Senate: No taxpayer cash for future conventions

The Senate voted by a lopsided margin Thursday to deny future national political conventions millions in federal tax dollars.

If the House goes along, the Democratic and Republican parties in 2016 and beyond would not be able to look to Washington for cash to subsidize staff salaries, catering costs, fancy decorations and other convention-related expenses.

Even if it passes both houses and is signed by the president, it would not affect the Democrats' September gathering in Charlotte or the Republican convention a month earlier in Tampa.

POLITICO reported that Thursday's 95-4 vote was on a bipartisan measure adopted as an amendment to the farm bill. It was proposed by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Mark Udall, D-Colo.

This year, the Charlotte-based Democratic National Convention Committee and its GOP counterpart in Tampa each got about $18.3 million for their respective conventions.

That money, POLITICO reported, came from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, a program bankrolled by about 33 million taxpayers who each year voluntarily check a box on their tax forms directing $3 to the fund, which was established in the 1970s.

"Ninety-nine percent of the American public has no idea when they check the box that we're going to take actual American taxpayer dollars and subsidize party conventions for candidates who have already been decided," Coburn told his colleagues.

Udall cast the vote as a sign that Congress is serious about cutting unnecessary spending: "This is a way to get our fiscal house in order. It's a small step, but it's an important step."

POLITICO reported that the amendment would not affect federal money that goes to cities hosting the conventions to help pay for stepped-up security. Congress has already appropriated $100 million for that.

To read the complete story: http://www.politico.com/.

A dazzling exhibit hopes for POTUS visit

Hoping for a POTUS siting is Eleanor Brawley. She’s curator of the "Families of Abraham" photo exhibit that will return to the Levine Museum of the New South on June 24 and stay through convention week.

Its portraits of Jewish, Christian and Muslim families in the Charlotte area dazzled many when it first appeared at the uptown museum in late 2006.

Brawley told us she is hoping the president takes some time to check out the exhibit, and is so taken with it that he then finds a prominent place for it in Our Nation’s Capital.

She has her reasons for believing it could happen. Reason No. 1 is this quote from his 2009 inauguration: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers."

Hear any convention talk? Message Tim Funk at tfunk@charlotteobserver.com. Or call: 704-358-5703
-Tim Funk 

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/06/12/3323312/coalition-group-who-got-contracts.html#storylink=cpy

Will there be an Obama sighting at a Charlotte church?

Will the Obamas do any church visiting when they’re in town for the convention?

If they do, we at the Dish are betting they show up at Friendship Missionary Baptist.

Hear us out: Among the many prominent members of this African-American megachurch on Beatties Ford Road are Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx and former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt -- both in the forefront of bringing the convention to CLT.

And if that’s not reason enough to merit an appearance by the First Family, consider the quilts.

Let us explain: The ladies in the quilting ministry at Friendship stitched five quilts -- one each for the president, the First Lady, their two daughters and the First Mother-in-Law.

"They were all very different," reports Mayor Foxx, who hand-delivered them to the White House. "The one we gave the president actually (featured) a history of Charlotte - different patches reflected different moments in the city’s history."

So, any chance that the Obamas will include a stop at Friendship on their itinerary? To share the pulpit with Pastor Clifford Jones, Sr.?

The schedules are yet to be worked out, Foxx told us. But he added: "Of course, I’m always hopeful that they will come by the church and spend time there."

If they do come, the quilting ladies should get seats in a front pew. Says Foxx: "They did not see this project as work. They saw it as a cause and it was just so incredible to see them take it on the way they did."
-Tim Funk

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/06/12/3323312/coalition-group-who-got-contracts.html#storylink=cpy

Hey, kids: Win a night shooting photos at convention

Calling all you young shutterbugs!

That’s what we old-timers in the news biz used to call photographers – shutterbugs.

These days, they’re photojournalists. And this item is for photojournalism students, ages 16-28, around the world.

You are invited to compete in a digital contest that Charlotte’s Echo Foundation, in partnership the Observer, is staging in connection with the convention.

Here’s the deal: Submit original photography that responds to the questions: “What does democracy or tyranny look like?”  Or: “What does justice or injustice look like?”

New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks will judge up to four Awards of Merit and pick a Grand Prize winner. That winner gets a trip to the convention, and a chance to work for one day with renowned photojournalist Bill Eppridge.

Plus, the winning photograph will be hung in the Observer lobby – the site for “One America, One American: Robert F. Kennedy Through the Lens of Bill Eppridge,” a convention-week exhibit.

It costs nothing to enter, but times a-wastin’ – the deadline is June 30. To enter, visithttp://www.echofoundationphoto.org/. -- Tim Funk

Stop it with the N.C., already

Our city has the Panthers, the Bobcats, Bank of America and even the dang Democratic National Convention. And still news readers around the USA have to be reminded that we are Charlotte, N.C.?

Baltimore has fewer people, but you won’t see Baltimore, Md. atop news stories about prize crab-cakes or baseball Orioles.

This dateline bias does not sit well with many Charlotteans, including those of us at the Dish. But now one proud Charlotte transplant is trying to do something about it.

And Jill Santuccio -- owner of PRISM Communications, a Charlotte PR firm -- thinks the upcoming convention could help our cause for a standalone dateline.

To host the DNC, Charlotte beat out St. Louis, Cleveland and Minneapolis. So isn’t it just a little bit INFURIATING that we are the only one in that quartet still saddled to its state ID?

Of the 46 cities that have hosted the Democratic National Convention over the years, former journalist Santuccio discovered, only three needed a state for news readers to locate them -- Atlantic City, N.J. (1964), Kansas City, Mo. (1900), and our neighbor Charleston, S.C. (1860).

The rest of them -- including New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta and, yes, Baltimore -- didn’t need no stinkin’ state abbreviation behind their name.

So, Santuccio has written the Associated Press editorial board to make the case for a change in the revered AP Stylebook that dictates which cities get standalone datelines and which don’t.

When Santuccio, now 44, went to journalism school, the professor would give a closed-book quiz on such things. "I’ve always been an AP Stylebook geek," she told us. "I still know the five states that you don’t abbreviate."

Not only does AP follow its stylebook; so do many newspapers. So this is a Big Deal, readers.

Santuccio hasn’t heard back yet from AP, whose reasons for sticking Charlotte with N.C. are so-outta-date. But she’s bringing in reinforcements: We’re talking ex-Observer columnist Tommy Tomlinson.

"Many people used to confuse Charlotte with Charleston, S.C., or Charleston, W.Va., or Charlottesville, Va., but no more," Tommy wrote, "The people who still confuse us with them are people who probably don’t care about the nuances of the AP Stylebook. Or, for that matter, reading."

Santuccio is a Rochester, um, N.Y., native. But she’s been in the Queen City, N.C., for 22 years, and she wants her adopted city to finally get its due, dateline-wise.

"Charlotte has worked really hard to be on the national and international stage," she says. "And getting a standalone dateline would be another sign that we have arrived."

Tim Funk

Anti-Obama aerial banners to fly over DNC site?

A GOP Super PAC is working on a plan to "jolt" the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte by waging an attack campaign that week linking President Barack Obama to his controversial ex-pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Among other things, the group envisions anti-Obama aerial banners of up to 8,500 square feet flying over the convention site for four hours one day, according to a front-page report in Thursday's New York Times.

The proposed advertising campaign would also include hard-line TV ads and billboards, the newspaper said.

The Times said the $10 million plan was commissioned by conservative billionaire Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade. Working out the details are "a group of high-profile Republican strategists."

"Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September," reported the Times, which obtained a copy, "the plan would do 'exactly what John McCain would not let us do (in 2008),' a written proposal explains. The proposal, which is awaiting approval (by Ricketts), calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by . .  . (Wright), whose race-related sermons made him a highly-charged figure in the 2008 campaign."

In that campaign, Obama repudiated those comments by Wright.

The so-called "Ricketts Plan" also proposes defusing anticipated charges of race-baiting by hiring as the group's spokesman an "extremely literate conservative African American," the Times reported. This spokesman would argue that Obama misled the country by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a "metrosexual black Abraham Lincoln."

The plan flies in the face of the strategy adopted so far by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. He and his campaign have tried to keep the focus on the economy and the president's record.

UPDATE at 1:12 p.m. Thursday: After widespread criticism of the "Ricketts plan," POLITICO is reporting that a spokesman for Rickett said that the plan has been rejected.

Brian Baker, who heads the Ricketts-backed Ending Spending Super PAC, called the proposal to tar Obama with Wright-themed ads "an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects," POLITICO said.

Tim Funk

'$uper-O-Rama' planned for DNC week

Democratic super PACs are gearing up for an epic fundraising campaign during the party's national convention in Charlotte.

They're calling the money grab "the Super-O-Rama," according to a Wednesday report by POLITICO.

"The kitschy name is for a massive fundraising push at the national convention in Charlotte," the political news Web site said, "where Democrats aim to woo elusive big donors with parties featuring live music, open bars and mingling with 'senior Democratic policy leaders,' according to a fundraising appeal."

There's some urgency to their plan: Democratic super PACs like the pro-President Barack Obama Priorities USA Action are strapped for cash, POLITICO said.And they are anticipating "a tidal wave of attack ads" from better-funded GOP super PACs such as Crossroads (affiliated with Karl Rove) and Americans for Prosperity (backed by the Koch brothers).

In its report, POLITICO sounded a skeptical note about the "Super" fundraising plan for convention week:

"But the plan isn't perfect. The Democratic National Convention is just two months before the general election -- too late to spend any money raised there on ads, some Democrats worry. Plus, conventions do not typically lend themselves to the type of one-on-one meetings where mega donors usually sign six- and seven-figure checks."

Super PACs are private groups that can spend unlimited amounts of cash without having to disclose who their donors are. They are also supposedly independent, though most are headed by friends or former staffers of the candidates they're promoting. For example, former Obama aide Bill Burton co-founded Priorities USA.

It was a landmark 2010 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court's that paved the way for these free-spending Super PACs, which specialize in attack ads. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the court effectively prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions.

Tim Funk