Clinton campaign rents out its donor list to marketing firm

[anigbrowl]

I must admit I am very surprised by this, and my astonishment grew as I read the full story.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18958566

"Political campaigns spend thousands, even millions of dollars to acquire good mailing lists. Last year, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton took the unusual step of renting out some of her lists. The transaction once again highlights the Clintons' connections to a businessman who now faces questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reports from Clinton's campaign show that on Dec. 3, it collected payment for renting out three mailing lists, the sale of which netted them $8,225.

It was an unusual transaction, according to Roger Craver, a liberal guru of the political direct-mail industry. "As a general rule, a campaign will not let its donor list out into the markets until the campaign is over," he said. "This is the mother's milk of small-gift fundraising, and they use these lists frequently." There are no records that any other presidential candidates rented out mailing lists last year.

Several sources who work in political consulting and in direct mail, who would not speak for attribution, said they were surprised by the deal, as well as its low price. According to one direct-mail professional, $800,000 would have seemed like a more plausible price for a quality list. A political consultant suggested that the list broker's unidentified client could have rented the list as a sample one — to do a test-run mailing.

<...>

The Clinton campaign said Wednesday that the lists were rented out by her 2006 Senate campaign committee — and that the rentals took place before she began her formal campaign for president last January. That would mean the rental fees went unpaid for at least 11 months. Starke, the analyst, cites Info U.S.A. data showing that on average, it settles accounts within 64 days."

Much more info at the link.

Now bear in mind that this is not a violation of your privacy, as such - after all, your donation has to be recorded for the federal election commission and those records are public. I know which businesses in my neighborhood are owned by Republicans vs. Democrats, for example, as I can see which ones have made political donations to the Bush campaign. And this is the sort of tool a lot of fundraisers use to identify potential investors or donors for a new business or nonprofit.

On the other hand, FEC records just contain your name, address, donation amount, and recipient. Campaigns may have a lot more info on you that they collect for demographic purposes - your age, race, income, size of family and so on. Precisely what information is stored/shared by the Hillary Clinton campaign, I don't know.

[Little Star]

1. You could at least have the whole story before you sling this crap.

[anigbrowl]

3. Well, you can give me links to more of it.

Also, I made a point of including the Clinton campaign's explanation in my excerpt. Not including the whole story was so as to comply with rules about posting copyrighted material.

[Bucky]

7. There's a slight difference between "crap" and "facts I don't like"

There was a good amount of detail in that post. The information it's missing is info not known to the general public.

[KittyWampus]

17. #1.the list was WORTH $800,000 not the $8000 paid #2 Gupta's paying Bill Clinton millions f/nothing

and has a long history of giving Clintons large amounts.

#3. Gupta was sued by shareholders for wasting so much on Bill Clinton

#4. Gupta is being investigated by SEC


According to one direct-mail professional, $800,000 would have seemed like a more plausible price for a quality list. A political consultant suggested that the list broker's unidentified client could have rented the list as a sample one — to do a test-run mailing.

But most intriguing of all was the renter of the Clinton list: a list brokerage company that is a subsidiary of one of the data-collection industry titans, Info U.S.A.

Info U.S.A.'s CEO is Vinod Gupta, a close ally of both Clintons. Gupta's empire also includes the Opinion Research Corporation, which conducts the political polling for the television network CNN.

Vin Gupta has a long history of giving and raising campaign money for the Clintons, and gave $1 million for the 2000 Millennium Celebration, a New Year's Party thrown by the Clintons.

When he was president, Bill Clinton named Gupta to the Kennedy Center board of directors. Gupta also got to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. He gave another million to the Clinton Presidential Library.

The library is run by the National Archives, but Bill Clinton raised the money for its construction and always refused to identify his major donors.

Last fall, ABC News reported that the library rented out a portion of its donor list to a list broker — the same one that rented Hillary Clinton's campaign lists.

Gupta spent $900,000 of corporate money flying the Clintons to various destinations. The Clinton campaign said in May that Info U.S.A. had been reimbursed to comply with federal campaigning and ethics rules.

After the Clintons left the White House, Gupta hired Bill Clinton as a consultant. It's one of two continuing business relationships he has had since leaving office, and it has been worth $3.3 million, in addition to the options on 100,000 shares of stock.

When challenged about that outlay of cash to the former president, Gupta has said Clinton is worth $40 million to the company.

Kevin Starke is a stock analyst in Connecticut who follows Gupta's company.

"If it were me, and I had hired Bill Clinton to the tune of $3 million, I think I would try to make a fairly distinct case for why that was money well spent, and I'm not entirely clear on why he hasn't done so," Starke said.

The corporate spending on behalf of the Clintons helped fuel a shareholder lawsuit against Gupta and 10 corporate directors.

There are plenty of other allegations in the suit about homes, cars, and a yacht for Gupta. A Delaware chancery court judge dismissed some of the allegations involving the Clintons. But the case is still proceeding. It has led to an informal inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is also asking if Gupta misspent corporate funds.

"It's not a company that's threatened with bankruptcy or anything like that. It needs probably to be run with more of a view toward generating value for all shareholders, and not just the main shareholder," Starke said.

[sniffa]

2. Is she that hard up for money?

Also that unethical?

Is she going to sell the lists she bought during her Presidential run?

[anigbrowl]

4. In money terms no.

The low price paid by the renter looks like it may have been a 'friend price'. I find it hard to believe they would rent out the list for a test mailing; usually a smsall fraction of a list is rented out. If you rent the whole thing, then there's nothing to prevent the client just copying it, which is why these lists fetch a high price when rented out.

Ethically, I really can't say. I suppose it depends partly on what the list would be used for.

[Bucky]

9. Depends on the "test mailing". This may just be outsourcing.

Whatever she's gonna do, she's gotta do in the next 10-12 days. That's a big operation to turn around the campaign and I imagine she doesn't want to divert internal campaign resources to some new project. Bringing in someone else is a good management tactic, especially if it's a trial mail out that she might want to keep her distance from.

I assume whoever leaked this story is someone who thinks mischief could be afoot.

[KittyWampus]

19. Sniffa, the money $8000 was a fraction of what it was worth. It was worth $800,000.

Read the article.

This isn't about Clinton's making a small bundle of money.

They sold very valuable and quality info for peanuts to a corrupt crony who has a long history of paying Bill Clinton millions for doing nothing.

And this crony is being sued for giving Bill Clinton that much for doing nothing... and he's being investigated by the SEC

[sandnsea]

23. Yep, Vin Gupta

I've been talking about their connection to corrupt Indian businessmen for months.

He's one that I've been talking about, there are more.

"..Such expenditures caught the attention of fund managers who had invested in infoUSA. The funds filed a lawsuit last year accusing Mr. Gupta of wasting millions of dollars on the payments to Mr. Clinton, as well as houses, cars and a yacht for himself and corporate-jet flights for the Clintons and Mr. McAuliffe. Mr. Gupta denies misspending company money.

The funds have also questioned Mr. Gupta’s decision to pay a substantial premium last December to acquire the Opinion Research Corporation, which has done opinion surveys for CNN since April 2006. In January, CNN began using Opinion Research for its presidential polling, leading conservative bloggers to ask if Mr. Gupta, as a Clinton supporter, should have influence over CNN’s polling..

Mr. Gupta began to withdraw from Democratic politics after The New York Times and other papers ran articles in May about the lawsuit, and about the sales of infoUSA call lists to telemarketers who exploited the elderly."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/us/politics/14gupta.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

[KittyWampus]

25. I live on Long Island NY. I will tell you that Indian real estate moguls are buying up areas

and running roughshod over rules and regulations.

Like the Russians and Irish and Italians, there is probably an element of organized crime.

What I find especially disconcerting about Gupta is his ties to CNN and sensitive information data.

[AnOhioan]

5. Disgusting

I have worked on several campaigns, from local races to the '04 Presidential race. The hard rule was donor lists were never to be sold or used outside of the campaign, even after the campaign ended. Any candidate who would sell, or derive income from, a donor list lacks integrity in my book.

[dcindian]

kinda explains her telecom protectionism

Just doesn't give a crap about our constitutional right to privacy.

[msongs]

8. so john I give up kerry did not give out his email list to Mr. anybody? nt

[AnOhioan]

10. Have no idea...if he did, same feeling applies

[Hav]

12. I don't think he did.

From what I heard, he only used it to ask for donations for Obama. I never heard about Kerry selling these lists.

[AnOhioan]

24. I have no problem with......

a candidate or former candidate using his/her own list to solicit for other candidates. It is the outright selling that strikes me as unethical.

[HeraldSquare212]

6. There was some kind of controversy about Wolfson

creating a direct mail company or something. People were pissed that she used everyone's donations to create a great list and then tried to make money off of it, instead of sharing it with other candidates and the party.

[HeraldSquare212]

22. Democrats' Data Mining Stirs an Intraparty Battle

This is what I was referring to - people were pissed that the Clintons (or, there high-level staff people), were duplicating the DNC efforts and setting up a for-profit entity instead of helping other Dem candidates.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701860.html

A group of well-connected Democrats led by a former top aide to Bill Clinton is raising millions of dollars to start a private firm that plans to compile huge amounts of data on Americans to identify Democratic voters and blunt what has been a clear Republican lead in using technology for political advantage.

The effort by Harold Ickes, a deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House and an adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is prompting intense behind-the-scenes debate in Democratic circles. Officials at the Democratic National Committee think that creating a modern database is their job, and they say that a competing for-profit entity could divert energy and money that should instead be invested with the national party.

-snip-

[Araxen]

11. Sadly

This doesn't surprise me. I would never ever support a candidate that sold my name to other companys.

[madrchsod]

13. wow does this smell like rotten fish

http://www.dmnews.com/InfoUSA-shareholder-lawsuit-upheld-with-some-exceptions/article/98217/
InfoUSA shareholder lawsuit upheld, with some exceptions - DMNews


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/AR2007112102280.html
SEC Opens Investigation of Company Headed by Key Supporter of Clintons - washingtonpost.com

[Alhena]

14. A question for you guys who donate to candidates ...

if you donate, do you end up on some political mailing/call list and have to fight off other Democratic candidates asking for money for the rest of your life?

I've thought about donating to Obama, but I loate telemarketers and worry about getting on some call list.

[quakerboy]

30. I have donated to Kucinich(for example)

This time and last. Ive gotten no calls from it. Granted, not having a home phone may contribute to not getting calls

[Stephanie]

15. They have your phone number, your email address...

It's bizarre they sold them before the campaign was over.

[jmg257]

16. Kinda like pimping out her donors? Well - at least their info....wow....

[THUNDER HANDS]

18. this really aught to be illegal

[KittyWampus]

20. It is, to the extent Gupta is being sued by his shareholders for paying Bill Clinton millions to do

nothing. But then, on the other hand the shareholders should be happy since the Clintons "rented" info worth $800,000 for only a fraction ($8000).

[johnnydrama]

29. and the problem there is

To defend himself, he might have to explain exactly what Bill Clinton was doing for him. No businessman gives out millions of dollars to somebody without expecting something in return.

[Barack_America]

21. Well, I guess that once you've got your $2300...

...who cares about your donors anymore? :eyes:

[Spangle]

26. Isn't it public info anyway?

Aren't they required to turn in the names of ALL their donors? Isn't there a website on line where you can enter a name, and it will state if that person donated to someone, and how much. Even how many times?

Good lord!

[MagickMuffin]

28. Sure, you can go to the FEC, and search their records

The BIG difference in this case is they SOLD the info.

NOT KEWL.

[Spangle]

31. If I could get you to pay for something you could get free

I think that would be pretty cool.

AGain, seriously. This is one of those non news storys that they are making a big deal out of. When this stuff happens, I always wonder why.

And why does these sort of stories tend to be big deal with Democrats, but with Republicans, it gets no ink or yak.

[Araxen]

27. If Obama ever did that

I would flip him the bird and vote for Hillary or whomever the other candidate is. This just shows a lack of respect for your supporters. I can't believe this is pissing me off as much as it is. This is just inexcusable for anybody running for office to do this.

[TexasObserver]

32. She's been selling out so long, it's hard to stop.