part of a thread:
https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1181957887591174145?s=20
Democrats are so fucking shortsighted. No wonder the republicans own all of our state and local governments. They understand the game.
The trouble is, now people want their local politicians and candidates to do the same fucking purity bullshit, and we get stomped.
https://twitter.com/rufusgifford/status/1181941947713409028?s=20
Democrats get crushed playing that game. Popular outgoing President, a highly qualified centrist candidate who raised all the money, and a pretty decent economy only to get fucking slapped around by a conartist. No thanks, not interested in playing by those rules. Good job to Warren for promising to not sell her candidacy to the highest bidder.
Once again she finally takes Bernieās position on something.
Electability tho.
Iām going to go bankrupt supporting down ballot races if she gets the nomination, I guess.
Better start saving if we want to keep the house and flip the senate, since the DNC isnāt gonna be able to help.
Yes, get money out of politicsā¦but god fucking dammit, we have to win first.
You may have a good idea there, but I really donāt think the Democrats who win by using the money are going to do anything to get rid of it.
This isnāt about Warren or Sanders.
Itās about Katie Porter or Elisa Slotkin or Mark Kelly or Abigal Spanberger or Jaime Harrison or MJ Hegar or Mark Levin or Ammar Campa-Najjar or Kenya Taylor (running for SD County Supervisor in my district) or Todd Gloria (running for SD mayor) or you pick a democrat in a down ballot race who relies on the visibility and fundraising done by the presidential candidate for the DNC, especially in purple or even red areas.
God, democrats are so stupid. This is why republicans have taken over everything, despite being the minority. Iām done for the day. This forum especially frustrates me, because for people who were once poker players who supposedly understand game theory, or at least basic strategy, you should understand how colossally stupid this is.
Itās like being a boxer who vows to only use their left hand to punch. You think the other guy is gonna do that? LMAO
But like every other presidential election year, here we are, we democrats, saying once again that the presidential election is the only thing that matters, because we are idiots.
DNC should elect someone who is really good at raising money through grass-roots efforts and has been doing it his whole life.
I donāt feel quite as strongly as you do, but generally yes, I wouldnāt want to run in a GE with like 1 billion against 4 billion just for purity reasons, too much at stake. I respect your point about the repercussions for down ballot dems though.
The idea is more to have 65 million people puniching with their left hand. It becomes a question of how many one-armed five year olds a billionaire can take on.
My POV is I trust Liz because she has a track record of speaking truth to power and taking on corporate malfeasance. Iām not going to purity test her or micromanage her about every stance. Iāve staked my claim at this point.
I donāt know what all this down-ballot funding stuff is about and I donāt care. I predict it will work itself out if we run a POTUS candidate who inspires people.
Yeah the solution here is for a few liberal leaning billionaires to put their money where their mouth is. Steyer needs to give a couple of hundred billion to local/state candidates as does Soros.
They need to do this without talking to Warren about it. This isnāt that complicated. The DNC itself needs to raise this money from big donors if big donors are required. One thing that we canāt do though is have our local/state candidates beholden to finance/healthcare/fossil fuel interests. The money can come from anywhere but there basically.
[New policy] is why [status quo for several years due to manifold structural and socio-economic factors]. Sandy changed everything.
Not exactly election, but it certainly will have an impact on Bernie. My condolences. Rough couple of days for his family.
Riggs died Saturday, the day Sanders [returned to Vermont after suffering a heart attack. Her obituary said she was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer.
It sounds like youāre saying these down-ballot candidates are going to go from x millions in contributions to $0. I wonder what the actual difference is.
so how do we do tear it all down? I would argue we have toā¦umā¦win? How is Liz or Bernie planning to tear this system down from the outside? With trebuchets? Also, if Liz or Bernie wins, but is left weaker because their purity decision left them with fewer congressional and senate allies, then howās this all supposed to work again?
https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1181957892720791554?s=20
It sounds like youāre saying these down-ballot candidates are going to go from x millions in contributions to $0. I wonder what the actual difference is.
DNC (and the presidential candidate, unless itās Liz or Bernie) holds high-dollar fundraisers and distributes that to down-ballot candidates. Those fundraisers are supported by the presidential candidate, which is the most high-profile race. Iām not saying itāll go to zero. Iām saying that more down-ballot candidates are going to have to rely more on small donors because the DNC will have less money to go around to support them. Also, local races get way less free press than the presidential, so relatively speaking, their campaigns are pretty expensive (not in absolute costs, but in percentage they need to spend in order to actually campaign)
Another point: where are these small donors getting all their money? Hint: they donāt have money. we are throwing the responsibility of reclaiming local and state seats for dems on the backs of people who canāt afford to pay. Itās ridiculous to me that people rail against ārich people donationsā at the same time as calling for wealth taxes and higher tax rates for the wealthy.
Fuck me, let the rich people have fundraisers for our candidates! the more rich people that do, the less the poor people and āgrassrootsā fundraisers have to pay. we love that hollywood, for example, is liberal, but when it comes down to donation time, now we donāt want their money?
edited to add: Iām all for tearing down the system, but can we maybe do it in an election thatās not so crucial to win, please?
I think the concern is somewhat overblown. Porter has raised more than $1M, 2nd behind AOC among freshmen. Where the GOP has really killed Dems is in statehouses. However, politics follows culture, which is even more important than money. CA is supermajority blue because the culture changed. Other states are trending similarly, and soon even some laggards like NE and IA and TX will come along. Old people have money, but culture moves with the young.
Iām kind of torn. On the one hand itās kind of difficult to believe someone who says they want to get the money out of politics when theyāre holding the same private fundraisers asking for millions of dollars that all the other candidates are. On the other hand, it seems pie-in-the-sky to say weāre going to handcuff ourselves and hope to win without the one thing all candidates need nowadaysābig money.
However, from that tweet thread, it seems sheās saying she isnāt going to do closed-door private fundraising meetings. She has already headlined large-scale fundraising events without the private meetings, seemingly without feeling like she was violating her pledge. So if thatās what sheās declaring, I wonder how much it will really hurt down-ballot candidates. Like, if I go to her fundraiser with my check for $1,000,000 and her people say āthere isnāt a private meeting to give her that check; just give it to our treasurer,ā or āgive it to her at the larger function.ā
I donāt doubt it will have some effect, but I donāt know how much. And as weāve see with her and Bernie, declaring no big-money superPACs seems to increase small-dollar donors.
ā¦ what?
you: poor and middle class people should pay less taxes than the wealthy because rich people are bad!
also you: poor and middle class people should fund our elections without any money from the wealthy because rich people are bad!
one of these things is good. one of them makes no sense. I say milk the rich people for all theyāre worth ($2800 a piece).
Youāve said multiple times that your primary reason for supporting Pete over other candidates is his advocacy for democratic reform and specifically campaign finance reform. In this post you are shitting on all of the reasons why those reforms are necessary and arguing that, in fact, donations from rich people are pretty awesome. You make that argument all the time, even though you often frame it in disingenuous terms like āwell I guess by your definition Iām a big money donorā and totally ignore things like bundling.
Itās confusing.