Are All Congressional Self-Funders Also Sexual Predators Like Trump?

No matter how shady you are, if you pay enough you get a photo with POTUS

Last cycle Maryland crackpot David Trone spent $13,414,225 of his own money trying to buy a seat in Congress. He lost. This year's trying in another district and as of March 31 he had already put $5,281,939 of his own into the race. Most big self-funders lose. So far this cycle of the 15 top (over a million dollars) self-funders trying to buy themselves seats in the House, 7 have already lost:

• Kathaleen Wall (R-TX)- $6,019,732
• Paul Kerr (D-CA)- $4,112,728
• Dan Moody (R-GA)- $3,053,120
• Andy Thorburn (D-CA)- $2,785,900
• Sara Jacobs (D-CA)- $1,587,831
• Paul David Addis (R-PA)- $1,452,700
• Tahir Javed (D-TX)- $1,313,416

One, Harley Rouda (D-CA), spent $1,130,500 and is in a too-close-to-call situation, ahead of his opponent by 73 votes. And only 4 have won their primaries, no guarantee they will ever make it into Congress.

• Gil Cisneros (D-CA)- $3,552,762
• Scott Wallace (D-PA)- $2,522,892
• Greg Gianforte (R-MT)- $1,500,000
• John Chrin (R-PA)- $1,162,291)

Trone and 2 more-- both Tennessee Republicans, George Flinn Jr. and Bob Corlew-- are still campaigning in primaries. I'm not going to worry about these assholes who spend millions and then don't wind up in Congress. I have to admit I hope they eventually wind up on the unemployment and food stamp lines, especially the ones who spend their own fortunes determined to get into Congress so they can do actual harm to working families, like Kathaleen Wall, John Chrin, Greg Gianforte, Gil Cisneros, Dan Moody and Paul Kerr. I care about their well-being even less than I care about the well-being on the sexual harassment congressmen who were forced out and made to look for new jobs, namely Tim Murphy (R-PA), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Patrick Meehan (R-PA). All of them are disgraced but none of them are going to starve. Farenthold is a lobbyist for the Port of Port Lavaca-Point Comfort, with a $160,000 salary. His estimated net worth of in 2015 was $5,789,824.

“The Board looks forward to the services Blake can provide in assisting the Port with matters in Washington, D.C.,” Calhoun Port Authority board members said in a statement.

But Farenthold is already under fire in his new role. Public backlash led the all-male board to consider ousting him, and a local newspaper has sued the port over the hiring process.

When reports surfaced in December that Farenthold had settled with his former communications director, Lauren Greene, he promised to repay the $84,000 in full.

Now the Texas Republican says he won’t pay after all, and has rejected calls from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to fund the June 30 special election for the Corpus Christi seat.

How's that for disgusting? I think he comes from a rich family which has helped underwrite his repulsive career. In his first race (2010) he self-funded $103,730 into the campaign. Tim Murphy is another one who quickly took a job as a lobbyist. Trent Franks doesn't need to take a job. He was one of the richest (and most selfish) members of Congress with a net worth of around $33 million, most of it made after he was a member.

Does Congress Need More Corporate Lawyers? Or More Working Class Heroes?

Inspiring post by Aida Chavez at The Intercept over the weekend, Out Of Poverty And Onto The Ballot: The New Wave Of Woking-Class Candidates Trying To Take Congress. I loved the comparison she started with between David Trone, who spent $13,414,225 of his own money trying-- unsuccessfully-- to buy a House seat in Maryland. He would have been a pathetic waste of a seat-- and how lucky are Maryland and America that he was beaten bt Jamie Raskin, one of the best members of Congress! This cycle Trone has turned his efforts to another district-- abandoned by another crappy self-funding rich person, John Delaney-- and has already spent $5,281,939 of his own loot-- not counting massive bribes to the DCCC-- in a crowded 8 person primary. Chavez contrasts him with state Senator Roger Manno, who she describes as as someone who has gone "through extended bouts of homelessness, unemployment, and other economic depredations rarely found in the biographies of members of Congress."

She offers to introduce readers to candidates who, like Manno, have had "to overcome big money to get where they’re trying to go. When political parties and outside groups begin to estimate the chances that a congressional candidate has of winning a race, the first thing they look at is fundraising-- particularly money raised within the district. Those cash contributions from wealthy donors in the area serve as a proxy for support from the local elite and translate, in the party’s mind, into a high chance of victory. The process has a culling effect on the field, which has left Congress with a total net worth of at least $2.43 billion, according to the political news outlet Roll Call’s conservative estimates, with nearly 40 percent of all members being millionaires. That doesn’t mean there aren’t Democrats from poor and working-class backgrounds who run for Congress. It means that they’re often beaten back by wealthier, establishment-backed candidates who’ve been able to forge better connections. A new wave of candidates this cycle is hoping to change that." Some of the candidates she talks about are real contenders-- like James Thompson (KS), Ammar Campa-Najjar (CA), Amy Vilela (NV) and others are... long shots, if that. And some are typical conservative Democrap candidates, who, if they wind up in Congress, will make it worse, like multimillionaire, Vegas mobster-backed wave-rider, Susie Lee, supported by all the band guys-- from Harry Reid and EMILY's List to the DCCC and their phony-baloney offshoot, End Citizens United.

But she left off many of the strongest working class candidates with the best chances of winning and the best chances to help remake Congress and a badly mis-shaped Democratic Party. Besides James Thompson, I'm thinking of Mainer Jared Golden, Hawaii working class powerhouse Kaniela Ing, Oklahoma orphan Tom Guild, Alexandria Ocasio, the woman who could bring a much-needed earthquake to the Democratic Party, and, of course iron worker and union activist Randy "@IronStache" Bryce.

Why talk about Wall Street-owned New Dems Susie Lee and Angie Craig as working class heroes and leave out Ocasio, Ing and Bryce? Knock, knock, anyone home? Historically, plenty of people are born into poor families and have joined the oppressors asap-- pulling the ladder up behind them. A young Paul Ryan existed on government subsidies and then devoted his life to destroying those exact subsidies. What will Susie Lee do? Why take the chance on her or others like her who the DCCC has embraced because of their wealth, a Gil Cisneros, for example, who was born poor, won the lottery, joined the GOP, switched to the Democrats to run for office and started spreading his money around until the DCCC endorsed his conservative ass? Tomorrow is his primary and hopefully voters in CA-39 will show him and the DCCC the exit, electing a working class kid from the district, Sam Jammal, the son of two immigrant parents, instead.

Chavez understood what it means to be a New Dem when she described the conservative running against Ammar Campa-Najjar, "the 29-year-old progressive also easily won the pre-endorsement over his challenger, Josh Butner [an "ex"-Republican], who has the backing of the New Democrat Coalition PAC, which represents the pro-Wall Street camp." But when it came to Angie Craig... no mention of the New Dems-- "the New Democrat Coalition PAC, which represents the pro-Wall Street camp." And by the time Chavez got to Susie Lee, she seemed to be lauding the New Dems as a legitimate part of a coalition that saw Lee's "working-class background coupled with current wealth that inspires national support: The DCCC, EMILY’s List, the New Democrat Coalition PAC, End Citizens United, and other top Democrats..."

Some of her descriptions are valid and worthwhile. You can read them here. When it comes to solidarity, which I don't think I recall Chavez mentioning, watch this instead; watch it twice in fact--and then send it to everyone you know, especially if any of them live in Queens and the Bronx:



Or read this from Randy Bryce's campaign website:

Randy Bryce is a U.S. Army veteran, cancer survivor, and union ironworker. He joined the race for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District because he knows first hand how working people have struggled, and he wants to ensure that the middle class is represented in D.C. again. Currently, over half of our Representatives in Congress are millionaires.

Randy was raised in southeastern Wisconsin, and went to public schools. Randy’s father was a police officer, and his mother worked in a doctor’s office. Both currently suffer from serious health issues-- his mother from multiple sclerosis, and his father from Alzheimer's. Seeing their health struggles in the face of Paul Ryan’s attempts to repeal Obamacare and attack Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, helped Randy decide to enter the race.

After high school graduation, Randy enlisted in the U.S. Army, and was posted to Honduras, where he earned the Army Achievement Medal. When he came home, he got a job working with homeless veterans, until the government stopped funding the program. After that, like a lot of veterans, Randy struggled to find work and ultimately took two full time jobs just to get by. Many years later, that experience led Randy to help found the Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce.

In his late 20s, Randy was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Despite working two jobs, he didn’t have health insurance. So, the bills bankrupted him. The doctors also told him it was unlikely he could ever have children. While he was in recovery, Randy found his way to an apprenticeship as an ironworker, which he describes as his ticket to the middle class. His career as an ironworker allowed him to exit bankruptcy and provide health insurance for his son Ben, who now attends public school like his Dad did.

Grateful for all the union had given him, Randy became an active member, and helped organize the resistance to Governor Scott Walker’s Act 10, which worked to destroy teachers and other public sector unions in the state. After that loss, Randy realized he couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore and he’s been fighting for working families ever since.

Kaniela Ing has been one of the effective tribunes for the working class, not just in Hawaii's legislature but in any legislature in America. His campaign website says he's "an unlikely politician. He doesn't come from money or power. Kaniela is a first-generation college graduate." Watch this video and listen to how he describes himself. It's downright inspiring:



Similarly, Jared Golden returned to Maine from the Marines where he fought on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was elected to the state legislature where he's risen to be Majority Whip. His record shows he's done the opposite of what Paul Ryan has done-- not hauling up the ladder of opportunity but expanding it. A working class kid made good, he's built a record of success fighting for middle- and working-class people. As his campaign website explains, "He has fought passionately for expanded access to healthcare, stronger unions, fairer wages, cleaner energy, better environmental standards, equal rights for women and minorities, and lower prescription medication costs for Maine’s seniors. Jared continues to stand up for his community and his beliefs, and he has been able to deliver real results to the people he was elected to serve." His opponents are a Wall Street Republican, Blue Poliquin, and a well-connected Democrat, Lucas St. Clair, who inherited a fortune from a craven mother who stole it from Burt's Bees.

Tom Guild's life story is heart-wrenching and it's what turned him into a devoted progressive. This video explains it and where he's coming from and what he's offering to Oklahoma voters:



And obviously, this is prone to happen even more in statewide races, which are much more expensive than congressional races. Today Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene s officially entered the Democratic primary race for Florida governor, a race filled with multimillionaires and billionaires. There's one exception. Andrew Gillum is the son of a bus driver and construction worker. Do Florida Democrats want to be inspired-- or are they happy being bought by millionaires and billionaires. If ideas and records of accomplishment and public service mean anything, Gillum will win. If Florida Democrats keep nominating centrist, uninspiring candidates for Governor and expect to break the GOP’s 20-year winning streak they're in for another rude awakening on the evening of August 28.

Are Orange County Democrats Selling Congressional Nominations?

This is what a DCCC recruit who wants to buy a congressional seat looks like

Well... we'll see. That's certainly the DCCC's most fervent desire. They scumbags at 430 S. Capitol St SE in Washington prefer that and recruit candidates and on self-funding capacity. So let's look at who's self-funding in the 4 Orange county districts that Hillary won but that have Republican incumbents.

First is CA-39, where really stupid DCCC staffers stumbled and actually recruited two very wealthy candidates, Gil Cisneros and Mai-KhanhTran, neither of whom live sin the district. So here's the self-funding activities as of March 31, the last FEC reporting deadline:

• Andy Thorburn- $2,335,900 (91.20%)
• Gil Cisneros- $2,504,467 (81.96%)
• Mai-KhanhTran- $480,000 (40.56%)
• Phil Janowicz- $194,900 (56.68%)

Next up is CA-45, the district that needs to rid itself of Mimi Walters

• Ron Varasteh- $250,000 (99.04%)

Brian Forde has a lot of money-- and do do his friends and over 93% of his contributions come from large individual contributions, most from wealthy friends and colleagues. Next is CA-48, the Rohrabacher seat on the coast, home of Cisneros, Tran and several other carpetbaggers.

• Omar Siddiqui- $764,856 (81.95%)
• Harley Rouda- $730,500 (59.61%)
• Hans Keirstead- $430,400 (34.35%)

And now the big one, CA-49, the Orange County/San Diego County seat Doug Applegate drove Darrell Issa out of and, in so doing-- has attracted a pack of grotesque opportunists

• Paul Kerr- $1,612,728 (82.75%)
• Sara Jacobs- $1,074,151 (77.24%)

Any other gross self-funds among California Democrats, the party working for the interests working families and the down-trodden? Just two:

• Sue Zwahlen ($206,181)- CA-10
• TJ Cox ($265,500)- CA-10, but now CA-21

At least no one in California is as bad as David Trone in Maryland though, right? Last cycle Trone lost after spending  $13,385,373 of his own money. His personal money amounted to 99.95% of what he raised. As of the December 31 FEC reporting deadline he had raised $2,471,785 in his campaign for the open 6th district seat in Maryland (a different district), of which $2,281,939 came out of his bank account (92.32%). Expect lots more from where that came from!

OK, back to Orange County for a moment. There are excellent candidates in 3 of the 4 districts who have a shot at winning and who aren't trying to buy the seats, 2 men and a woman who are endorsed by Blue America and who are actually trying to win based on their ideas, values and intentions towards the working families of the districts. Each of the 3 is financing their campaigns with small donor contributions and each is under tremendous pressure from the self-funders. In CA-39 that candidate is Sam Jammal, In CA-45, it is Katie Porter, and in CA-49 it's Doug Applegate. You can contribute by tapping on the ActBlue congressional thermometer on the right. I might add at this moment that Marianne Williamson will be visiting San Clemente on Saturday afternoon, April 28th, to help raise money for Doug Applegate. I'll be there too and I hope you can come say hello. Our artist, Nancy Ohanian, has contributed some really beautiful art towards Doug's election that I'll have with me.

The Curse Of Self-Funders Is Undermining Democracy

Democratic Party self-funders JB Pritzker and Gil Cisneros

Reuters began their report on this weekend's parliamentary election in the Czech Republic: "Czech billionaire Andrej Babiš won a thumping victory in Saturday's election as voters shunned traditional parties and gave a mandate to the anti-establishment businessman pledging to fight political corruption while facing fraud charges himself... Babiš has promised to bring his business expertise to government... Drawing comparisons with U.S. President Donald Trump for his business background and anti-establishment message, Babiš has maintained his popularity despite charges he illegally received a 2 million euro EU subsidy when he ran his food, agriculture and chemical empire, worth an estimated $4 billion, before entering politics." Worth noting though, is that this was the first time the country had put a cap on election spending-- 90 million korunas (something like $4.1 million) per party, taking away, at least in part, the personal wealth advantage.

Last week, The Economist looked at the 2018 Illinois gubernatorial election, which they termed a contest between bajillionaires. The candidate Blue America has endorsed, state Senator Daniel Biss, is up against 3 self-funders with bottomless pockets, J.B. Pritzker (D), Bruce Rauner (R) and Chris Kennedy (D). "Though the primary is not until next March," they wrote, "the election to be the next governor of Illinois is already on track to become the most expensive in state political history, overtaking the $280m fight for the governorship of California in 2010 between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman, a billionaire businesswoman. Election spending in Illinois has increased by 741% this year compared with the same period in the previous election, according to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, an NGO. The candidates burned through $15.6m in the past three months, led by J.B. Pritzker, a self-funded billionaire businessman running for the Democrats, who splashed out $11.1m, mostly on television advertising, followed by Bruce Rauner, the self-funding Republican incumbent, who spent $2.6m, even though he has not confirmed yet that he is running for re-election. Mr Rauner and Mr Pritzker have so far raised just under $100m between them. In the sort of twist that seems straight from a plot by Armando Iannucci, the lion’s share ($50m) was given by Governor Rauner to a group called Citizens for Rauner. Mr Pritzker gave his campaign a modest $28m."

Though an extreme example, Illinois is no outlier. More and more very wealthy men are running for and winning office as state governors. Tennessee’s Bill Haslam, West Virginia’s Jim Justice, Florida’s Rick Scott, Kentucky’s Matt Bevin, Minnesota’s Mark Dayton, Nebraska’s Peter Ricketts, Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf, Michigan’s Rick Snyder, North Dakota’s Doug Burgum and Arizona’s Doug Ducey all have a net worth measured in the tens, and in some cases hundreds, of millions. The richest is Mr Haslam, a multibillionaire whose father founded Pilot Flying J, a chain of petrol stations and convenience stores. Mr Justice, a coal billionaire, is the richest man in the state he governs.

America has had wealthy governors before—think of Nelson Rockefeller and Franklin Roosevelt, both of whom governed New York. But their proliferation is new. In part this simply reflects increasing income disparity in the country, says John Geer of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. Candidates with little money are disadvantaged by having to spend more time raising funds from donors to whom they are then beholden. One of President Donald Trump’s most popular campaign lines-- that he was too rich to be bought by special interests-- works in state elections too. Given the opacity of money in politics, perhaps voters find self-funding campaigns to be refreshingly transparent.

...How good are self-funding governors at governing? Such candidates often promise to run their states like a business, but their success can depend more on whether they have previous political experience. The pragmatic Mr Haslam is well-liked in Tennessee even by Democrats, and boasts an approval rating of around 60%. He was a two-term mayor of Knoxville before he ran for governor.

Michigan’s Mr Snyder and Illinois’s Mr Rauner, on the other hand, are among the least popular governors. Mr Snyder has not recovered from the public-health crisis caused by lead-contaminated water in Flint. Mr Rauner has been unable to govern effectively with the Democrat-controlled legislature. As a result, the state of Illinois’s finances have gone from critical to catastrophic, with unpaid bills amounting to $15bn and the state paying as much as 10% interest on some of its debt.

In Florida, Mr Scott has not managed to do much of what he promised, such as expanding the state’s economic-development agencies or securing big tax cuts, says Aubrey Jewett of the University of Central Florida. The Republican-controlled legislature still considers him an amateur. He is uncomfortable giving speeches or presiding over public ceremonies. Some newly minted governors have found their first encounters with a hard-nosed political press corps to be a shock. In some cases this makes them less willing to talk, which in turn leads to even less favourable coverage-- a lesson Mr Rauner, who is now more talkative, learned the hard way in Illinois. Private wealth will not be enough to win him re-election next year, especially as Mr Pritzker is much richer.

And if you've been reading DWT for any length of time you're already well-aware that the cancer of self-funders is not just a problem in gubernatorial elections. This link brings you to ten posts about congressional self-funders written over the last 18 months. But it's becoming more and more common to read about candidates-- especially conservative candidates recruited by the DCCC-- to drop immense sums of money into their congressional primaries to drive working and middle class candidates out of the races. Last year it was a miracle that progressive champion Jamie Raskin beat out to especially vile self-funding multimillionaire conservatives in the MD-08 primary. Chris Matthews wife put $606,198 other own money into a race where Matthews was already hitting his MSNBC guests to contribute to his wife. That amounted to nothing compared to the cycle's biggest loser, beer seller David Trone, who put $13,414,225 of his own into the primary race. MD-08 primary voters weren't kind to the 2 wealthy self-funders:

• Jamie Raskin- 33.6%
• David Trone- 27.1%
• Kathleen Matthews- 23.9%
• Ana Sol Gutierrez- 5.5%
• William Jawando- 4.6%

But Trone isn't finished. He probably noticed that worthless New Dem scumbag John Delaney first won his MD-06 congressional seat by putting $2,370,556 of his own into the race. As soon as he announced he would be running for president and giving up the House seat next year, Trone jumped in, announcing he would spend whatever it takes this time to win the seat. So far he's "only" put in $748,939 of his own... but we still have over a year to go and Maryland political observers expect him to spend between $10 and $15 million of his own. Absolutely devastating for democracy-- and horribly ugly for the Democratic Party, which is being ruined by an influx of conservative multimillionaires. Another candidate in the MD-06 primary, Nadia Hashimi, a pediatrician and best-selling author, has given her campaign $230,700, but she doesn't have the money to compete with Trone.

Let's move across the country to Orange County, where the Democrats are looking at 4 Republican-held congressional districts that Hillary won last year and where every indication shows voters are even worse repulsed by Trump than they were last year. Hillary's biggest victory was in CA-39, a middle class district in the northeast corner of the district that includes slivers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties as well. Blue America has endorsed progressive Sam Jammal for the seat. But self-funders have been attracted to what looks like an easy district. The latest FEC filings shows 4 candidates with significant self-funding:

• Andy Thorburn- $2,000,000
• Gil Cisneros- $561,656
• Mai-Khanh Tran- $200,000
• Phil Janowicz- $112,518

The richest member of Congress is Trump ally Darrell Issa, a career criminal. Voters nearly kicked him out last year and his 2016 opponent, Doug Applegate, expected to beat him easily in 2018. But a bevy of corrupt local multimillionaires led by a shady Pelosi crony, Ira Lechner, put up their own crap candidate, Mike Levin, and started pumping significant money into his campaign. Then a shady real estate investor, a crony of sleazy New Dem Scott Peters, with eye-popping Trump financial connections, Paul Kerr jumped in with $262,728 of his own money. And now there's some young Qualcomm heiress, Sara Jacobs, who doesn't live in the district but who thinks, after working for Hillary as an advisor, it would be fun to be a congresswoman and who is being urged to run in CA-49 by the predatory EMILY's List, which loves nothing on God's green earth more than heiresses with nice big rolodexes.

Fake Dem Omar Siddiqui

Just up the coast in CA-48, Putin's favorite crackpot congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, has attracted at least half a dozen opponents, including several conservative multimillionaires willing to self-fund. New Dem Harley Rouda has given his campaign $230,500. The other New Dem in the race, Hans Keirstead, has only put $55,400 of his own money in so far but DCCC sources say he is willing to stick at least a million dollars of his own into the race if he needs to. Another "Democrat," Omar Siddiqui, an "ex"-Republican who describes himself as a "Reagan-Democrat" and doesn't live in the district, has put in $255,786 so far and a 4th Democrat, Nestle executive Michael Kotick, has given his campaign $130,452. Republican primary challenger Stelian Onufrei has put $200,000 of his own into the race against Rohrabacher to boot. All these big sums is making it hard for the middle class progressive in the race, Laura Oatman to compete in the "money primary."

Other big self-funding Democrats in House races around the country so far (over $100,000 in self-funding):

• NY-02- Tim Gomes- $1,000,000
• NY-19- Brian Flynn- $685,400
• NC-02- Sam Searcy- $480,802
• NJ-11- Tamara Harris- $302,300
• MN-03- Adam Jennings- $280,805
• FL-27- David Richardson- $253,207
• NC-02- Ken Romley- $240,000
• VA-05- Leslie Cockburn- $203,000
• IL-06- Kelly Mazeski- $200,753
• WA-03- David McDevitt- $200,000
• IL-06- Sean Casten- $180,000
• PA-07- Molly Sheehan- $170,000
• KS-03- Andrea Ramsey- $138,534
• NM-01- Damian Lara- $125,000
• NY-19- Dave Clegg- $121,182
• NY-11- Omar Vaid- $105,532
• NJ-07- Lisa Mandelblatt- $103,931
• NY-01- David Pechefsky- $101,100
• TX-16- Dori Fenebock- $100,000

And speaking of self-funders, one of the richie-rich guys from Portland just dropped himself into the ME-02 congressional race, Lucas St. Clair, who's mommy, Roxanne Quimby from Burt's Bees, wants her son to have a seat in Congress. This is a rich establishment guy from Portland planning to blanket a working class district with expensive TV ads about himself and his good deeds. Maine's Donor Table will be right on top of it; he's one of them-- an establishment guy with money to burn, who will be the easiest possible target for Bruce Poliquin. Republican John Floyd is laughing already:

[A] seemingly endless amount of southern Maine politicos have been eagerly awaiting another chance to unseat Rep. Bruce Poliquin and push their brand of politics on us in the north. But as Democrat darlings Hillary Clinton and Emily Cain found out-- there is a lot more to Maine’s 2nd district than the liberal echo chamber of downtown Bangor.

St. Clair’s biography page on the Quimby Family Foundation website describes his rearing “in a hand-built log cabin with few amenities”-- a dismal attempt at likening his background to arguably the poorest and hardest working folks in Maine. Sorry, we’re not buying it.

What follows is a litany of educational and professional highlights such as attendance at elite schools and an appointment to the Quimby Family Foundation Board. Nowhere did I see his time spent in the frozen Maine woods swinging a saw, breaking his back in the potato fields of The County or raking blueberries Downeast for day wages. He’s led a charmed life indeed.

St. Clair lives in the city of Portland, not exactly a conservative stronghold. While recently purchasing a home in the district he plans on running in may be a requirement to appear connected to his would be constituents, he will never be mistaken as a stalwart for the outdoorsman by the blue collar conservatives whose traditions and roots run deep here.

What southern Maine Democrats can’t seem to get a handle on is the fact that we make our living up here with our hands, not with our mouth. We earned what we have by hard work, not by handout. We like it that way. We also like our way of living and don’t need another outsider coming north to impose their liberal values on us. How can the entitled son of a left-wing millionaire seriously expect to represent the values, wants and needs of a simple, conservative district? Has he never heard the term ‘carpetbagger’?

Poliquin adviser Brent Littlefield described St. Clair as a dilettante embarking upon “his next life quest” by running for Congress after spending much of his adult life out of the district-- the same criticism Democrats leveled at Poliquin when he ran in 2014. “From being an attempted gourmet chef through his college training in London, to a wine expert in Seattle, to spending his family’s money ignoring the will of local voters, he has moved on to thinking he should be a politician,” Littlefield said. You can see exactly where the attacks will be coming from and what an easy target St. Clair will be in ME-02.

[V]oters of the 2nd Congressional District have increasingly switched allegiances to Republicans, including Poliquin in 2014, Donald Trump in 2016 and a clear majority of legislative races. Poliquin first won the seat, which had been in Democratic hands for two decades, in 2014 as an underdog against Democrat Emily Cain of Orono.

Golden, 34, is viewed as the frontrunner in the Democratic primary. A resident of Lewiston, a Democratic Party stronghold, he was recruited by national Democratic Party groups in part because his status as a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq makes him a formidable opponent for Poliquin in a district where treatment of veterans has been a key issue.

...St. Clair said he was unsure how much of his campaign would be self-financed.

Will Economic Populism Work In Western Maryland? Meet Andrew Duck

Maryland's 6th congressional district used to be Republican territory. Maryland Democrats are as prone towards partisan gerrymandering as the GOP sleaze bags in North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. In 2011, the 6th got a big chunk of blue Montgomery County and suddenly the 6th was less like West Virginia and more like the DC suburbs. The following year crooked multimillionaire Democrat, John Delaney, ousted longtime moderate GOP incumbent, Roscoe Bartlett. Obama won the district by over 10 points both times he ran and even Hillary managed to beat Trump in the district, 55.3% to 40.2%. Delaney has been one of the most overtly anti-progressive Democrats in Congress. One of his Democratic colleagues once told me, after reading a Delaney OpEd in favor of chained CPI, that Delaney "is my poster child for what's wrong with the Democratic Party. Recruiting clueless, rich people who have no real values is almost always a failure."

Good news: the reactionary avatar of greed and selfishness is probably leaving Congress. He wants to run for governor, where he would be unlikely to beat either progressive hero Benjamin Jealous or moderate GOP incumbent Larry Hogan. But even if Delaney backs out of running for governor, he already has 3 primary challengers-- Aruna Miller, state House Majority Leader Bill Frick and local activist Andrew Duck-- with 2 more prepared to jump in: state Senator Roger Manno and multimillionaire beer distributor David Trone, a right-of-center, self-absorbed mini-Trump who just got crushed after spending more of his own money than any other candidate running for a House seat-- $13,414,225-- in history. Trone's mansion, of course, is nowhere near the district.

Andrew Duck, who was a Bernie activist in 2016 served in the U.S. Army (with multiple tours of duty in Bosnia and Iraq) for 20 years after enlisting as a teenager. For the past four years, he's been working as the director of operations for a green energy start-up company and has studied economics at the graduate level. He makes a good case for himself as the polar opposite of New Dem John Delaney; Duck is an economic progressive. I asked him to introduce himself to DWT readers.


Guest Post
-by Andrew Duck

Years have passed since the economic collapse of 2008, but our economy remains mired down with slow growth, stagnant wages, and increasing inequality. While parts of our country are improving, our economic recovery continues to be uneven.  While the stock market is at a record high, workers are earning less now, adjusted for inflation, than before the recession. It feels like the system is rigged against working people. That is because the system is rigged against working people.

We need progressive economic policies that will put us back on a path to growth that benefits working people. Increasing the minimum wage is a first step toward addressing wage stagnation and inequality, so we need to support the Fight for $15. Health care costs continue to rise, and we need to move to the only health care system that works, a single payer system like MEDICARE for All. The current incumbent does not support these policies.

We will also have to address the systemic issues which have rigged the system against working families to advantage the top one percent. We need to address our tax policies, which allow millionaires like Mitt Romney to pay a lower tax rate than almost anyone in the country. We will also need to address the rigged financial system by strengthening and enforcing the Dodd-Frank Act. Congressman Delaney has voted multiple times to weaken the Dodd-Frank Act.(H.R.992 2013, H.R. 83 2014) This is movement in the wrong direction. We should be passing a new Glass-Stegall Act, not rolling back the progress we have made.

But we have not made as much progress as we should have. Dodd-Frank has not been fully implemented, with 20% of the rules not proposed as of 2016. The banking system has stabilized, but that stability masks the underlying weaknesses that continue to exist. We need to take action now if we want to ensure we do not have another collapse like the one we saw in 2008.

We need to start with breaking up the big banks. Any bank which is “too big to fail” is too big to continue to exist. When we have a system where if a bank takes risks, they get a “heads the bank wins, tails the taxpayer loses” deal, it is inevitable that we will have another economic collapse. All of the incentive is for the bank to assume more and more risk, because they get all the gain and none of the loss. Eventually, the banks will assume so much risk that they will collapse. But because they know they are “too big to fail” they know they will be bailed out, and not take the loss themselves.

We also need to address the mechanics of our financial markets. We need to ensure that we can identify and prevent “front-running” of trades. The big financial companies have built a system where their transactions will be processed before the small investor’s, rigging the game. We need more vigorous enforcement to address this issue.

High Frequency Trading has also added volatility to the market, resulting in wide swings in market value. These swings are not a normal response to supply and demand. The machines doing the trading not only shave some value off of the transaction of regular small investors, they also push the market to extremes rapidly, because they can make even more money both on the way up and the way down. A small tax per transaction would make this technique less profitable, and reduce the volatility that we are seeing today.

The best way to make these fundamental reforms would be to pass a new Glass-Steagall Act. This would force a bank to do banking, and not run a hedge fund. If you want to be a hedge fund, you can be, but you cannot be a bank, with federal insurance, at the same time. While Dodd-Frank has provisions which could be used to break up a large bank, the process is cumbersome and requires extensive review and approval by the Federal Reserve. A new Glass-Steagall Act would go further and mandate the breaking up of the big banks. To do this, we will need some new people in Congress.

I am running for Congress in Maryland’s Sixth District, to take the seat now held by Congressman Delaney. But Congressman Delaney, who does not even live in MD-06, is exploring other options, and may not run for re-election. Also looking at running for MD-06 is another multi-millionaire, David Trone, owner of a large wine and beer distributor. David Trone also does not live in MD-06, but having spent $14 Million to lose in his district, he now has his eyes set on the district I live in. We cannot have millionaires treat our government like their play-thing.

We need representatives in Congress who will fight for the economic policies that will work to bring jobs and wage growth back to the working people of this country. I spent 20 years fighting for this country around the world. I am ready to fight just as hard here at home to get a government that will serve the people, not just the top one percent.

Maryland's Increasingly Messy Democratic Party Politics-- Delaney, Trone And... "The Stud Of The Statehouse"

Bernie with Ben Jealous-- the best news in this post about Maryland politics

Maryland Congressman John Delaney is barely a Democrat. Or, to be fair, he's the archetype member of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. A conservative multimillionaire serving the interests of the very rich, he's passionately anti-progressive and that's very much reflected in his atrocious voting record. ProgressivePunch rates him an "F" and this cycle Delaney's crucial vote score is an abysmal 45.83, not just the lowest of any Maryland Democrat, but way down at the bottom of the barrel among all House Democrats, tied, for example, with right-wing Blue Dogs Lou Correa and Cheri Bustos. The Five Thirty Eight new project that measures congressmembers' adherence to the Trump agenda shows him voting with Trump 19.4% of the time. (Hillary beat Trump in Delaney's district 55.3-40.2%.) Delaney is expected to announce that he's running for governor of Maryland later this month. The good news is that he'll be gone from Congress-- and likely to lose the gubernatorial bid.

First off, Marylanders are pretty happy with their Republican governor, Larry Hogan, who has one of the highest approval ratings of any governor in America. But before Delaney can even deal with Hogan, he has to face a crowded primary field, a field that includes former NAACP head Ben Jealous, who is rallying progressives and who was just endorsed by Bernie Sanders and by Our Revolution. Others in-- or likely to get into-- the race include Prince George's County Exec Rushern Baker, Baltimore Count Exec Kevin Kamenetz, former state Attorney General Douglas Gansler, tech entrepreneur Alec Rosss, attorney Jim Shea and state Senator Richard Madaleno.

As for Delaney's seat, Andrew Duck, an Iraq War vet and anti-Choice political "centrist" who ran for this seat in 2006, 2008 and 2010, Aruna Miller and state House Majority Leader (and stud of the statehouse) Bill Frick have already pulled papers and are soliciting campaign contributions. Although he hasn't officially declared yet, state Senator Roger Manno, is also running for Delaney seat. But the funniest candidate planning to run is another worthless right-of-center Democrat, multimillionaire beer distributor David Trone who recently made a fool of himself running for the MD-08 seat. Trone has the distinction of having spent more of his own money than any other candidate running for a House seat-- $13,414,225-- in history... only to lose the primary to progressive champion Jamie Raskin. Trone's millions bought him 27.1% of the primary vote, 35,400 votes or around $380 per vote. Maybe Trone thinks the more conservative 6th district will be a better match for his rich people agenda, but he also seems to think if he just spends a little more money... Yep he's already been bragging to the media that he's willing to spend a million and a half more of his fortune in MD-06-- $15 million-- than he wasted in MD-08. Trone has a long history of arrests and criminal behavior involved with building his beer and wine empire and I can't think of a better way the the Democrats to further tarnish their brand than by embracing someone like David Trone as a congressional candidate. On the other hand, Trone has written many hundreds of thousands of dollars in checks to the Democratic Party and has regularly contributed large sums to sleazy-- and influential-- Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen. He could be a role model for the Orange County lottery winner, who is currently working hard to buy endorsements from easily-bribed Democratic elected officials.

Still, the idea of getting Delaney out of Congress, will be worth every cent of David Trone's $15,000,000 in wasted self-funding. As for Ben Jealous... well, this is what Our Revolution president Nina Turner had to say in herr endorsement statement this morning:

Maryland deserves a leader who understands that social, racial, economic, and environmental justice are essential to building a better future for the next generation. It is imperative that we elect a bold, progressive governor who will fight on behalf of middle and working class families. Ben Jealous has spent his career fighting on behalf of communities who don’t have a seat at a table by working to strengthen voting rights and raise the minimum wage, advocating for an end to mass incarceration and the death penalty, and fighting to ensure health care as a human right. Ben has proven that he’s ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work for the people of Maryland.

Ben Jealous has been a dedicated civil rights leader since college, where he served local NAACP chapters in New York and Mississippi. After writing for and directing a variety of historically black newspapers, he went on to become the president and CEO of the NAACP from 2008 to 2012 where he was credited for reviving the organization by developing strong coalitions, implementing extensive voter mobilization efforts, and working tirelessly as a human rights advocate. In 2014, he became a senior partner at Kapor Capital, a firm that works to fuel progressive change through the tech industry. Jealous was one of the founding Our Revolution Board Members and an active surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign.

Now is the time to elect unapologetic progressive voices across the country. Our Revolution is proud to support Ben Jealous in his run for governor.