Elizabeth Warren Wants Democrats To Pledge: No Self Funding

When Elizabeth Warren did her first interview after announcing the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, she chose Rachel Maddow. You can safely skip another typically exciting 5 full minute Maddow windup. The point I would like to get to was Warren's call-- at around the 9:40 moment on the video-- for Democrats to eschew campaign money from what Bernie calls "the billionaire class," including self-funders (Tom Steyer and, especially, on-again/off-again Republican Michael Bloomberg). "Just think about this upcoming Democratic primary," said Warren. "Is this going to be a Democratic primary that truly is a grassroots movement that is funded by the grassroots, done with grassroots volunteers? Or is this going to be something that’s just one more play thing that billionaires can buy? So I think this is a moment for all of the Democratic candidates as they come into the race to say: 'In a Democratic primary, we are going to link arms and we’re going to grassroots funding, no to the billionaires. No to the billionaires whether they are self funding or whether they’re funding PACs.' We are the Democratic Party and that is the party of the people. That’s how we not only win elections, that’s how we build movements that make real change." Which reminds me...

Of the ten million dollar and more self funders who succeeded in buying themselves seats in Congress this cycle, 5 were Republicans and 5 were Democrats. Many more who tried, failed, like Republican Bob Hugin in New Jersey who spent $36,000,000 of his own to lose to someone the voters knew was a corrupt sack on shit, or Democrat Scott Wallace of Pennsylvania who lost a seat tending blue after spending $12,756,892 of his own-- something that didn't feel kosher coming from the grandson of very left-wing Vice President Henry Wallace. 11 Republican self-funders lost their primaries-- the worst case being Kathaleen Wall in Texas for a cool $6,169,732-- and 4 lost their general election bids. Among Dems, the big sad sack primary loser was Paul Kerr (San Diego/Orange County) for $5,912,728 of his own. In all there were 9 Democratic self-funding primary losers (4 in Orange County, California). Another 3 Democratic self-funders lost in the general. There were also 3 crazy multimillionaires who threw away their money by running as self-funding independents, the nuttiest being Shiva Ayyadurai, who wasted $4,805,464 of his own by running against Elizabeth Warren. Another Warren self-funding opponent, Republican John Kingston, didn't quite make it out of the GOP primary after spending $5,188,265 of his own.

But, like I said, among the ten winners half were Democrats and half were Republicans and they have just started enjoying their new purchases. Here's how much of their own they spent-- and, in each case, their win number:

• Senator Rick Scott (R-FL)- $63,569,754- 50.1%
• Rep. David Trone (D-MD)- $17,483,172- 27.0% in 12-person jungle primary
• Senator Mike Braun (R-IN)- $10,569,296- 51.0%
• Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-CA)- $9,252,762- 50.7%
• Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)- $4,206,050- 54.4%
• Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-MT)- $2,400,000- 51.1%
• Rep Van Taylor (R-TX)- $2,386,908- 54.3%
• Rep Dan Meuser (R-PA)- $1,411,442- 61.1% (ran against a Blue Dog self-funder Denny Wolff, who spent $1,200,071 of his own)
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)- $1,349,561- 55.6%
• Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)- $1,084,524- 52.9%