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Home Front: Politix
Kamala Harris campaign's election-eve concerts said to cost up to $20M ‐ as staff, vendors fear they won't be paid
2024-11-09
[NY Post] Power to the little guy
Finger-pointing has erupted over the Kamala Harris campaign blowing up to $20 million on swing-state concerts Monday night, hours before the VP’s spectacular election loss to Donald Trump — prompting concern that everyday staff and vendors won’t get paid amid reports the campaign is in debt by the same amount.
To be fair, not paying campaign debts is a bit of a Democratic tradition…
Members of the defeated Harris team tell The Post that the concerts had a ruinous effect on the Democratic campaign’s coffers and that fact was no secret — with one planned performance by ’90s alt-rock goddess Alanis Morissette getting scrapped to save money.

The seven swing-state concerts on election eve featured performances by Jon Bon Jovi in Detroit, Christina Aguilera in Las Vegas, Katy Perry in Pittsburgh and Lady Gaga in Philadelphia — with 2 Chainz joining Harris on Nov. 2, three days before the election, for an eighth concert in Atlanta.

Two sources said that Obama campaign alum Stephanie Cutter pushed the concert concept as a way to woo lower-propensity voters to the polls.

While the performers donated their time and talent, the sets still required an immense commitment of manpower and financial resources.
And now the performers can write off what they didn’t get paid as an in-kind donation. Probably it’ll reduce their taxes or something, which is awfully nice of the Kamala campaign. Really, the performers should be grateful.
Cutter’s plan was supported by fellow Obama alum David Plouffe, one source said.

Harris added Cutter and Plouffe to her campaign shortly after replacing President Biden atop the party’s ticket in July, generating internal tensions with the existing Biden campaign team as the newcomers sought to replay the 44th president’s successful 2008 campaign.

Harris-Walz campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon ultimately approved the get-out-the-vote concert plans, but has since told colleagues — in response to significant internal criticism — that she didn’t want to do them and sat on the idea for weeks, one source told The Post.

If that was the case, another source pointed out, then O’Malley Dillon’s waffling led to increased production costs because “putting [concerts] together last minute makes [them] cost twice as much.”

The second source questioned whether campaign operations chief Dana Rosenzweig should have raised internal concerns earlier in the planning, though a third defended her and argued the campaign budget team would have had that responsibility.

“They said they were ‘spending to zero.’ I guess they overshot zero,” quipped the second source.

As it happened, the events hardly made a splash in the news cycle — with the exception of the Philadelphia rally, where Oprah Winfrey stole the show by claiming that Trump winning might mean “we will not have the opportunity to cast a ballot again.”

Voters in each of the seven swing states turned out the next day to elect Trump, the former president and Republican nominee.

“They had huge advance teams for these concerts, like 40-60 people in some cities,” said an insider who told The Post that they are concerned about the financial impact on people who worked to elect Harris.

“I’m sure vendors will start to get upset soon,” the source added, noting that staff payments do not seem to be impacted so far, though expense reimbursements are still pending.

In the week before Election Day, as campaign bosses became aware that nearly all of their more than $1 billion war chest was gone, there were efforts to scale back concert costs — which were expected to run between $15 million and $20 million, but in some cases experienced overruns.

“They definitely knew the budget crunch at the end because they cut talent from some cities because of cost,” the source said, adding that Morissette’s show got the ax just two days before the scheduled performance.

A different Harris campaign source said that finance staff currently are in the process of reconciling the balance sheets and that nobody has been stiffed.
Of course not. No checks have not yet been not cut, have not been not mailed, have not yet been not deposited. Once checks actually have not been cut, not been mailed, and therefore cannot be deposited, only then all those suckers will be stiffed.
Another source called the events “a real misuse of funds that could have been better spent on ads laying out economic policies” to voters angered about inflation and high interest rates.

“It didn’t matter to have a bunch of celebrities talking to no one because one, 75 million people already voted and two, people were concerned about their own financial issues, not Oprah telling them America won’t exist,” this source said.

Despite the enormous fundraising haul in the 107-day campaign spring, the Harris campaign ended the race at least $20 million in debt, Politico reported Thursday. Donation webpages remain active in the apparent hope of an after-the-fact trickle of funds to close the gap.

Spokespeople for the Harris campaign and Morissette did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Posted by:Frank G

#19  *more scratch than a cat bath.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-11-09 20:59  

#18  Thank you, BTW cream of potato soup is up, garlic bread.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-11-09 20:58  

#17  Require an honest accounting and watch them squeal
Posted by: Frank G   2024-11-09 20:21  

#16  
Posted by: trailing wife   2024-11-09 19:23  

#15  Link fixed, swksvolFF. I deleted some stuff that I didn't recognize, and it worked.
Posted by: trailing wife   2024-11-09 19:06  

#14  Not sure what has happened, thanks mods.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-11-09 16:17  

#13  Yes we point and laugh, and rightfully so, at the nepotism, but now that we know what her 'father' is, she obviously grew up in a poisoned environment. Might even say the supermodel gig is a payoff for that, not knowing she was actually getting enrolled in The Program.

Bit off topic, it seems someone divined what the democrat fallback position may be:
President-elect must be certified by The Senate, which is democrats and Kamala Harris.

Here's an article from CBC from 2020 outlining a blueprint on how that may be done:
Link

The article is a worry about how the certification process could be muddled. Flip the script, and that is the blueprint, with the wedge being 'but what happened to the other 15million votes?' along with the How Dare You!? ad campaign.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-11-09 14:29  

#12  Ella Emhoff seemingly loses her mind over stepmom Kamala Harris losing presidency to Trump

"You mean I'm not gonna be a supermodel?"
Posted by: Frank G   2024-11-09 12:59  

#11  OK, Sean Penn is enough of a dunce to promote for free.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-11-09 12:35  

#10  Clooney, Hanks, and Hamill are definitely paid agents.

These all were definitely compensated, plus Ford and Keaton.

The ones doing it for free are auditioning for one of the two above positions.

Remember all those tiktokrs and celebrities who Team Brandon purchased in order to sell the burgeoning Ukraine conflict? Same same, except with kompromat a Big Name can be made an offer they can't refuse.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-11-09 12:32  

#9  Some were likely compensated. Some are true believers. Maybe we will get to see who was coerced.
Posted by: Super Hose   2024-11-09 12:10  

#8  I wonder how much all those Marvel cosplayers were paid? You know, the ones trying to re-launch their brand by shitting on over half the potential audience.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-11-09 12:04  

#7  Ultimately, there are a large group of people that are very upset that Donald Trump will be president. Among that group are a collection of incompetent grifters who made bank off a colossal and terrible campaign for a dumb person who appears to have been high for much of her three months as the front runner for the most powerful position in the world. Those people are probably less upset. In fact, they are probably now angling for positions in the Shapiro or Whitmer teams.
Posted by: Super Hose   2024-11-09 11:46  

#6  And all of them consideration in the Diddy investigation.

Story is, Beyonce and Jay Z are married in name only, but are 'big partiers'. Lizzo's surprise success far outweighs her talent. Aguilera, Perry, and Gaga obviously all went through the program. Morisette is a Nickelodeon product as much as Miley Cyrus is a Disney product.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-11-09 11:39  

#5  Lizzo and Beyonce each got 3 million for showing up .
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2024-11-09 11:09  

#4  After the Revolution, we won't need money because everyone will be equal and the People will own everything. No, really!
Posted by: SteveS   2024-11-09 10:42  

#3  But they could pay Oprah a million.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2024-11-09 10:41  

#2  Come on, it's not like that. Think of the cause, it's all for the cause. What need of money anyway they still have the cause.
Posted by: Cesare   2024-11-09 10:19  

#1  What did they expect? They got done to them what the Left has been doing to all of us for four years, stuck holding the bill.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2024-11-09 07:17  

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