Warren’s position was “disingenuous.”
I read an account of the wine cave fundraiser from someone who was there. He paid $11 to get in and the wine was just over $100/bottle. He said the other guests there were very far from millionaires.
I increasingly dislike Warren's tactics. This is the third thing I've seen her do recently that I find mean spirited and divisive. And in this case, just plain incorrect
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It was funny, but when pictures were published of the cave itself, it was Kathryn Hall's (former ambassador to Austria)' Rutherford wine cave. I have been there for tasting and it was certainly the most impressive place I have seen in Napa. Even her stainless steel tanks are art. The funny thing is you have to know this place is here. It's not marked and it is very far up the mountains on the east side of the valley. But to call it out as being elite is disingenuous at the very least. It causes folks to mistrust the party's frontrunners.
Another way to look at it is this is the best they could come up with to attack Buttigieg? Really?
-------------------------------- "A mob is a place where people go to get away from their conscience" Atticus Finch
