Balloon Juice, in a long post about Democratic fundraising and double standards, quotes from
a story from the Washington Post three months ago:
Democrats are kicking off a backdoor way of financing their 2004 congressional campaigns today with the very type of unlimited donations from corporations, unions, and individuals that many party leaders had vowed to flush from the political system.
The strategy involves setting up two new groups unmistakably aligned with the Democratic Party's longstanding campaign organizations for the House and Senate. Technically, the two groups are not arms of the Democratic Party, a key distinction, because the nation's new campaign finance law bars lawmakers from soliciting ''soft money,'' the unlimited money that politicians still crave.
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and minority whip Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, will headline a fund-raising event tonight at the Hotel George for a new group called the New House PAC.
Tonight, the group will raise ''hard money,'' a limited, regulated type of donation that lawmakers can legally solicit. But the group plans to ask donors for soft money later this year and to serve as a sort of shadow campaign committee for the Democratic Party, according to sources familiar with the effort.
Where's the outrage?
