Do You Back Plutocracy? Meet Randy Perkins, The DCCC's Worst Florida Pick Of 2016

DCCC found another rich crook to shove down Democrats' throats

We've been writing a lot about Thomas Frank's thesis that the Democratic Party, institutionally-speaking, has abandoned the working class and transmogrified itself into a Republican-lite party that represents the interests of the professional class--as he calls it, "the top 10%." We've been making the point for almost a decade that the DCCC-- starting with Rahm Emanuel but accelerating under economic royalists Chris Van Hollen and Steve Israel (as well as under Israel's pathetic current sock puppet)-- has disqualified working class candidates and forced wealthy candidates down Democrats' throats. And it isn't just the top 10%. More often than not, the DCCC goes into all out war against union members running for office on behalf of wealthy conservatives. They're doing that right now in districts all across the country and there is an especially ugly jihad led by Ben Ray Lujan and Zoe Lofgren against Lou Vince (CA-25) on behalf of some rich Orange County guy they dug up and are trying to impose on the district's Democrats. We've written a lot about that. Today, let's meet a new character, a Republican recently disguised as a Democrat; disaster capitalist and junior Donald Trump crook, Randy Perkins, re-registered as a Democrat a few days before announcing he was now ready to be a congressman from a district he had never lived in and for a party he had had nothing to do with. He promised the DCCC he'd put as much as $5 million of his own into the race.

Notice the candidate self-financing line: plutocracy anyone?

Florida Democrats who know anything about him-- and few do-- know him as a major Rick Scott contributor. Although, like Trump, Perkins claims he buys off politicians on both sides of the aisle, he wrote two checks of $100,000 each for Rick Scott in his last race and no checks whatsoever for Democrat Alex Sink. So... yes, he does give to both parties-- but a lot to conservative Republicans and a much smaller amount to corrupt conservative Democrats like Hillary Clinton. Soon after he entered the race, George Bennett of the Palm Beach Post wrote that the ratio was 2 to 1 in favor of Republicans. The only federal contribution I found was a maxed out donation to Mitt Romney against Barack Obama. This cycle he was a principle of Rick Perry's SuperPAC. Bennett was able to find over $1.6 million in contributions to Republican politicians since 2001.

Perkins has personally given $309,275 to Republicans and $141,250 to Democrats since 2001, according to a review by The Palm Beach Post of online state records and federal data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Perkins said he also approves all contributions by AshBritt, which has given $1.3 million to Republicans and $667,025 to Democrats around the country.

Perkins’ wife Saily, who often contributes to the same candidates at the same time as her husband, has given $144,800 to Republicans and $29,350 to Democrats.

Perkins said his contribution history shows he can bridge the partisan divide in Congress.

...Perkins’ ability to self-finance has drawn the attention of national Democrats and has already pushed one rival out of the race. Perkins also turned heads by announcing that, on top of his personal money, he raised $420,000 from contributors during the fourth quarter of 2015.

...“It’s going to take a lot more than $1 million of his own money for Randy Perkins to make Democratic primary voters forget that he’s given nearly $2 million to get Republicans, including Rick Scott, elected to office across the country,” said Brian Weeks, the campaign manager for rival Democratic candidate Jonathan Chane.

“These contributions, whether they enriched Randy Perkins personally or not, hurt real people. We’ve seen what Rick Scott has done here in the state of Florida,” Weeks said.

In August 2010, while Scott was nearing the end of a tough Republican gubernatorial primary against establishment favorite Bill McCollum, AshBritt gave $100,000 to Let’s Get To Work, the committee supporting Scott.

During the 2010 general election, AshBritt gave $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association’s Florida political action committee to boost Scott. AshBritt also gave $75,000 to the Democratic Governors Association, saying that contribution was intended to help Sink. And the company gave $5,000 in October 2010 to the Florida Democratic Party.

Then in September 2014, AshBritt gave $100,000 to the RGA with the intent of helping Scott’s re-election bid, Perkins said.

“Personally I like Gov. Scott…We clearly do not align on our views as political people,” Perkins said.

Perkins said he’s also “close friends” with Perry, the conservative former Texas governor and two-time Republican presidential candidate.

“I support my friends. But let me be very clear. We disagree on a whole host of social issues, political issues,” Perkins said of Perry.

As Perry neared the launch of his 2016 presidential campaign last year, Perkins was one of about 80 donors named to an advisory board for a pro-Perry PAC. Perkins said he never participated in any meetings and “99 percent of the people on that advisory council didn’t care for the way I think.”

Perkins and his wife gave $2,500 apiece to Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign. The husband and wife also made $2,500 contributions in 2011 to Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. During the 2008 presidential race, Randy and Saily Perkins gave to Republicans John McCain and Rudy Giuliani as well as Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson.

Perkins also raised $98,000 from other contributors for Clinton’s 2008 campaign, said Ben Pollara, who was Clinton’s Florida finance director then and is now the general consultant for Perkins’ congressional campaign. Perkins and his wife have each made $2,700 contributions to Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and AshBritt gave $5,000 to the pro-Clinton Ready For Hillary PAC in 2013.

Corrupt and transactional, right-of-center Democrats like Steny Hoyer and Ben Ray Lujan-- as well as Florida's most corrupt Democrat, Alcee Hastings-- are all vouching for Perkins. But who vouches for Hoyer, Lujan and Hastings? I'll answer that: mostly lobbyists, the base of their political strength. A very different kind of Democrat-- not the Perkins kind: