My Facebook friends like to conjure a bogeyman somewhere in the South or Midwest. He is wearing camo, carrying an AR-15, driving a car with a Trump/Pence bumper sticker, and spouting an absurd conspiracy theory about Wall Streeters manipulating American politics far beyond their coastal elite districts.
Showing just how wrong this conspiracy theory is: “Bloomberg pledges $60M to boost House Democrats” (The Hill). (This will also be great for allaying the concerns of those who believe that rich Jews have too much influence in the U.S.!)
Readers: What do we think of all of these campaigns that are financed by money from outside the districts that politicians are supposedly representing? I see Facebook ads all the time for politicians who are running states where I don’t live.
Say it ain’t so. I was hoping there are a few tens of million people in the South and Midwest wearing camo, carrying an AR-15, driving a truck sporting Trump/Pence stickers. Is it nothing but Lizzie Warrens outside the gate? I was planning to build a balloon to escape Maskachusetts, guess I shouldn’t bother.
Pretty sure your friends are talking about me!
Um, that $60 million number for Bloomberg is way, way low. Back in July his spending was already at $350 million this cycle and the only thing NPR was wondering was whether he was going to commit to spending the full billion.
Bloomberg has already spent well over $350 million for Democrats this cycle, according to his team, including the following investments:
$275 million in anti-Trump ads during his primary campaign
$35 million for a digital and data platform he gives to Democratic campaigns at cost.
$18 million transferred from his campaign to the Democratic Party.
$10 million to House Majority PAC, the lead outside group backing House Democrats.
$5 million to Fair Fight, the voting rights group led by Stacey Abrams.
$2 million to Collective Future, focused on registering Black voters in key states.
$2 million to Swing Left, which supports Democratic volunteer efforts.
$500,000 to Voto Latino, focused on registering young Latino and Hispanic voters.
Altogether, it makes Bloomberg the single biggest donor to the Democrats this year, and it’s having an impact on the ground, according to party strategists in battleground states.
Sorry, I hit enter before posting the link. From NPR in July.
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/29/896545732/bloomberg-vowed-to-spend-whatever-it-takes-to-beat-trump-dems-are-still-waiting
So your Facebook friends needn’t worry. One very prominent Jewish Wall Street elitist billionaire has already promised to be super-careful in deciding which elections he influences. He just wants to make sure he does it right. The entire Democratic Party is in on the conspiracy and it’s being reported on National Public Radio:
‘The remaining investments are “still being determined and decided and figured out” according to Nutter: “I mean, this is politics. You don’t just kind of throw the money out the window and hope it lands in the right places. Mike makes strategic investments to change outcomes using data and evidence.”
Probably any campaign finance system that keeps money out favors incumbents with name recognition. Regarding Bloomberg, he didn’t spend his money very intelligently on his own campaign so there is no reason to think that he will do any better in his efforts to defeat the Trumpenfuhrer.
Well, he helped flip the House in 2018. He was 21 out of 24. 87.5%. A solid B+ even without a curve. His Presidential run was a mistake, but he’s going to be much more effective in his atonement for challenging Sanders and Warren through his focus on legislative races this cycle.
“Bloomberg has a history of coming in late and spending big. In 2018, he was the single biggest Democratic investor in House races, and the donations he made in September helped flip 21 red districts blue, out of 24 he invested in.”
This is really Bloomberg’s strength. He knows everyone, almost everywhere. The Democrats weren’t interested in electing him President for theoretical and ideological reasons, but they’ll certainly take his money and run all the way through Congress with it.
It’s only a little apocryphal to say that Mike Bloomberg runs his political philanthropy a little like Johns Hopkins used to play lacrosse (which we ripped off from the American Indian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacrosse#History ). Basically their strategy against any formidable opponent was to take their licks in the first three periods, get down a few points, study the other team’s O&D, wear them down without expending too much energy or suffering any injuries, give the other team a false sense of confidence, and then turn on the afterburners in the fourth period and put the opponent away. It made for very exciting games. For the first three periods you felt like they were losing, they were hopeless, overmatched, blowing the game. Then they’d turn all that around in a blitz of energy and blow the other team into the weeds. I’m sure quite Mike has attended a JHU lacrosse game or three.
Big money in politics is a bi-partisan affair. Thinking of Adelson, Koch Brothers etc. etc. Generally seems to be something the Republicans favor strongly (Citizens United).
It’s not much of a conspiracy theory that our “representatives“ represent money and not the voters in their districts. I have been told that this is a feature of our system.
And by the way, the caricature of the bogeyman you drew was accurate but he is really spouting very different conspiracy theories.