You’re a rich girl, and you’ve gone too far
Cause you know it don’t matter anyway
You can rely on the old man’s money
You can rely on the old man’s money -- Hall and Oats Song
Human Events is preparing a story that may involve self-dealing on the part of
3rd District congresswoman Rosa Delauro and her husband Stanley Greenberg,
whose firm, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, has done business with powerful beltway
politicians.
Mr. Greenberg, the CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, boasts that his firm “is
one of the world's premier research and strategic consulting firms. Beyond
data, we provide the strategic insight necessary to develop the right messages
to achieve our clients' goals. Smarter, faster and committed to our clients'
interests: we work harder and think deeper than the rest.”
A list of Greenberg's political clients includes such shakers and movers within the Democratic Party as President Bill Clinton, Vice
President Al Gore, Vice President Walter Mondale and a host of both national
and international corporations and issue groups.
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research specializes in "political polling and
campaign strategy, helping political candidates, parties, and ballot
initiatives succeed across the country and around the world."
The lede of the Human Events story should spur some controversy in Connecticut:
“Federal documents reveal a self-dealing relationship between a Nutmeg State
congresswoman and her political consultant husband.”
At first blush, figures involving campaign contributions transferred over the
years by Mrs. DeLauro to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and
business deals awarded to Mr. Greenberg's firm seem to suggest a connection
that is at best questionable.
According to Human Events:
Federal Election Commission data reveals that over the past four election cycles, Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) donated more than $ 1.2 million dollars to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Over that same time period, the DCCC paid $1.9 million for polling services to Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. GQRR’s founding partner is DeLauro’s husband of 33 years, Stanley B. Greenberg….
DeLauro's campaign donated $275,000 to the DCCC in 2005-2006, nearly double her
$140,000 donation during 2003-2004, and the DCCC paid GQRR $382,996—down from
the $472,708 GQRR received in 2003-2004.
In the 2007-2008 cycle, however, when DeLauro’s campaign presented $51,400 to
the DCCC in October alone, totaling $376,406, DCCC payment to GQRR rose to
$464,200.
In 2009-2010 DeLauro’s campaign raised its special October donation to
$107,500; this increase, added to $325,006 for the entire year, sums to
$432,506. The DCCC paid GQRR in two installments of $298,967 and $289,834,
summing to $588,801, while Friends of Rosa DeLauro ranked among the DCCC’s top
contributors.”
One of the of the wealthiest members of Congress, Mrs. DeLauro has won her past
four elections by unbeatable margins, usually cresting above 20 and even
sometimes 50 percent.
Human Events reports that Mrs. DeLauro may not have communicated to her donors
via e-mails or fundraising letters that a good portion of campaign funds she
has contributed to the DCCC has circuitously made its way back to her husband,
who no doubt is grateful for the business.
Of late, Mrs. DeLauro has not attended closely to events that might well sink
the political prospects of incumbent politicians representing more politically
competitive districts than the 3rd, which has been held firmly in the grip of
the Democratic Party for more than 30 years.
Since the district was first organized in 1837, it has been anchored politically
by one of the state’s largest cities, New Haven, and its suburbs. The district
occupies about four fifths of New Haven County, a small chunk of Middlesex
County and Stratford in Fairfield County. Parts of two other large cities,
Middletown and Waterbury, are also included in the district.
Cities in Connecticut have not shaken off the remnants of political
organizations first formed and employed by party bosses back in the day when
political parties distributed money to its favored politicians and favors to
its generous campaign contributors. For this reason, urban political hubs in
Connecticut tend to wag the district dog. For all but six terms, The Democratic
Party has held the district. Departing U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman suffered his
only general election loss in the district in a 1980 U.S. House race. In 1980,
the price of gas rose above $1.00 for the first time, and in Connecticut’s
cities the fragrant cigar smoke that filled the infamous back rooms of state
politics still scented the air.
Not a few of Connecticut’s cities are still impregnable Democratic castles. But
the trouble with well-fortified fortresses is that the guards on the walls,
trusting in the impregnability of the fortifications, sometime sleep.
When Mrs. DeLauro, usually attentive to her district, lingered among well to do
vacationers at the Hotel Poseidon in Positano on the Amalfi Coast in Italy
while tropical storm Irene ripped through her district last month, some in
Connecticut thought the snoozing was highly uncharacteristic. East Haven was
hit hard, 25 homes along Cosey Beach having been condemned or swept away and
dozens more damaged.
A video clip in which a tongue tied DeLauro seeks to justify her absence was
not the 11 term congresswoman’s finest hour.
Now this.
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