Do You Wonder Who This Year's Self-Funders Trying To Buy Themselves Congressional Seats Are?

Qualcomm's Irwin Jacobs (R) is spending $9 million to try to buy his granddaughter Sara (D-ish) a House seat

Most of 2018's self fund-funders lost their elections. The ones who won-- both Republicans and Democrats-- have all turned out to be horrible members of Congress, all with F rated voting records. All save the interests of their class; none serve the interests of working families:

• David Trone (New Dem-MD)- $17,913,172
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- $9,252,762
• Greg Gianforte (R-MT)- $2,400,000
• Van Taylor (R-TX)- $2,387,125
• Dan Meuser (R-PA)- $1,426,442
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)- $1,349,561

This year's top House candidates and the amount of the checks they wrote themselves:

• Kathaleen Wall (R-TX)- $7,472,467 (lost primary... again. In 2018, she ran in another district which rejected her after she spent 6,206,351 of her own)
• Adam Schiefer (D-NY)- $5,197,000 (lost primary)
• Darrell Issa (R-CA)- $3,202,438 (carpetbagger trying desperately to get back in Congress)
• Casey Askar (R-FL)- $3,000,000 (came in 3rd in an open-seat primary)
• Sara Jacobs (New Dem-CA)- $2,974,189 (She spent 2,714,931 of her own in 2018, lost and is trying to win another district, using family money to oppose progressive City Council president Georgette Gomez.)
• William Figlesthaler (R-FL)- $2,185,821 (came in 4th in the same race Askar came in 3rd)
• Rep. David Trone (New Dem-MD)- $1,945,000 (spent $13,385,373 to lose in 2016, switch districts and spent $17,913,172 of his own to win, run up a terrible record and is now spending more than any other incumbent in Congress to hold onto his seat.)
• Lisa McClain (R-MI)- $1,450,000 (spent like a madwoman to win her primary for an open red seat that the DCCC is not fighting for at all.
• Diana Harshbarger (R-TN)- $1,315,928 (same as the McClain story but Harshbarger is running against an excellent Democrat, Blair Nicole Walsingham in rural northeast Tennessee.)
• Rocky De La Fuente (R-CA)- $1,281,058 (crackpot joke candidate who lost his primary. Previously he ran for Senate in California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming simultaneously.)
• Josh Eisen (R-NY)- $1,250,000 (lost primary)
• Michelle Steel (R-CA)- $1,226,740 (won primary and is now up against New Dem Harley Rouda, who spent $960,676 of his own in 2018 but doesn't want to spend his own money this year)
• Nancy Goroff (New Dem-NY)- $1,155,600
• Ricardo De La Fuente (D-TX)- $1,153,125 (running against a freshman Republican in the Corpus Christi to Bay City seat, which should be flippable-- but not by this clown)
• Chris Ekstrom (R-TX)- $1,059,000 (lost primary)
• Michelle Caruso-Cabrera (NY)- $1,033,600 (joke candidate who ran against AOC, spending nearly $100 per vote and winding up with just 18%.
Ihssane Leckey (D-MA)- $1,006,000 (only progressive self-funding; lost primary)
• Victoria Spartz (R-IN)- $1,002,350 (won primary to face Democrat Christina Hale in an open swing district)

Would You Vote For Anyone-No-Matter-Who Against Trump? What About Republican-Pretending-To-Be-A-Democrat Michael Bloomberg?

Did you get inundated with requests for contributions on Friday? The DCCC and DSCC-- and the lame consultants they work with-- encourage their candidates to flood everyone's mailboxes with desperate, hollow pleas for donations for the bullshit "end of the month deadline." It used to be all about the end of the quarter deadline. Soon it will be about the end of the week deadline and eventually the end of the day deadline.

Coincidentally, the final reports have come in with the end of the quarter FEC filings. Let's talk a look at the FEC reports filed for each candidate vying for the Democratic presidential nomination filed for the quarter ending December 31. Tom Steyer raised $205,380,488 and spent $199,989,748. 98.58% of his money raised was self-funded ($202,496,602).

Bloomberg raised $200,359,618.56 and spent $188,385,951.94. He self-funded virtually all of it-- $200,114,049 (00.88%).

Among the candidates not trying to buy the White House, these are the raised/spent numbers so far for the cycle:

• Bernie- raised $107,916,369, spent $89,743,329
• Elizabeth- raised $81,291,563, spent $67,576,254
• Mayo- raised $75,427,078, spent $60,908,002
• Status Quo Joe- raised $59,545,050, spent $50,601,488
• Yang- raised $31,331,251, spent $27,158,259
• Klobuchar- raised $28,736,113, spent $23,762,532
• Tulsi- raised $12,447,703, spent $9,689,816
• Michael Bennet- raised $6,831,685, spent $6,314,126

Writing for Open Secrets, Karl Evers-Hillstrom of the Center for Responsive Politics reported that Bloomberg has already shattered all self-funding records in history-- and just two months after announcing.

By generously funding his own campaign, Bloomberg has already surpassed his 2020 rival Presidential Donald Trump in the record books. Not adjusted for inflation, Trump held the self-financing title for his 2016 campaign, pouring over $66 million of his own money into it. But Trump relied on contributions in the general election and is not personally bankrolling his reelection campaign.

Bloomberg’s figure dwarfs even that of billionaire Ross Perot, who spent $63.5 million of his own money on his 1992 presidential bid. That’s about $115 million when adjusted for inflation.

Bloomberg, who has already accumulated $33 million in debt to his own committee, stuck by his promise to reject all campaign contributions. He argues in his campaign ads that he is the only candidate not beholden to “special interests.”

The former New York City mayor spent $180 million through the end of the year, twice as much as the next top spender in the Demcoratic primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Bloomberg has already spent $300 million on TV and digital ads through the end of January, according to an estimate from Advertising Analytics.

Sanders campaign aides have expressed concern about Bloomberg’s massive spending, but so have aides to former Vice President Joe Biden. The two moderates are headed for a clash on Super Tuesday, where Bloomberg has concentrated almost all of his ad spending. Biden aides are reportedly concerned that Bloomberg’s rise could hand Sanders the nomination.

A recent survey from the Los Angeles Times and University of California found that Sanders has a strong lead in California, which holds roughly 40 percent of Super Tuesday’s convention delegates. Sanders is polling at 26 percent, compared to Biden’s 15 percent and Bloomberg’s 6 percent, according to the poll.

The Democratic National Committee handed Bloomberg a win Friday when it changed its qualification rules for its Feb. 19 debate in Nevada. Candidates no longer need to hit a donor threshold, only needing to reach 10 percent in four relevant polls.

If he doesn’t win the nomination, Bloomberg has said he will convert his campaign into an independent effort to support the Democratic nominee in November. He is reportedly willing to spend $1 billion on the election, which would be an unprecedented amount of spending by a single person.

A reliable source inside and high up in Team Bloomie contradicts what Bloomberg-- a notorious liar-- has said about supporting whichever Democrat wins the primary. According to the source, who has never steered me wrong, if Bernie wins-- as appears likely-- Bloomberg will try to mount an independent campaign, reportedly with Stacey Abrams as his running mate, to throw the election to Trump and keep Bernie out of the White House. Fake right-wing Democrats like Bloomberg have tried to do the same thing in the past, successfully against William Jennings Bryan and unsuccessfully against FDR.




In his Washington Post column yesterday, ex-Republican Max Boot wrote that the GOP doesn't deserve to survive the debacle they created. Boot began by claiming he would never rejoin the GOP, which he left the day after Trump won the 2016 election. [NOTE: It's important to remember that Boot and other #NeverTrumpers are conservative Republicans at heart, not Democrats, and while we welcome their hatred of Trump, the Democratic Party actually stands for things they despise. They should have no role in picking our candidates.] Boot noted that when Trump leaves the White House "he will leave behind a quasi-authoritarian party that is as corrupt as he is. The failure to call witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial revealed the GOP’s moral failure."

He Can Do It by Nancy Ohanian

The most significant of the “nay” votes was Lamar Alexander (TN), a 79-year-old political warhorse who is retiring this year. He admitted what the most purblind Trump partisans will not: that “it was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent.” The reason he did not need to hear any witnesses, Alexander explained, was because “there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven.” So far, so good. But then he pivoted to argue that for some reason Trump’s misconduct doesn’t meet the “high bar for an impeachable offense.” He concluded that the verdict on Trump should be left to “the presidential election”-- you know, the election Trump just tried to fix.

Alexander’s statement raises more questions than it answers: If Trump’s attempt to blackmail Ukraine into helping him politically does not rise to the level of impeachable conduct, what does? Does Alexander subscribe to Alan Dershowitz’s doctrine of presidential infallibility? And, even if he doesn’t want to keep Trump off the ballot, why doesn’t he advocate Trump’s censure or political defeat? But instead of advocating any punishment for Trump’s “inappropriate” conduct, Alexander wants him rewarded by being reelected.

Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) at least made clear that he rejects the argument-- raised by the president’s lawyers but rejected by almost all scholars-- "that ‘Abuse of Power’ can never constitute grounds for removal unless a crime or a crime-like action is alleged.” He, too, seems to assume that Trump is guilty, although he doesn’t quite say so. But Rubio argued “against removal in the context of the bitter divisions and deep polarization our country currently faces.”

Of course, if Trump were removed, it would require the support of 20 Republican senators, so it would hardly be partisan. But lest anyone think that Rubio is refusing to call witnesses for purely partisan reasons, he patted himself on the back for rejecting “calls to pursue [the] impeachment of President Obama,” without specifying what Obama could have been impeached for. You can bet that if Obama had done what Trump did, Rubio would be in favor of impeachment.

But wait. It gets worse. The prize for the most illogical statement must go to Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (AK). She wrote: “Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate.” She then announced her opposition to calling witnesses-- a move that could have made the trial a lot fairer. Huh?

Given the flimsiness of the Republicans’ rationales, it’s hard not to conclude that something else accounts for their decision-making. It’s obvious what’s going on in Rubio’s case-- he thinks he has a future in politics and wants to stay on the good side of Trump supporters. His colleagues who are facing reelection this year, such as Cory Gardner (CO) and Thom Tillis (NC), are no doubt terrified Trump will endorse a primary challenger. Some other Republicans are no doubt deluded enough to imagine that Trump’s call was “perfect.” But what about Alexander and other senators who know better and will never face the voters again?

Tim Alberta of Politico makes a convincing case that even retiring lawmakers fear breaking with the president would hurt their future “earning power” and subject them to unwelcome “harassment” from Trump cultists. These concerns are understandable but should not be dispositive. Senators who shirk their constitutional duties are cowards who disgrace their oaths of office and betray the Constitution. Our troops risk their lives for this country; these senators won’t even risk some unpleasantness.

I want nothing to do with a party led by the deluded and the dishonest. I fervently hope our democracy survives this debacle. I fervently hope the Republican Party does not.

Sara Jacobs Is Back-- And Ready To Drop Another Couple Million Dollars Of Her Parents' Money To Buy A Congressional Seat

The last time Sara Jacobs ran for Congress, it was in the Orange County/San Diego County district that Darrell Issa had abandoned as "too blue." It also turned out to be "too blue" for the Qualcomm heiress. She spent gigantically in the primary-- $2,714,931, of which $2,125,798 (78%) came out of personal money her family gave her. The biggest single candidate expenditure-- by FAR (like nearly by a factor of 10!)-- that EMILY's List made-- $2,362,544-- in 2018 was for Jacobs. They sure love supporting rich women, richer the better, which has become their top priority and their trademark. All those millions of dollars bought her just 28,778 votes. That's $176.43 per vote. At what point will trashy rich politicians like Jacobs just directly hand out $100 bills to voters on their way to the polls?

Mike Levin came out on top in that race and is the current congressman, widely judged to be doing a very good job. Jacobs, the heiress who was trying out the life of a Brooklyn hipster-- but not too hip-- had been part of the Hillary Clinton team and that's basically who and what she is-- an overly entitled, spoiled rich kid who thinks her shit doesn't stink and who wants to go to Congress to fight with all her might to-- let's be real-- maintain the status quo... while advancing her own career.

The 49th district where she ran last time, doesn't border on the 53rd district, where she's announcing this time-- and neither borders on Brooklyn. CA-52 is between CA-49 and CA-53-- but a someone like Sara Jacobs-- with EMILY's List at her back-- would never let geography stand in her way. Within milli-seconds of New Dem Susan Davis announcing her retirement, EMILY's List had Jacobs' campaign up and running. Jacobs, who has had her whole life handed to her on a silver platter: "This is an all-hands-on-deck time. Our country is at a defining moment, and I believe it’s more important than ever to have representatives who understand the federal government, can repair what’s been broken by the Trump administration and years of dysfunction in Washington, and who have a forward-looking vision for a more equitable future."

A friend of mine in Lemon Grove told me she would move out of San Diego if Jacobs is elected. "Jose Caballero is the grassroots progressive candidate here, who's been running for this seat all year on a strong progressive platform. It's funny watching a Hillary neoliberal like Sara Jacobs jump in as soon as it looks easy, flashing her parents' bank account and yelling about all the issues she has never backed, like Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal. She's going to blanket this district in her family's money and try to buy herself a congressional seat. It makes me want to throw up. I hope people can see right through her. Can you please endorse Jose already?"

Watch the speech her EMILY's List controller wrote for her. It has nothing to do with anything except persuading voters the little heiress is something she isn't and will never be:




After watching this video, the person who helps find my millions of typos, remarked that "Jacobs has about as much charisma as jello." That was the first non-typo remark in over a year.

Now, if you haven't already, please watch the Young Turks interview with Caballero (up top) and you will be able to easily imagine exactly why the Democratic Party establishment will quickly work to obliterate him in favor of a fine house-broken thoroughbred like Jacobs. Caballero wants to challenge their feckless leadership. She wants to revel in it and be part of it and be told what to do by it.

Congress already has too many self-funders who have bought themselves House seats-- and they're not all Republicans. These were the biggest self-funders for House seats last cycle, all the ones who spent a million or more of their own money or, in Sara's case, their mommy's and daddy's money:

• David Trone (New Dem-MD)- $17,913,172- won
• Scott Wallace (D-PA)- $12,756,892- lost
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- $9,252,762- won
• Kathaleen Wall (R-TX)- $6,169,732- lost (running again in a different district, like Sara)
• Paul Kerr (D-CA)- $5,715,218- lost
• Mel Hall (Blue Dog-IN)- $3,112,000- lost
• George S Flinn Jr. (R-TN)- $3,068,270- lost
• Dan Moody (R-GA)- $3,040,237- lost
• Andy Thorburn (D-CA)- $2,886,900- lost
• Greg Gianforte (R-MT)- $2,400,000- won
• Van Taylor (R-TX)- $2,387,125- won
• Sara Jacobs (D-CA)- $2,125,798- lost
• Perry Gershon (D-NY)- $1,980,997- lost
• John Chrin (R-PA)- $1,687,182- lost
• Bob Corlew (R-TN)- $1,496,153- lost
• Tahir Javed (D-TX)- $1,433,416- lost
• Dan Meuser (R-PA)- $1,426,442- won
• Thomas MacArthur (R-NJ)- $1,360,000- lost reelection
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)- $1,349,561- won
• Peter deNeufville (R-NJ)- $1,238,165- lost
• David Kim (D-GA)- $1,214,489- lost
• Denny Wolff (Blue Dog-Pa)- $1,200,071- lost
• Lena Epstein (R-MI)- $1,168,790- lost

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%

Will The Big Self-Funders Win Today?

Many of the most egregious self-funders this cycle lost their primaries, like Democrats Herbert Lee (CA- $1,057,942), Alison Friedman (VA- $1,080,365), Hans Keirstead (CA- $1,080,400), David Kim (GA- $1,164,689), Jerome Segal (MD- $1,271,189), Tahir Javed (TX- $1,333,416), Sara Jacobs (CA- $2,117,987), Andy Thorburn (CA- $2,832,018) and Paul Kerr (CA- $5,912,728), as well as Republicans Troy Downing (MT- $1,100,000), Peter deNeufville (NJ- $1,238,165), Bob Corlew (TN- $1,496,153), David Dodson (WY- $1,643,784), Mike Gibbons (OH- $2,690,226), George Flinn Jr. (TN- $3,068,270), Don Blankenship (WV- $4,107,710), Sandy Pensler (MI- $5,009,578), John Kingston (MA- $5,188,265), and Kathaleen Wall (TX- $6,169,732).

Don't you love to see plutocrats waste millions of their own dollars on campaigns and fall flat on their faces. Today there are 18 candidates running who have already spent at least a million dollars of their own on their campaigns. Some will win and some will lose. Here are the ones still in the running, in order of how much they had put in by last month.

• Florida Senate- Rick Scott (R)- $51,028,228 (45%) WON
• New Jersey Senate- Bob Hugin (R)- $27,500,000 (30%) LOST
• MD-06- David Trone (D)- $15,983,172 (100%) WON
• PA-01- Scott Wallace (D)- $12,756,892 (55%) LOST
• Indiana Senate- Mike Braun (R)- $9,614,377 (49%) WON
• CA-39- Gil Cisernos (D)- $8,852,762 (60%) LOST
• Tennessee Senate- Phil Bredesen (D)- $5,516,942 (50%) LOST
• California Senate- Dianne Feinstein (D)- $5,006,050 (90%) WON
• Massachusetts Senate- Shiva Ayyadurai (I)- $4,805,464 (1%) LOST
• Ohio Senate- Jim Renacci (R)- $4,000,000 (25%) LOST
• IN-02- Mel Hall (Blue Dog)- $2,522,000 (10%) LOST
• TX-03- Van Taylor (R)- $2,136,908 (99%) WON
• NY-01- Perry Gershon (D)- $1,843,746 (25%) LOST
• PA-08- John Chrin (R)- $1,622,762 (10%) LOST
• Minnesota Senate- Jerry Trooien (I)- $1,591,000 (1%) LOST
• NJ-03- Thomas MacArthur (R)- $1,400,000 (45%) ?
• PA-09- Dan Meuser (R)- $1,161,442 (99%) WON
• CA-48- Harley Rouda (D)- $1,138,955 (60%) WON

That percentage next to each name is my own handicapping-- not the actual scores, but the chance the candidate has to win for all that money. We'll see later how many candidates have been able to buy seats in Congress.

[NOTE: As you can see, I've updated the list to show who won and who lost. NJ-03 is too close to call right now, although MacArthur is leading narrowly.]

Should The Country Be Soley Ruled By Multimillionaires And Billionaires?

Republicans Darrell Issa (CA), David Trott (MI), Diane Black (TN), Tom Rooney (FL), James Renacci (OH) and Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ) will not be returning to Congress next year. The only one worth less than $30 million is Frelinghuysen but altogether this half dozen anti-healthcare fanatics are worth quite a bit over half a billion dollars. Among the Democrats not returning to the House next year are Jared Polis (New Dem-CO- $122.6 million) and John Delaney (New Dem-MD- $92.6 million).

Don't worry about millionaires and their interests not being represented in Congress next year. Although just 5% of Americans are millionaires, 51% of the members of Congress are. As iron-worker and Wisconsin congressional candidate Randy Bryce-- who the DCCC is trying to crush-- tweeted this week, "Just 2% of our members of Congress have come from the working class. A Congress made up of millionaires works for millionaires. We need a Congress made up of working people if we want our government to work for us." Good luck with that. Nancy Pelosi and her elite gang of multimillionaires have moved systematically to keep working class candidates from winning primaries and when they do win primaries-- as Bryce did-- Pelosi and her crooked gang of wealthy creeps make sure they are not supported by either the DCCC or Pelosi's own House Majority PAC.

Wednesday, Vox published an essay by Nicholas Carnes, a professor of public policy at Duke and author of The Cash Ceiling: Why Only The Rich Run For Office. That's him up top explaining the difference between the Millionaires Party and the Working Class Party. And the clip below is also Nick, this time being interviewed at Duke a few years ago after he released a previous-- and related-- book, White Collar Government. His main point in the two books is that "our government is run by rich people-- and it benefits them the most"-- and he asks, in a country where virtually any citizen is eligible to serve in public office, why are most of our elected representatives drawn from the millionaire class rather than the working class, which makes up way over half the population.



"This year," he wrote, "it might be tempting to think that working-class Americans don’t have it so bad in politics, especially in light of recent candidates like Randy Bryce, the Wisconsin ironworker running for the US House seat Paul Ryan is vacating, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the former restaurant server whose primary election win over Democratic heavyweight Joe Crowley may go down as the single biggest election upset in 2018. In reality, however, they are stark exceptions to a longstanding rule in American politics: Working-class people almost never become politicians. Ocasio-Cortez and Bryce make headlines in part because their economic backgrounds are so unusual (for politicians, that is). Their wins are stunning in part because their campaigns upset a sort of natural order in American politics."

The figure above plots recent data on the share of working-class people in the US labor force (the black bar) and in state and national politics. Even in the information age, working-class jobs-- defined as manual labor, service industry, and clerical jobs-- still make up a little more than half of our economy. But workers make up less than 3 percent of the average state legislature.

The average member of Congress spent less than 2 percent of his or her entire pre-congressional career doing the kinds of jobs most Americans go to every day. No one from the working class has gotten into politics and gone on to become a governor, or a Supreme Court justice, or the president. And that probably won’t change anytime soon.

...The exclusion of working-class people from American political institutions isn’t a recent phenomenon. It isn’t a post-decline-of-labor-unions phenomenon, or a post-Citizens United phenomenon. It’s actually a rare historical constant in American politics-- even during the past few decades, when social groups that overlap substantially with the working class, like women, are starting to make strides toward equal representation. Thankfully, the share of women in office has been rising-- but it’s only been a certain type of woman, and she wears a white collar.

This ongoing exclusion of working-class Americans from our political institutions has enormous consequences for public policy. Just as ordinary citizens from different classes tend to have different views about the major economic issues of the day (with workers understandably being more pro-worker and professionals being less so), politicians from different social classes tend to have different views too.

These differences between politicians from different social classes have shown up in every major study of the economic backgrounds of politicians. In the first major survey of US House members in 1958, members from the working class were more likely to report holding progressive views on the economic issues of the day and more likely to vote that way on actual bills. The same kinds of social class gaps appear in data on how members of Congress voted from the 1950s to the present. And in data on the kinds of bills they introduced from the 1970s to the present. And in public surveys of the views and opinions of candidates in recent elections.

The gaps between politicians from working-class and professional backgrounds are often enormous. According to how the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce rank the voting records of members of Congress, for instance, members from the working class differ by 20 to 40 points (out of 100) from members who were business owners, even in statistical models with controls for partisanship, district characteristics, and other factors. Social class divisions even span the two parties. Among Democratic and Republican members of Congress alike, those from working-class jobs are more likely than their fellow partisans to take progressive or pro-worker positions on major economic issues.

These differences between politicians from different economic backgrounds-- coupled with the virtual absence of politicians from the working class-- ultimately skew the policymaking process toward outcomes that are more in line with the upper class’s economic interests. States with fewer legislators from the working class spend billions less on social welfare each year, offer less generous unemployment benefits, and tax corporations at lower rates. Towns with fewer working-class people on their city councils devote smaller shares of their budgets to social safety net programs; an analysis I conducted in 2013 suggested that cities nationwide would spend approximately $22.5 billion more on social assistance programs each year if their councils were made up of the same mix of classes as the people they represent.

Congress has never been run by large numbers of working-class people, but if we extrapolate from the behavior of the few workers who manage to get in, it’s probably safe to say that the federal government would enact far fewer pro-business policies and far more pro-worker policies if its members mirrored the social class makeup of the public.

As the old saying goes, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.

Now, defenders of America’s white-collar government will tell you that working-class people are unqualified to hold office, and that voters know it and rightly prefer more affluent candidates.

Alexander Hamilton said it (“[workers] are aware, that however great the confidence they may justly feel in their own good sense, their interests can be more effectually promoted by the merchant than by themselves”). Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists have said it (“voters repeatedly reject insurrectionist candidates who parallel their own ordinariness ... in favor of candidates of proven character and competence”). Donald Trump has said it (“I love all people, rich or poor, but in [Cabinet-level] positions, I just don’t want a poor person.”).

However, this line of reasoning is flat wrong. The raw personal qualities that voters tend to want in a candidate-- honesty, intelligence, compassion, and work ethic-- are not qualities that the privileged have a monopoly on. (In fact, two of the traits voters say they most want in a politician, honesty and compassion, may actually be a little less common among the rich.)

When working-class people hold office, they tend to perform about as well as other leaders on objective measures; in an analysis of cities governed by majority-working-class city councils in 1996, I found that by 2001, those cities were indistinguishable from others in terms of how their debt, population, and education spending had changed.

When working-class people run, moreover, they tend to do just fine. In both real-world elections and hypothetical candidate randomized controlled trials embedded in surveys (which help to rule out the so-called Jackie Robinson effect), voters seem perfectly willing to cast their ballots for working-class candidates.

The real barrier to working-class representation seems to be that workers just don’t run in the first place. In national surveys of state legislative candidates in 2012 and 2014, for instance, former workers made up just 4 percent of candidates (and around 3 percent of winners).

So why do so few workers run for office? I’ve been researching this question for the past decade, and I think the answer is right under our noses: campaigns... [in which] groups with fewer resources are at a huge disadvantage.

In democratic elections, people can only be considered for office if they take time off work and out of their personal lives to campaign. Even in places where candidates don’t spend a lot of money on their campaigns, they still put in a lot of time and energy-- any candidate will tell you that running was a significant personal sacrifice. They give up their free time. They give up time with their families. Many of them have to take time off work.

For politically qualified working-class Americans, this feature of elections seems to be the barrier that uniquely distinguishes them from equally qualified professionals. In surveys, workers and professionals alike hate the thought of asking for donations. They say that the thought of giving up their privacy is a downside. They express similar concerns about whether they are qualified.

But it is the thought of losing income or taking time off work that uniquely screens out working-class Americans long before Election Day. When the price of competing is giving up your day job (or a chunk of it), usually only the very well-off will be able to throw their hats into the ring.

Elites recruit elites

But couldn’t party and interest group leaders help working-class Americans overcome these obstacles? Couldn’t foundations create special funds to encourage and support candidates from the working class?

Of course. But they usually don’t. The people who recruit new candidates often don’t see workers as viable options, and pass them over in favor of white-collar candidates. In surveys of county-level party leaders, for instance, officials say that they mostly recruit professionals and that they regard workers as worse candidates. Candidates say the same thing: In surveys of people running for state legislature, workers report getting less encouragement from activist organizations, civic leaders, and journalists.

The reasons are complicated. Some party leaders cite concerns about fundraising to explain why they don’t recruit workers, for instance, and in places where elections cost less, party officials really do seem to recruit more working-class candidates. However, by far the best predictor of whether local party leaders say they encourage working-class candidates is whether the party leader reports having a lower income him-- or herself and whether the party leader reports having any working-class people on the party’s executive committee.

Candidate recruitment is a deeply social activity, and political leaders are usually busy volunteers who look for new candidates within their own mostly white-collar personal and professional networks. The result is that working-class candidates are often passed over in favor of affluent professionals.

What about foundations, reformers, and pro-worker advocacy organizations? Couldn’t they help qualified working-class Americans run for office?

Of course. But they usually don’t. There are models out there for doing so, actually-- the New Jersey AFL-CIO has been running a program to recruit working-class candidates for more than two decades (and their graduates have a 75 percent win rate and close to 1,000 electoral victories). But the model has been slow to catch on in the larger pro-worker reform community.

To the contrary, the pro-worker community has focused on reforms aimed at addressing the oversize political influence of the wealthy that have historically tended to look at on inequalities in political voice, imbalances in the ways that citizens and groups pressure government from the outside. We’ve heard the same story for decades: If we could reform lobbying and campaign finance and get a handle on the flow of money in politics, the rich wouldn’t have as much of a say in government. If we could promote broader political participation, enlighten the public, and revitalize the labor movement, the poor would have more of a say.

The key to combating political inequality, in this view, is finding ways to make sure that everyone’s voices can be heard-- and the idea of giving workers influence inside government has never been a part of the mainstream reform conversation.

How about wealthy candidates who just outright try to buy congressional seats-- self-funders? These are the biggest self funders (over $2 million) this cycle along with the amount they've spent from their own purses and the percentage of their campaign that has been self-funders. The two political parties encourage them, not despite the personal cash and wealthy friends, but because of that. And, again-- alas-- they're not all Republicans.

• Rick Scott (R-FL)- $38,934,441 (71.3%)
• Bob Hugin (R-NJ)- $24,000,000 (91.5%)
• David Trone (D-MD)- $15,983,172 (96.8%)
• Scott Wallace (D-PA)- $8,856,892 (90.3%)
• Mike Braun (R-IN)- $8,114,377 (60.6%)
• Gil Cisneros (D-CA)- $8,052,762 (80.9%)
• Kathaleen Wall (R-TX)- $6,169,732 (99.4%)- lost primary
• Paul Kerr (D-CA)- $5,912,728 (98.2%)- lost primary
• Phil Bredesen (D-TN)- $5,508,140 (37.2%)
• John Kingston (R-MA)- $5,188,265 (82.2%)- lost primary
• Sandy Pensler (R-MI)- $5,009,578 (95.8%)- lost primary
• Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)- $5,006,050 (30.8%)
• Shiva Ayyadurai (I-MA)- $4,802,331 (96.3%)- lost primary
• Jim Renacci (R-OH)- $4,000,000 (54.9%)
• George Flinn Jr. (R-TN)- $3,068,270 (99.9%)- lost primary
• Dan Moody (R-GA)- $3,040,237 (96.9%)- lost special election
• Andy Thorburn (D-CA)- $2,860,900 (91.5%)- lost primary
• Mike Gibbons (R-OH)- $2,690,226 (86.7%)- lost primary
• Mel Hall (D-IN)- $2,122,000 (70.4%)
• Sara Jacobs (D-CA)- $2,117,987 (73.7%)- lost primary

Yesterday, Gaius did an excellent post that shows how an issue as absolutely crucial as dealing with climate change has been hopelessly distorted by a government controlled by the uber-wealthy. It's definitely worth reading if you haven't already. I love this video that CAP Action Fund just released. I wish there was a way to get it out more widely. Play it for your friends?

Democratic House Campaigns About The DCCC Regional Vice Chairs: "What's That?"

What a waste of time this morning! I called a couple of dozen campaign managers all over the country, almost entirely campaign managers for candidates who had already won their primaries. And I had an identical simple question for each one: "Have you talked to your DCCC Regional Vice Chair?" Except for the ones in California, I got the same answer from every campaign manager. "Who's that?" or "What's that?" No one knew. They didn't know on the East Coast. They didn't know in the Midwest. They didn't know in the South. The region that encompasses Texas and the Rocky Mountain States doesn't even have a DCCC vice chair because Pelosi and Luján preferred to control everything themselves so never bothered replacing Jared Polis when he resigned about a year ago.

The West Coast campaign managers and candidates had a different answer but they all had the same answer among themselves, more or less. They couldn't stop singing the praises of Ted Lieu and of his chief of staff, Marc Cevasco. Why's that? Simple. Ted had just done the first of 5 events he planned featuring all the candidates. At each event, all the money raised-- and all means all gets split up between the candidates. Ted gets zero, except the satisfaction of helping elect Democrats who have already won their primaries.

At the first event, Ted brought in $520,000 and he hopes to do similarly well in Orange County, San Francisco, Seattle and at another one in L.A. All the California candidates had an opportunity to be introduced and then mingle with the 250 high end donors. One campaign manager told me it was the best event she had been part of ever, although she did admit she's a massive Fleetwood Mac fan... and Lindsey Buckingham was the "entertainment." Another manager was flipping out because one of the guest s was Michael Avenatti, who he got to talk to one on one.

It sure would be nice seeing the other regional vice chairs taking their positions seriously and not just as another box to tick off on their resumes. I called one of them and he told me he doesn't know why he ever ran for the post and doesn't know what he's supposed to do. Nice! Of course it doesn't help that Pelosi and Luján want to see these guys fail so they can reassert and concentrate their own authority over the DCCC.

These are the regional vice chairs:

• Midwest- Betty McCollum
• South- Donald McEachin
• Northeast- Joe Kennedy III
• West Coast- Ted Lieu

The other thing I like about the way Ted is doing this, is that the money goes straight to the candidates. They know how to spend it and they-- or most of them-- are the least likely to waste it on consultants and wasteful media campaigns. When you give money to the DCCC, a huge portion is money right down a rat-hole. I'd like to see some of the congressmembers involved with the DCCC raising some real money for candidates, not just for the hopelessly corrupt organization itself. Denny Heck (D-WA) was the chairman of the failed recruitment committee. The least he could do is raise some money for the lousy candidates he recruited. He's personally very wealthy and has lots of wealthy friends. Spread the wealth and let's stop Trump in his tracks for real.

The "Sucking Up To Rich People Committee" is co-chaired by Jim Himes (D-CT), Richard Neal (D-MA), Terri Sewell (D-AL) and Joaquin Castro (D-TX). How about diverting some of those partners and allies cash into the candidates' campaigns, instead of watching the crooked DCCC staffers waste it making incompetent consultants wealthier?

Alright, as long as you've gotten this far, you deserve some good news. Bloomberg reporter Josh Green wrote that the blue wave is being powered by a green wave. In the second quarter that ended June 30, "the torrent of money pouring into Democratic campaign coffers helped 73 House candidates outraise Republican incumbents and opponents in races for open seats."

Since Trump’s election, Democratic enthusiasm has been apparent in all sorts of ways: the proliferation of anti-Trump marches, the record number of new candidates running for office, increased turnout in primaries and special elections, and surveys showing left-leaning voters more invested in November’s election than their counterparts. That energy has also translated into dollars. In the second quarter of this year, non-incumbent Democratic House candidates raised more than three times the amount they did in the same period in 2014. That works out to an average of $151,000 per candidate, compared with $101,000 in 2014.

Oops-- bad chart. These numbers should actually be taken out of the averages since these are super wealthy self-funders. None of this has anything to do with grassroots enthusiasm or anything... except obsessed guys buying House seats. This is how much each had contributed to his own campaign as of June 30. The percentage is how much the self-funding equalled in relation to total fundraising.

• David Trone (MD)- $11,483,172 (95.89%)
• Paul Kerr (CA)- $5,912,728 (99.04%)
• Scott Wallace (PA)- $4,856,892 (90.28%)
• Gil Cisneros (CA)- $4,552,762 (82.78%)

I can't go on with this. I read the rest of Green's report and realized my goldfish knows more about American politics than he does and that all his "info" came straight from the DCCC press shop. Let's just leave it at this and remember, it's the anti-red wave that will be lifting all boats in Novmeber. Only the Kremlin could save the GOP now. Will Trump get Putin to do it again?

You know there's a special congressional election on Tuesday, right? Pat Tiberi retired and this is to replace him in central Ohio's super-gerrymandered 12th CD. Most of the voters live in north Columbus and the suburbs and small towns north of the city. It shoots north of the Columbus Metro as far north as Bellville and Mansfield rand as far east as as Newark and Zanesville. The last time the district voted for a Democratic presidential candidate was 1916 and the PVI is R+7. Obama lost with around 44% each time and Trump beat Hillary 53.2% to 41.9%. Democratic congressional candidates don't try to win the district but this special election is... special-- TRUMP. The Democratic candidate is a conservative Democrat, Danny O'Connor (think Ossoff) and the Republican is an establishment guy, Troy Balderson, not a Trumpist crazy. But Pence has been campaigning for him and Trump will be there over the weekend. Monmouth reported a dead heat this week-- a one-point difference, which means it's going to be all about which field operation will turn out the most voters.

As of July 18, O'Connor had raised $1,445,504 and had $129,201 in cash left and Balderson had raised $1,264,723 and has $208,032. But the GOP is spending like mad on Balderson's behalf. Paul Ryan's PAC spent $2,460,624, the NRCC spent $1,302,427 and the RNC kicked in $451,925. Other right-wing groups tossed in another million. Meanwhile, the DCCC spent $629,854. In all, $3,171,265 has been spent smearing O'Connor, basically trying to make him into Nancy Pelosi and $2,003,753 has been spent trying to bolster Balderson. If the Democrats win Tuesday, it means the only issue in November will be Trump and that the GOP might as well let the chips fall where they do and save their 2018 money for 2020.

How Much Did Self-Funding Help In The California Congressional Races?

Gil Cisneros, the DCCC's staff's idea of a candidate

There were a lot of candidates willing to spend over $500,000 of their own money to buy a place in the general election run-off. None of the big spenders came in first and most of them failed to come in second, which is what they would have needed to get into the general election. These are the 3 districts, all in Orange County, where multimillionaires spent over half a million in the effort. All but one of the big self-funders are Democrats, in part due to the DCCC's repulsive obsession with recruiting wealthy self-funders. In some cases they actually hurt themselves by recruiting more than one self funder in a single district. The DCCC recruited both Gil Cisneros and Mai Khanh Tran in the 39th and Harley Rouda and Hans Keirstea in the 48th, a race that still hasn't be called.

Worse yet, in the 39th, Cisneros is such an abysmal candidate that unless the blue wave is an absolute tsunami, he's unlikely to be able to win the general election. What the DCCC has done is cede the best target in Orange County to the Republicans just because Cisneros is such a big spender, his only "qualification" for office.

The vote counts are as of last Saturday, June 16 and the money totals are of May 16

CA-39

• Gil Cisneros (D)- 25, 291 (19.3%)- $3,552,762
• Andy Thorburn (D)- 12,046 (9.2%)- $2,785,900
• Herbert Lee (D)- 5,456 (4.2%)- $800,000
• Mai Khanh Tran (D)- 6,793 (5.2%)- $730,000

CA-48

• Harley Rouda (D)- 29,178 (17.2%)- $1,130,500
• Omar Siddiqui (D)- 8,384 (5%)- $764,820
• Hans Keirstead (D)- 29,292 (17.3%)- $730,400

CA-49

• Paul Kerr (D)- 7,707 (4.5%)- $4,112,728
• Sara Jacobs (D)- 27,154 (15.7%)- $1,587,831
• Brian Maryott (R)- 5,133 (3.0%) $700,000

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.