Anchor Rising: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

June 11, 2012

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Patrick Laverty

A few nights ago, I just happened to be reading through David Cicilline's twitter feed and stumbled across this one:

David N. Cicilline ‏@davidcicilline
In the Wisconsin recall, Walker outspent Barrett seven to one. Another reason we need to get corporate money out of politics.

Great! Cicilline is opposed to corporations giving money to campaigns. Hmm, let's take a look over on opensecrets.org as to who Cicilline's donors are.

#1. Waterson Terminal Services. An LLC. LLC stands for "limited liability corporation." Interesting. The Cicilline campaign's #1 donor is a corporation. Ok, fine, let's keep looking.

#2 AmeriPAC: The Fund for Greater America. Well, it's not a corporation, so as long as Cicilline is cool with the Citizens' United decision, then I guess we have no problem with him taking big money from PACs either.

#3. Gilbane, Inc(orporated). Another corporation.

The next four are all tied for fourth place, two unions and two PACs.

#8. Raytheon. Another corporation.

Oh man, check out #12. Could he get any further from his progressive roots than to be taking campaign money from Goldman Sachs? Plus, another checkbox on the page shows he takes money from a Goldman lobbyist.

Continuing on down the list shows some other PACs, some unions and then you get to another interesting one.

Bain Capital.

The list goes on and on. And before anyone says "well yeah but the Republicans do it too", where are the Republicans tweeting complaints about corporate spending on elections?

Here we are, yet again, seeing David Cicilline telling us one thing, apparently what he thinks we want to hear, but then doing the exact opposite.

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A despicable person to be sure, but I don't think this is really hypocrisy. He's saying that the rules of the game should be changed, not that he doesn't play the game.

I think shaking hands is a stupid custom that spreads disease. But I still shake people's hands because the costs of not doing so are too high.

Posted by: Dan at June 11, 2012 10:16 AM

Then change the rules. I guess I missed his bill that would eliminate corporate cash from elections.

But if you want hypocrisy, then how about the complaint about being outspent? He outspent Loughlin two years ago. Langevin always outspends his opponents. Obama outspent McCain and has more money in his campaign than Romney. No complaints about any of those from Cicilline? Or is it just a problem when his guy loses?

Posted by: Patrick at June 11, 2012 11:20 AM

"Bain Capital."

[gasp] There must be some mistake. There is NO corporation more eeeeevil than Bain.

How, HOW [voice rises to a wail] could candidate Cicilline accept their filthy lucre???

Posted by: Monique at June 11, 2012 10:17 PM

More proof that Rep. Cicilline talks out of both sides of his mouth. Still, doesn't this prove how broken our campaign finance system is? Wealthy donors and corporations like Bain and Goldman give to both Democrats and Republicans, often in the same race so clearly they're not donating because of candidates' positions. They donate because they want influence and we've all but legalized bribery.

Posted by: Pardon at June 13, 2012 12:29 PM