We Don't Get Our Money's Worth If Our Representatives In DC Are On The Phone All Day Asking Rich People For Money
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AOC is close to 6 million Twitter followers, not just more than any other member of Congress, but more than the entire Republican leadership team combined. @SpeakerPelosi has 3.4 million followers, while @LeaderHoyer has 122,800 followers. Two of the presidential candidates have more followers than AOC:
• Bernie: 10 millionBut the stat political professionals want to see, of course, is money. Who's bringing in the most money from contributors? AOC is. Last quarter she brought in more money than any other Democratic member of the House-- $1.4 million, almost all of it ($1.1 million) in small contributions (under $200). The next two biggest recipients of campaign contributions were Adam Schiff (1.26 million) and Pelosi (1.1 million). AOC's campaign war-chests is now $1,909,866, more than any freshmen other than Josh Harder (CA- $2,001,018) and Katie Porter (CA- $1,991,004), each of whom is in a swing district being heavily targeted by the NRCC.
• Elizabeth: 5.5 million
• Cory Booker- 4.4 million
• Status Quo Joe: 4 million
• Mayo Pete: 1.6 million
• Yang: 1 million
• Kamala: 977,400
Why is this notable? Let's look at a tweet storm from AOC a couple days ago:
I intentionally built my campaign to rely on small-dollar grassroots support without any corporate money because I felt that’s the best way to be accountable to everyday people.She ends with a gratuitously nice smile towards her colleagues: "None of this is a critique on lawmakers who dial for dollars-- they don’t want to be doing it in the first place. But to change this system, we must push hard to change the corrupting role of money in politics. And yes, those forces exist among all parties." Actually, some of them do want to do it and actually love it. A crooked conservative like Josh Gottheimer has $6,397,771 in his campaign war chest. I think that's more than anyone other than Adam Schiff $6,794,307) and Raja Krishnamoorthi ($6,349,992), each of whom is saving up for a Senate campaign.
It has impacted how I work in Congress in powerful ways-- ways I couldn’t fully appreciate until I got here.
There is, of course, much more time for me to be fully present at my job.
In Congress, this is a luxury. Since I don’t spend hours each day asking for money, I spend a lot more time legislating, studying, & preparing/sitting in hearings.
This has cumulative effects over time.
Instead, your support allows me to spend hours each day studying issues & exposing abuse of power.
So while Fox continues to laugh that I’m "just a bartender," I’ve spent the whole year studying Big PhRMA, private equity, military contractors, and Mark Zuckerberg’s shady deals.
Our political system’s reliance on huge sums of money has many negative impacts, but one of the largest is that it takes lawmakers’ time away from lawmaking.
That’s a feature, not a flaw-- the less time lawmakers have, the more special interests can slip in harmful provisions.
Pelosi and Hoyer and the DCCC keep the freshmen out of their hair-=- and away from policy-- by encouraging them, to put it mildly-- to spend all their time dialing for dollars. The process turns dialers more conservative and more sympathetic to rich people and it doesn't give them time to work on issues the way AOC describes herself doing. Look at some of the other high-raising freshmen. Ever hear of any of these actually doing anything to merit being in Congress? Of course not; they're on the phone all day begging rich people for contributions... as are virtually all of their colleagues.
Chrissy Houlahan (PA)- $1,841,041
Elissa Slotkin (MI)- $1,729,528
Mikie Sherrill (NJ)- $1,683,939
Max Rose (NY)- $1,666,201
Haley Stevens (MI)- $1,608,391
Harley Rouda (CA)- $1,530,320
Antonio Delgado (NY)- $1,525,203
Labels: 2020 congressional elections, Alexandria Ocasio, campaign finance reform, fundraising
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 1:00 PM
12 comments
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12 Comments:
Gee, if only all that work AOC is doing on issues wasn't smothered by Pelosi and her donor base.
To be fair, everything I see and hear about AOC is very much what you want in a US representative. The one exception was her vote for Pelosi as speaker. That vote, to undo all the good work she does, is a big bucket of water on a single lit match.
If I assumed her to be sincere, I'd never understand why she would willingly torpedo each and every one of her principles by affirming Pelosi as speaker.
@1:37 PM Yeah, if AOC didn't spit in Pelosi's face the minute she got to Congress, let's just dismiss her as worthless. Brilliant. But nobody can be pure enough for you, right?
It looks to me like no one can be pure enough for 2:24.
Government officials should have to come before the voters and ask for their pay. If their performance was deemed subpar via a rejection of the request, an election to replace the official is then held.
Oh boy, it's the Trump defense, if you said something about me I'll just turn around and accuse you of it whether it makes a bit of sense or not. About what I'd expect from that moron.
@2:38
You cannot have a serious discussion with him. 5 months ago Bernie was consigned to the shit list because he campaigned for Hillary in 2016. He's now in the Bernie camp. Why? So he can scream bloody murder if Sanders does not win (or is cheated out of) the nomination next year. According to him, Obama's worse than Dubya Bush because he ran on "cleaning up Bush's mess" and then failed to do it while in office. Apparently this moron's never heard of politicians who promise shit and then fail to deliver on said promises. But make no mistake: According to Dumbshit McMoron, the guy who launched a war that caused the deaths of (probably) half a million people (and displaced considerably more) is not nearly as bad as the guy who followed him into office and failed to, you know, bring all those people back to life.
If you're bored, you can probably find the post from a couple of months ago where he unironically compared his "work" here to AOC. Really. That's the kind of malignant egomania you're dealing with here.
@4:13. Wow, what a psycho. I notice that he refers to the stupid mass of voters every day who are entirely to blame for all the problems in this country and deserve every bad thing that happens to them. Now today, he proposes that the stupid voters are somehow informed and intelligent enough to determine on a regular basis whether their elected representatives have worked hard and smart enough in the most recent period to be rewarded with a paycheck, or whether they should be subject to a recall election. This is obviously a know nothing gasbag who likes to hear himself talk, likely because nobody will give him the time of day in person.
And you accuse us of being one person?
however many of you there are, you clearly don't pay attention. Or, like the Nazis, you only see what you want to see?
I like Bernie's talk. It's a throwback to FDR. But his deeds do come up short, especially at the biggest moments. His endorsement of HER was him putting party ahead of his "principles", clearly, since HER is the anti-Bernie.
AOC is in that same category. I love everything about her but her vote for Pelosi.
She didn't need to spit in anyone's face. She just should not have voted for Pelosi for speaker. Doing that cast a big shadow over her entire set of "principles".
It's the same thing as has been observed on DWT often. They all put party and self perpetuation ahead of their "principles", such as they are. That's the only justification for that vote. Pelosi was going to be speaker anyway. she could have voted 'present' or abstained.
Of course, she would not have been given any decent committee assignments. But that's the price you pay for having principles. Also the price for not kissing Pelosi's ass.
And I won't be voting for AOC because I don't live in her district. If I did, I'd have a very difficult choice, since she has miscast herself as a democrap.
I will not be voting for Bernie for the same reason -- he's declared fealty to the democrap party (a precondition for running in their primary this cycle).
One reason voters have made this such a shithole is they only look at the affiliation of the candidate and NOT what that party does. You simpletons think that AOC or Bernie or Elizabeth or the squad members are your saviors. They cannot be because they are members of a party ruled tyrannically by the money's proxies -- Pelosi, scummer, bustos, the Clintons, obamanation and hundreds of other thoroughly vetted fascists. Bernie and the rest represent only a tiny minority. The party will never allow any of them to rise to any position of actual influence. you think Bernie has a snowball's chance in hell to win the nomination at the convention?
You watch. A year from now, you'll have to admit that I was correct all along. Or maybe you'll deny it just like the Nazis deny climate change. either way, I'll know. Will you?
Addendum:
In 2010, over 10 million did not show up to vote for your democraps and the congress was flipped.
A very large number of those stayed home because they understood they'd been had by 'hope and change'. THOSE voters are who I'm describing.
The ones who show up and vote democrap without regard to what the party really stands for and does... those are the stupid ones.
Since there are lots more of the stupid ones, I generalize with the editorial 'we'.
you all are among the 'we'. If any of 'you' stayed home in disgust for the 2010 bloodbath, I apologize.
Hey moron, after Obama appointed Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary and didn't prosecute any criminal banksters and immediately folded into a Republican health care plan, I stayed home not just in 2010, but also in 2012 (first time I didn't vote in a Presidential election since I was first eligible in 1976) and 2014. But I also tuned out politics for that entire period. Given that you pretend to be a progressive but won't even vote for Bernie Sanders and wouldn't vote for AOC if you lived in her district, why are you on this political blog every day? No other interests in life, no friends, no hobbies? Delusional enough to think you can depress voter turnout by spewing the same garbage every day in the obscure comments section of a political blog, as if depressing voter turnout would serve some useful purpose?
And it was only a couple of days ago that you were casting those of us who detest you as corporate Democrats. Shows what you know, huh?
Bullfeathers Dems!
@9:34
Depressing turnout does indeed seem to be the primary goal of his "work" here, though I remain stumped as the "why" of it. Is he a conservative or libertarian pretending to be progressive? Or a progressive extremist who hopes that more extreme Republican rule will make things so awful there'll be a revolution in the streets?
I don't generally bother telling him my voting habits (but I took a pass on HRC and Obama - I'm old enough to remember when they could have run as Republicans - I wouldn't have voted for 'em then, why would I vote for 'em now?). He seems like such a kook it'd probably be a waste of time. I did go out and vote for (mostly worthless) local Democrats last month, pretty much because of him and his "dampen the enthusiasm" campaign here.
9:43, you agree but still detest me for being like you?
Only diff is I still vote, but not for democraps. I've voted Green since 2008. I'll be looking carefully at the Socialist parties in the upcoming.
FTR, again and still, I'm not trying to depress turnout. Quite the contrary. I'm hoping that 'other' parties get to 10% or more of the total voting in 2020. Won't happen because everyone who doesn't usually vote but will turn out this once will be voting against trump, and that means for the shit democrap and the shit party. Oh well. 2010 will repeat in 2022 and we'll be back at ground zero again.
But what if 'other' got 10% this time and maybe 15% the next?
Google 'Whig party' and check out what could happen if voters weren't so stupid or fearful or post-hypnotic or whatever they are today.
So 9:20 voted for shit because I've been imploring you to not vote for shit?
it seems I'm not the problem here. I'm just the ambient noise reminding you all that YOU are the problem.
Rule of thumb: if you vote for shit, you'll probably get shit. if you WANT shit, that's ok I suppose...
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