Another day, another desperate email from Team Lightbringer:

Stephen –

I’m the national finance director here at OFA.

I know we’ve been sending you a lot of email lately. That’s because we’re staring down a critical fundraising deadline tomorrow at midnight.

You know what that means for your inbox, but let me give you a sense of what that looks like around here.

The staff and I are working around the clock, powered by too much coffee. It’s been way too long since we called our moms. And we’ve all had more pizza and bad takeout in the past few weeks than anyone should have in a year.

No one’s complaining; that’s what we signed up for. And we’re not doing this just because it’s our job to make sure the campaign has the resources it needs. We’re doing this because it’s part of what defines this movement.

From the beginning, we’ve refused to take money from D.C. lobbyists and corporate special interests. Our operation is fueled by people inspiring each other to take ownership of this campaign.

That’s why we’ve been emailing this week, and that’s why I’m obligated to remind you once more that the deadline is coming up in a matter of hours.

If you’re able to, will you chip in just $3 today?

https://donate.barackobama.com/Friday-Deadline

For all of us here at HQ, and all of the staff and volunteers across the country counting on these resources, I really appreciate your help.

Rufus

Rufus Gifford
National Finance Director
Obama for America

The key line there is this:

From the beginning, we’ve refused to take money from D.C. lobbyists and corporate special interests.

They’re either using a very Bill Clinton-esque dictionary to define “from the beginning” and “corporate special interests” or they’re lying. Because, back in “the beginning”, this is what the top Obama donors list looked like.

Here on the reality side of things, Microsoft, Google, Time Warner and at least half of that list seem so very, very corporate.

This has always been part of the Obama administration’s political genius. It pretends to be all about the little guy while being so in bed with corporate money that it gets turndown service every night. For several weeks now, the president has been walking a tightrope between all-out class warfare speeches that take place immediately prior to fundraising dinners with the very rich people he was just so vehemently excoriating.

The illusion is, of course, maintained with the help of a press corps that rarely asks questions that reveal anything other than how the president is feeling that day. With support cracking in places President Obama probably thought he could count on, there may be a real chance that this “double life” will finally be acknowledged by the progressive base that so loathes all things corporate.

Following a recent, unfavorable Appeals Court decision, observers say Genachowski has been eagerly pursuing a back-door, out-of-sight pathway to achieving a long-time, personal objective: Regulation of the Internet via the institution of so-called Net Neutrality rules.  Reclassifying Internet services as “telecommunications services” would enable him to do just that—though with increased public opposition to Net Neutrality having been voiced during an FCC public comment period that recently closed, and recent polling showing relatively weak support for the policy, it remains a risky option both from a public relations, and political standpoint.

For their part, the ISPs, who together with other members of a broad coalition including a prominent labor union, minority and civil rights groups, and several high-profile Democrats oppose the move, are determined to ensure that Genachowski’s preferred course of action does not go unnoticed, whether the FCC ultimately does “deem and pass,” or not.

The letter, signed by AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and the trade groups both focuses attention on what Genachowski is alleged to be planning, and seeks to debunk some of the talking points being used by supporters of the proposed reclassification.  Chief among those is the argument that the current arrangement, whereby Internet services are not classified as telecommunications services, is the specific result of a policy instituted under the Bush administration, as opposed to a standard that has existed for what one tech policy expert with whom Capitol Confidential spoke called “time immemorial.”  Per the letter, ”the commission has never classified any kind of Internet access service (wireline, cable, wireless, powerline, dial-up or otherwise) as a … telecommunications service, nor has it ever regulated the rates, terms and conditions of that service — Internet access service has always been treated as a Title I information service.”

It is an important point to make, said that same tech policy observer, because if reclassification is ultimately branded as a simple, administrative move designed to fix a bad Bush policy, the Democratic-majority FCC is more likely to approve the change.  If, however, reclassification is accurately viewed and depicted as constituting a “nuclear option,” invoked in smoke-filled backrooms, out of sight of the public, in order to placate Democratic-favorable companies and donors (including the Obama administration-cozy Google), it will be much harder—indeed potentially impossible— for the FCC to approve.

However, the difference between those two positions, and characterizations, could more than anything guarantee that the fight over reclassification could be knock-down, drag-out.  “Net neutrality supporters have a lot invested here,” says the tech policy observer with whom we spoke.  “They’re not prepared to go down without a fight, even if predicated on deeply questionable arguments.”

They were not going to report this blockbuster unless they were forced to. And they were. What’s more, it ain’t over yet. Not every hint I dropped in that piece about what was to come has played itself out yet.Stay tuned.

When filmmaker and provocateur James O’Keefe came to my office to show me the video of him and his friend, Hannah Giles, going to the Baltimore offices of ACORN – the nation’s foremost “community organizers” – dressed as a pimp and a prostitute and asking for – and getting – help for various illegal activities, he sought my advice. In the past, Mr. O’Keefe created brilliant social satire that rocked his college campus and even made its way on to the talk-radio and cable-news shows, but the magnitude of his latest adventure had the potential to rock the political establishment.

I was awed by Mr. O’Keefe’s guts and amazed by the footage, but explained that the mainstream media would try to kill this important and illuminating expose about a corrupt and criminal political racket, and that the well-funded political left would go into “war room” mode, with 25-year-old Mr. O’Keefe and 20-year-old cohort Miss Giles in the cross hairs. I felt I had a moral obligation to protect these young muckrakers from the left and from the media, and to devise a strategy that would force the media’s hand.

Once the American public saw with its own eyes the grotesque, common practices of ACORN’s housing offices, Mr. O’Keefe and Miss Giles could no longer be a legitimate focus of media scrutiny. Kill the messenger doesn’t work with the American people when they realize that the message is so devastating and honest. I think the video exposed the misuse of public funds and systemic manipulation of the tax code in the name of “helping the poor.”

If Mr. O’Keefe dumped the videos on YouTube, the political powers would have killed the expose before it got traction. I half-joked that he should secretly tape pitching the major television networks exclusive use of his videos for their nightly news broadcasts. But a simpler, less controversial method proved as fruitful.

I told him that in addition to launching his compelling and stylized Web videos, we needed to offer the full transcripts and audio to the public in the name of transparency, and to offer Fox News the full footage of each video before each was released.We had to devise a plan that would force the media to see the evidence before they had enough time to destroy these two idealistic 20-something truth seekers. Mr. O’Keefe agreed to post the full audio and full transcript of his video experiences at BigGovernment.com.

Thus was born a multimedia, multiplatform strategy designed to force the reluctant hands of ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post.

Videos of five different ACORN offices in five separate cities would be released on five consecutive weekdays over a full week – Baltimore, Washington, New York, San Bernardino and San Diego. By dripping the videos out, we exposed to anyone paying attention that ACORN was lying through its teeth and that the media would look imbecilic continuing to trot out their hapless spokespeople.

Read the full article at the Washington Times.