Some Democrats use Tucson shooting as a focus for political fundraising

In the world of finance, politics is usually not a central focus of money and economic direction in a given micro or macro determination.  Politics instead, uses money and finance as a tool and as a means to forward their purpose, programs, and agenda.

It is because of this today we will look not at the politics of money, but rather, the money of politics.

The nation mourned this past weekend the senseless shootings, and killings by Jarod Loughner in Tucson, and even before the bodies were cold, politicians and media ideologues could not help but use this crisis to their own purposeful agenda.  Having conservative (Sarah Palin) and liberal (MSNBC, Keith Olbermann, etc...) pundits using the tragedy to sensationalize the continuing right wing, left wing argument is one thing, but when elected officials then use an event such as this to profit from it, it is the most shameful of actions any vile person could enact.

This is exactly what happened for two elected officials over the past two days.  One was a direct means of using the event to garner money, and the other used the event as free publicity to further their campaigns.

In an article today from the Canadian Free Press, US Senator Larry Sanders sent out a fundraising appeal on January 11th, just two days after the tragedy, and used the event as his basis for receiving donations.

As Hayes reported, Sanders sent out this fund-raising appeal on January 11, 2011:  “Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country.  I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reelection campaign at bernie.org.  There is no question but that the Republican Party, big money corporate interests and right-wing organizations will vigorously oppose me.  Your financial support now and in the future is much appreciated.”

There is an old saying regarding politicians... when we aren't kissing babies, we're stealing their lollipops.  This action by Senator Sanders is not only vile in regards to the feelings and emotions of Americans during this time, but is absolutely unconscionable.

However, Senator Sanders is not the only one who used the events down in Tucson as free publicity to further their campaigns.  President Obama went down to Tucson, and in a relatively hand-picked audience of college students, pre-meditated the trip by supplying t-shirts and banners advocating his new campaign slogan.

Together We Thrive - Tucson and America

The amount of money it would have cost a Presidential campaign office to have nearly two hours of free publicity, with the audience wearing those free t-shirts is staggering.  Somewhere in the range of 10's of millions of dollars, and perhaps as high as $100 million in free publicity.  The speech only lasted 18 minutes, but this staged event was a good as a speech for the Democratic Nomination shown live on all television networks.

(See pictures in slideshow for the t-shirts, strategically placed on chairs before the audience arrived)

Political analysts have estimated that the cost for the winning candidate in the coming 2012 Presidential election will be in the range of $1 Billion dollars.  You can now chalk up 10% of that value achieved last night when the President spoke on the events down in Tucson, and a message was sent to the Republican party that to defeat Obama in 2012, the monetary playing field will not be even.