eggsofamerica86

I'll let the Senator respond to these of course, but for reference, city and local politics are frequently way way more corrupt than federal. Federal gets way more scrutiny and local political bodies like city governments control millions of dollars in contracts that local companies care about and that elected officials have more direct control over on the local level. Yes, the federal government has lots of contracts, but much less than the aggregated amount of local governments and the hiring decisions are not done by Congress.

I raise money for politicians for a living, and I can tell you it's way easier to raise money for state and municipal elected officials and than federal ones. The reason is because most states allow much more in terms of sources and size of donations (corporate giving, much higher limits, if any at all, from PACs and individuals), and because way more people make their living off city and state contracts than federal.

I know I'm not the guy doing the AMA, but I wanted to chip in my two cents.

I work on Democratic political campaigns, and on occasion have had Bill or Hillary Clinton come in for a fundraiser I was a part of organizing. Secret Service would come too, usually a few days before. I guess I expected them to be like British palace guards or something, but really I found them to be generally very friendly, regular people. They were frequently conversational and would make jokes about hearing the president make the same speech a lot. Nice guys.

Tell me about the structure of the campaign. Did the Senator do a lot of call time? How many personnel were eventually hired? What kind of field and finance operations did you guys set up and what kind of response did you get? How much interface was there with the other Democratic campaigns?

Tort reform is a red herring. When people think of malpractice cases, they think about it in a man bites dog way. There aren't that many frivolous cases, and the bulk of those are thrown out. Ending the ability for injured people to turn to the justice system to rectify gross negligence and malpractice is only going to hurt the victims, not help everyone else.

EDIT: A good background article:

CBO: “In short, the evidence available to date does not make a strong case that restricting malpractice liability would have a significant effect, either positive or negative, on economic efficiency."

http://www.factcheck.org/president_uses_dubious_statistics_on_costs_of.html

EDIT2: More comprehensive, also from the CBO:

"More-recent studies have reached similar conclusions. A 2003 study that examined state data from 1993 to 2002 found that two restrictions--a cap on noneconomic damages and a ban on punitive damages--would together reduce premiums by more than one-third (all other things being equal).(11) And based on its own research on the effects of tort restrictions, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the provisions of the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2003 (H.R. 5) would lower premiums nationwide by an average of 25 percent to 30 percent from the levels likely to occur under current law. (The savings in each state would depend in part on the restrictions already in effect there.)

"Savings of that magnitude would not have a significant impact on total health care costs, however. Malpractice costs amounted to an estimated $24 billion in 2002, but that figure represents less than 2 percent of overall health care spending. Thus, even a reduction of 25 percent to 30 percent in malpractice costs would lower health care costs by only about 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent, and the likely effect on health insurance premiums would be comparably small."

https://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=4968&type=0

Billboards are an incredibly ineffective communication tool.