2016's Sorry Batch Of Self-Funders Are All Crooked Conservatives, As Usual

Money always buys access-- the Trones and you-know-who

A week from tomorrow Maryland's wealthiest wine and beer distributor, David Trone of Total Wine and More, is likely to come in 3rd in a primary contest for the seat in the DC suburbs Chris Van Hollen is giving up to challenge Donna Edwards for the open U.S. Senate seat. Recent polls show progressive and labor champion Jamie Raskin ahead with wealthy lobbyist Kathleen Matthews second and Trone and half a dozen other Democrats battling it out for third. During this cycle Trone has given the DNC $231,500 while his wife June was writing checks to the RNC. The Trones have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to both parties and to candidates from both parties, usually establishment conservatives like Hillary, Chris van Hollen, Mitt Romney, and John Delaney, never to progressives.

Last week the papers were filled with stories about how Trone was putting up $9.1 million for his own race, a congressional seat record in the annals of self-funding. His April 6 FEC filing shows a total of $9,973,620 raised, $9,968,000 of which came from his own pockets. The report shows that $9,025,798, which could mean just about anything, although he has been blanketing the Montgomery County airwaves and stuff every mail box in Bethesda, Silver Spring, Potomac and Rockville will glossy mailers as well as in the more exurban parts of the district up in Carroll and Frederick counties. Political consultants are making a killing on this one too, of course.

Like Trump, Trone brags incessently about being a self-funder. An ad he ran in the Washington Post read: "I certainly could have raised enough money to fund a competitive campaign. But the PACs, lobbyists and big dollar donors who give money would expect special attention." And, like Trump, he ought to know since he's made a habit of renting congressmen. He pumped immense sums of money into the corrupt Van Hollen's career and Van Hollen was always at his beck and call.

UPDATE: Trone put another $2.5 million into his campaign over the weekend. So his grand total is close to $11.5 million. Third place!

Other major self-funders this cycle are 4 corrupt conservative Democrats-- Randy Perkins in Florida ($1,000,000), Mary Lawrence in Minnesota ($1,175,400), who's money bough her no traction and who's already dropped out, Vicente Gonzalez in Texas ($1,000,000), and Shawn O'Connor in New Hampshire ($1,000,000), currently pretending to be a Bernie guy. 7 figure self-funding Republicans this time include Mark Freeman in the same Florida district Perkins is running in ($1,207,000), Paul Mitchell in Michigan ($1,140,406) and Martin Babinec in New York ($1,000,000). Last cycle there were 10 self-funders running for House seats:

• Thomas MacArthur (R-NJ)- $5,000,000
• Sean Eldridge (D-NY)- $4,255,000
• Curt Clawson (R-FL)- $4,017,543
• Dave Trott (R-MI)- $3,623,402
• Paul Mitchell (R-MI, same creep/new district)- $3,560,345
• Doug Ose (R-CA)- $3,441,000
• George Demos (R-NY)- $2,500,000
• Nan Hayworth (R-NY)- $1,642,077
• Tom Sanchez (D-TX)- $1,475,000
• Mark Greenberg (R-CT)- $1,441,530

Seven of the ten lost; only MacArthur, Clawson and Trott won, each quickly subsiding into a the realm of the influenceless backbenchers. Two years earlier there were 4 winners among the 10 heaviest House self-funders, 3 contemptible New Dems-- Suzan DelBene (WA- $2,796,879), Scott Peters (CA- $2,757,452) and John Delaney (MD- $2,370,556)-- and one teabagger, Bob Pittenger (NC- $2,310,735). Losers that year included Bill Bloomfield, who ran against Henry Waxman, spent $7,567,080, and lost, Joe Coors (R-CO- $3,535,767) and a couple New York GOP crackpots, Jack Davis and Jane Corwin, each of whom wasted $2.7 million. The big losers in 2012, though were 4 crazy Republican Senate wannabes Linda McMahon (CT- $48,692,316-- this after spending $50,104,984 two years earlier on a failed Senate run!), David Dewhurst (TX- $19,678,457), Tom Smith (PA- $16,272,361) and John Brunner (MO- $7,995,406).



Usually these stories about self-funders end with the warning that most of them lose, sometimes spectacularly like Linda McMahon did, wasting nearly $100,000,000 from her own fortune). But there are 9 members of the House currently serving who self-funded their way in since 2010, 6 right-wing Republicans and 3 shady conservaDems. (Crooked Republican Darrell Issa spent $3.1 million to buy a seat in 2000 and he's still hangin' in there.)

• Scott Rigell (R-VA)- $2,971,364
• Bill Flores (R-TX)- $1,486,227
• Suzan Del Bene (New Dem- CA)- $2,796,879
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- $2,757,452
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)- $2,370,556
• Bob Pittenger (R-NC)- $2,310,735
• Thomas MacArthur (R-NJ)- $5,000,000
• Curt Clawson (R-FL)- $4,017,543
• Dave Trott (R-MI)- $3,623,402

In 1998 the Maloof family-- Lebanese bandits, like Issa-- tried buying their no-account son, Phil, a congressional seat in New Mexico. They own the Sacramento Kings, a Vegas casino, some Coors dealerships and a huge stake in Wells Fargo. They spent $9.9 million, which is almost $14 million in 2016 dollars, but lost against Republican Heather Wilson for an open seat. Ten years later Wilson ran for the Senate-- losing in a landslide to progressive Tom Udall-- and the House seat fell to Democrat Martin Heinrich (55-45%), who didn't self-fund at all.

Patrick Murphy owns a hefty chunk of his father's company, Coastal Construction, which has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Patrick's campaigns. So far this cycle, Coastal Construction, has given $300,000 to the SuperPAC set up to back Murphy's Senate bid. Campaign finance experts all agree, that makes Murphy a self-funder in the ranks of other rich people trying to buy political office. When he talks to voters, Murphy claims he wants to get big money out of politics, but behind the scenes, he's pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into his own bid for the Florida Senate seat. Oh... and by the way-- non-self-funders, who get no help from the DCCC either:

Self-Funding Republicans Often Win; Self-Funding Dems Lose-- But That Doesn't Stop The DCCC From Recruiting Them

DCCC 2018 mascot-- "ex"-Republican lottery winner and self-funder Gil Cisneros

Last year, creepy Texas Blue Dog Vicente González bought himself a South Texas congressional seat. There were 14 very entitled multimillionaires who spent over a million dollars each on congressional campaigns last cycle. 4 were Democrats, 8 were Republicans and 2 were conservatives running as third party candidates. Self-funding is a perfectly respectable Republican thing to do and Republicans who set out to buy House seats often win. Democrats normally don't. 3 of the Republicans are now in Congress + the Texas Blue Dog who tends to vote like a Republican.

• David Trone (D-MD)- $13,414,225- lost primary
• Randy Perkins (D-FL)- $10,127,029- lost
• Francis Rooney (R-FL)- $4,136,754- won
• Paul Mitchell (R-MI)- $3,607, 287- won
• Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN)- $3,142,150- won
• Martin Babinec (I-NY)- $2,990,000- lost
• George Flinn (R-TN)- $2,795,000- lost primary
• Stewart Mills (R-MN)- $2,147,169- lost
• Christine Jones (R-AZ)- $2,044,909- lost primary
• Vicente González (D-TX)- $1,850,000- won
• Bob Poe (D-FL)- $1,825,308- lost primary
• Glen Robertson (R-TX)- $1,636,459- lost primary
• Mark Freeman (R-FL)- $1,627,756- lost primary
• Shawn O'Connor (I-NH)- $1,253,450- lost

This cycle, Trone is running again, self-funding again-- albeit in another Maryland district he doesn't live in. He plans, if necessary, to spend even more than the $13.4 million he spent in 2016. He'd be replacing another worthless multimillionaire self-funding, Wall shill and New Dem John Delaney, who claims to be running for president. Delaney, one of the worst Democrats in Congress. He originally bought his seat with $2,370,556 of his own money and spent another $937,912 of his own to hold onto it in 2014, but just $354,125 of his own last cycle.

The DCCC loves self-funders and promotes them relentlessly despite the fact that they usually tend to be conservatives-- actually that's a bonus for the DCCC. Their favorite candidates are always self-funding conservatives. This cycle they recruited a completely worthless lottery winner, "ex"-Republican Gil Cisneros, to run in a landlocked district far from his Newport Coast $10 million beachfront mansion.

The DCCC didn't dare interfere in the CA-34 special election to replace Xavier Becerra a couple months ago, but a rich, conservative "ex"-Republican-- albeit one backed by GOP officials-- Robert Lee Ahn-- was the substitute Republican Party candidate for the seat. Although officially Ahn "only" self-funded to the tune of $498,400, his father started a shady SuperPAC, Citizens For A Better Government, and put another $140,050 into the race against the actual Democratic candidate, Jimmy Gomez. In the end Gomez beat Ahn 59.2% to 40.8%, despite outspending Gomez $1,658,181 to $1,093,504.

Despite being constantly recruited by the numbskulls at the DCCC-- painfully incapable of learning from experience-- Open Secrets explained why self-funders usually lose.

Self-funders clearly face unfavorable odds-- but why is that?

“The main reason is they tend to be extremely inexperienced in politics,” said Jennifer Steen, associate research professor of political science at Arizona State University. “Often, they don’t have compelling resumes, they don’t have compelling credentials.”

“Campaigning is something that you get better at with practice, and they don’t know how to do it,” she added.

...How about President Donald Trump-- the cycle’s top self-funder-- who, when announcing his candidacy, said, “I don’t need anybody’s money.” Trump gave his campaign about $66 million in loans and contributions-- although some of that money found its way back to him.

“In Trump’s case, self-funding can also become self-profit,” wrote Stephen Wayne, professor of government at Georgetown University, in an email. “Look at the expenses paid to the Trump organization for rent and plane and other staffing expenses.”

Trump’s campaign paid more than $1.4 million to Trump Tower alone-- essentially recouping about as much as candidate Hillary Clinton contributed to her campaign overall.

Ultimately, Trump’s $66 million in self-funding accounted for less than 20 percent of the money his campaign raised (and fell short of the $100 million he said he’d contribute), as he also received nearly $267 million from other individuals and organizations. That fact is key, as Trump’s self-funding was complemented by his populist appeal and media attention, which allowed him to circumvent one reason for the dismal success rate of self-funders: Such candidates mostly miss out on fundraising’s potential to facilitate base-building.

“It really does make a difference if you raise a dollar versus writing a check,” said Steen. “Getting people to give you whatever amount is asking them to support you. So if you raise money from 1,000 contributors, that’s 1,000 people who are interested in your campaign and vested in your success.”

According to Fischer: “Generally speaking, when a candidate is running for office they need to build a base of support, and that includes fundraising from, ideally, a broad range of people. And if you’re self-funding you don’t necessarily have to go through the difficult work of building that base of both popular and financial support. You can plow straight ahead and hire staff, pay for ads and open campaign offices.”

Some candidates have plowed straight ahead, multiple times, to limited success. James Oberweis (R-Ill.), a businessman and member of the Illinois Senate, has mounted three self-funded campaigns: In 2004, 2008 and 2014. Those efforts cost him a total of over $8 million, to little avail.

Connecticut Republican Linda McMahon, of wrestling fame, channeled even more of her own money into her bids. She ran for the Senate in 2010 and 2012, and the two races combined put her back nearly $100 million. That price tag was so high that both of her candidacies are among the five campaigns that featured the highest amounts of self-funding since 2000. While McMahon hasn’t become a senator, she does now lead the Small Business Administration under Trump.

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%

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.

Self-Funders Dwarfed By Adelson's Organized Crime Stash Of Cash To Cantor And Boehner

DelBene & Adelson-- time to tell self-entitled rich people that democracy is not for sale

With all the hubbub about all the Dark Money pouring into congressional races, we haven't looked at self-funders this year yet. Of course, self-funding is dwarfed by Chinese organized crime money flooding into the political system courtesy of Vegas crime figure Sheldon Adelson who gave Boehner and Cantor $5,000,000 bribes... each. Boehner immediately ran for the hills-- donating $4.1 million of Adelson's gigantic bribe to the NRCC. Cantor, on the other hand, is using it to enhance his own power, doling it out to candidates who he hopes to count on to elect him the first Jewish Speaker (Rahm Emanuel's and Debbie Wasserman Schultz's longtime dreams as well; how about a less villainous first Jewish Speaker?) Anyway, today we saw Cantor flood the North Carolina 8th district primary runoff with hundreds of thousands of dollars in money that came direct from the Macau prostitution industry via Adelson on behalf of insider party hack Richard Hudson and against Tea Party fave Scott Keadle. Adelson is threatening to sue anyone who exposes his business arrangements with Chinese organized crime. Here's his letter to the DCCC demanding a retraction and apology for branding him, in his own words, "a pimp." This kind of thing doesn't go over well in the Bible Belt, where Cantor is spending Adelson's tainted cash. The Dark Money was effective though, and GOP Establishment hack Richard Hudson beat Tea Party grassroots activist Scott Keadle 63.65- 36.35%, winning all 12 counties. Hudson is almost sure to beat craven Blue Dog Larry Kissell in November.

Self-funders aren't always smiled on by voters, who sense they're trying to buy the election-- but wealthy, self-entitled conservatives (primarily Republicans but a few Democrats who behave just like them) keep trying. This last quarter's biggest self funders:

Bill Bloomfield ($1,152,000), a lifelong Republican is running as the No Labels candidate against Henry Waxman in CA-33. He spent it all to come in second in the primary and now has $6,000 on hand to face Waxman in November. I guess he'll give himself another million at some point. Or two.

Josef Coors ($397,000), a prominent scion of a radically neo-Nazi beer family is running against New Dem Ed Perlmutter in the Denver suburbs.

Allen Quist ($178,000), a perennial candidate and far right lunatic is in a primary with Mike Parry to see who will face conservative Minnesota Democrat Tim Walz. Quist is best known for a Christmas speech he gave in 2009, which was probably why he lost the primary that cycle: “Our country is being destroyed. Every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom… Terrorism? Yes. That’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C. with the radicals. They aren’t liberals. They are radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz: They’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country.”

Bob Pittenger ($940,000), is a predatory real estate speculator who served two-and-a-half terms in the North Carolina state Senate before resigning to run a losing race for Lt. Governor in 2008. Tonight he won the primary runoff-- though just barely (52.91- 47.09%)-- for the seat of retiring Republican Sue Myrick in November. He actually lost the big county in the district, Mecklenburg.

Danny Tarkanian ($250,000) is another predatory real estate speculator but he's running for a new open House seat in Nevada against Democrat Steven Horsford. It's a swing district that leans blue and Horsford is outraising him substantially, even with the quarter million dollar gift Tarkanian gave himself.

Suzan DelBene ($1,002,000) is an anti-consumer, anti-worker, pro-Big Business hack and out of touch one percenter who calls herself a Democrat. She's backed by the most corrupt elements of the Inside-the-Beltway Democratic Establishment but still can't raise much money. So she writes herself checks. Polling shows her losing badly to progressive Democrat Darcy Burner in the new WA-1, a swing district east and north of Seattle. DelBene has already wasted over a million and a half dollars on the race. She's the only Democrat in the whole country who's self-funding the way Republicans do. Suggestion: you can contribute to Darcy Burner's campaign here.

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.

Too Many Multimillionaires In Congress? How Many Are Too Many? How Rich Is Too Rich?

In 2014 the Center for Responsive Politics analyzed the personal financial disclosure data from 2012 of the 534 then-current members of Congress and found that, for the first time, more than half had an average net worth of $1 million or more: 268 to be exact, up from 257 the year earlier. All those rich people... do they understand what most Americans go through? Can they even begin to understand? The number of millionaires is probably closer to 300 now. And while over 50% of Congress are millionaires, only 4% of Americans are millionaires. Wow are they over-represented! And when you start talking about multimillionaires, it's even more out of whack!

Monday, David Hawkings did a column for Roll Call, Wealth of Congress: Richer Than Ever, but Mostly at the Very Top, which deals with not how many millionaires there are in Congress but about how multi, the millionaires in Congress are. "The people’s representatives," he began, "just keep getting richer, and doing so faster than the people represented. The cumulative net worth of senators and House members jumped by one-fifth in the two years before the start of this Congress, outperforming the typical American’s improved fortunes as well as the solid performance of investment markets during that time." And that inevitably leads to a discussion of "the financial disparity between those who try to govern and those who are governed."

Millionaire lawmakers have always been a part of the congressional story-- from the landed gentry who created and first populated the legislative branch, through the industrialists who wielded outsize influence in the Gilded Age, to the corporate bosses and old money heirs who larded the cloakrooms through the end of the Cold War.

What’s marked recent years, a time when wealth disparity has grown wider than ever in American history, is the arrival of so many of the superrich. For every 13 members, in fact, one may fairly be dubbed a “1 percenter,” the term of derision imposed by liberal groups on the richest 1 percent of Americans. Data from the Fed pegged the net worth threshold for these people at $10.4 million in 2016, a mark exceeded by 26 Republicans and 17 Democrats.

At the high end of that group are 10 House members and three senators worth more than $43 million, which the Fed calculates as the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of the population.

Two cents from Howie: only 2 can be termed even remotely "progressive," Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Jared Polis (New Dem-CO). Remotely. The rest are all Republicans or reactionary Democrats unsympathetic to the legitimate aspirations of working families. Yesterday's column in the same publication, using the same data, asked the question: Maybe They’re Too Rich for Congress? But mostly about the millionaires who are quitting Congress. Of the 44 current members who have announced they are voluntarily leaving, they account for nearly a third of the $2.43 billion in cumulative riches of the 115th Congress. The column doesn't real with all the multimillionaires remaining in Congress, but does touch on the plague of new ones trying to buy seats and join the other crooks.

A short detour: when Trump said he is so rich he didn't have to steal, that was a laugh. Generally speaking, the wealthier someone is, the more corrupt, greedy and unethical.

Of course, the departing lawmakers of this year will be replaced by the newcomers of 2019-- and several credible candidates for Congress look to have little trouble cracking the roster of richest members.

In Southern California, health insurance executive Andy Thorburn and Gil Cisneros, who won the state lottery eight years ago, are both in the hunt for the open 39th District House seat-- and each has filed candidate financial disclosure forms signaling a net worth above $50 million.

Lucas St. Claire, an heir to the Burt’s Bees “earth friendly” cosmetics fortune, is a top Democratic prospect in Maine’s 2nd District, and wine store magnate David Trone is back for another House run, this time in Maryland’s 6th District.

The Republican side features Senate candidates Mike Braun of Indiana, who’s worth at least $35 million after creating a successful truck parts and equipment company, and, of course, Mitt Romney, now of Utah, whose private equity fortune was calculated at $250 million when he ran for president six years ago.

And that barely even touches on the ranks of the vile self-funders. In California alone, as of December 31, 2017 (the last FEC reporting deadline), there were 13 self funders vying to buy seats in the House who have already gone beyond $150,000. Expect millions more before November, especially from Jacobs, Cisneros and Keirstead, three candidates with absolutely nothing to offer but their wealth, ruthless ambition and money-hungry consultants:

• Andy Thorburn (D-CA-39)- $2,335,900
• Gil Cisneros (D-CA-39)- $1,352,762
• Sara Jacobs (D-CA-49)- $1,074,151
• Harley Rouda (D-CA-48)- $730,500
• Paul Kerr (D-CA-49)- $712,728
• Omar Siddiqui (D-CA-48)- $458,498
• Ron Varasteh (D-CA-45)- $250,000
• Michael Kotick (D-CA-48)- $245,452
• Mai-Khanh Tran (D-CA-39)- $230,000
• Stelian Onufrei (R-CA-48)- $228,000
• Hans Keirstead (D-CA-48)- $220,400
• T.J. Cox (D-CA-10)- $215,500
• Sean Flynn (R-CA-31)- $177,059

Other crooked, swampy candidates running for House seats who have already spent over a million dollars of their own money:

• Kathaleen Wall (R-TX)- $2,733,802
• David Trone (D-MD)- $2,281,939
• Shiva Ayyadurai (R-MA)- $1,163,248
• Steven Lonegan (R-NJ)- $1,006,972

And let's not forget poor (rich) Dan Moody (R-GA), who made an idiot of himself by flushing away $3,053,120 of his own in a primary where he came in 4th with just 17,028 votes (8.8% of the total). Today a rich Tennessee businessman, Darrell Lynn (R) jumped into the open U.S .Senate race, saying he "can easily spend $5 million" from his own pocket on the campaign. Republicans love self-funders. Establishment Democrats have come around to seeing it the same way the Republicans do.

A little tangent: tell me, is this a coincidence or part of a culture of corruption that pervades the Trumpist swamp? Another way to ask the question is if our government of the multimillionaires and by the multimillionaires is also a government for the multimillionaires. Carl Icahn is a longtime Trump crony, a friend and a short-lived member of the Regime. Insider trading maybe? Icahn sold a $31.3 million stake in Manitowoc whose stock tanked by 6% right after Trumpanzee he would be slapping a 25% tariff on steel imports. steel tariffs announcement. When Icahn sold off his Manitowoc shares in mid-February, they were trading at around $33. Friday they were selling at around $26. I bet other investors wish they had the same access to info Icahn had.

Republican Multimillionaire Gil Cisneros Is Wrecking The Orange County Democratic Party

Cisneros

CA-39, primarily in northeast Orange County, is viewed as a prime target for Democrats, The longtime incumbent, Ed Royce knew he wouldn’t win and announced his retirement. Although the PVI is “even,” Hillary beat Trump in the district 51.5% to 42.9%%. Unfortunately elements at the DCCC recruited 2 completely incompetent, self-funding multi-millionaires from outside the district, Gil Cisneros (who by December 31 had reported spending $1,352,762 of his lottery winnings) and Mai-Khanh Tran (who had wasted $230,000 of her money on the race). And neither of them is even the biggest of the self-funders trying to buy a congressional seat. Andy Thorburn, also from another district, spent $2,335,900 of his own as of December 31. What percentage of small individual contributions went to each of them and to the normal non-self-funding candidate who was actually born and raised and lives in CA-39?

• Andy Thorburn- 0.57%
• Gil Cisneros- 1.76%
• Mai-Khanh Tran- 12.48%
• Sam Jammal- 27.29%

So what’s “normal?” In Wisconsin, Randy Bryce is taking on Paul Ryan. As of December 31, Ryan had gotten 5.6% of his campaign funds from small individual donors and Randy Bryce had gotten 72.8%. Or let’s look at a neighboring district, CA-45:

• Mimi Waters (R)- 5.41%
• Brian Forde (D)- 4.92%
• Katie Porter (D)- 23.74%
• David Min (New Dem)- 13.37%
• Kia Hamadanchy- 14.31%

I don’t know if the amount a candidate gets from small donors— or the number of small donors— really shows the enthusiasm for a candidate or not. But it sure shows something compared too the self-financers. But let’s go back to CA-39 for a second. Two of the worst self-funders in the state— and the country— this cycle are Andy Thorburn, who has persuaded a large number of progressive groups that he’s a progressive, and Gil Cisneros, the DCCC candidate. They have begun turning on each other… or, more accurately, Cisneros, the ridiculous lottery winner with no support from anyone other that people he’s given money, has been smearing Thorburn, DCCC-style.

Cisneros sent out a very expensive mailer that attempts to shred the other multimillionaire as a tax evader. Cisneros is a lifelong Republican, pretending to be a Democrat, who doesn’t understand that Democratic primary voters are not like Republican primary voters. Democratic primary voters hate attacks between Democrats, even while Republican primary voters love attacks between Republicans. Look what happened in TX-07 when the DCCC went after progressive Laura Moser— it won her a place in the runoff, plus a tidal wave of contributions. But Cisneros plodded on anyway: “We already have a con man in the White House. We don’t need one representing the 39th District. Andy Thorburn’s career is an unbroken chain of tax evasion, financial mismanagement, and misreprersentation.” This is coming from someone who has constantly been caught in outright lies and an unending stream of misrepresentations. Cisneros in more like Trump than any other Democrat running for Congress anywhere in America.

These are the claims he made against Thorburn:

• Thorburn is running for office on his record of being a teacher but his only teaching experience was four decades ago in New Jersey. He is in fact an insurance executive who has bankrupted numerous companies, failed to pay his taxes, and made a fortune that he is now spending to misrepresent himself to voters.
• Thorburn says he’s a successful businessman but in fact he has a history of illegal and unethical business misconduct. He led a company that was forced to pay over 234 thousand dollars for breach of contract to a customer who asserts Thorburn defrauded him. A former business partner asserts Thorburn used fraud and defamation to push him out of their business and says that Thorburn did not pay taxes or use normal account procedures, used offshore bank accounts, and used insurance ratings improperly.
• Thorburn says he supports big government policies but won’t pay his fair share in taxes to fund these policies. He failed to pay his taxes for five years and has faced nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in federal tax liens. Thorburn and two of his businesses filed for bankruptcy. When wealthy men like Thorburn fail to live up to their responsibilities, the burden is shifted to ordinary families who pay their taxes. 

The report itself is 28 pages of the kind of opposition research that Republicans will be able to use to defeat Thorburn if he gets the nomination. This comes right out of the arsenal of sleaze bag DCCC political director Jason Bresler. He had signaled that if Thorburn didn’t get out of the CA-39 race, the DCCC would destroy him. It looks like he did it through his Clem Kadiddlehopper excuse for a candidate.



This is the cached website the DCCC designed for Cisneros to use in his attack against Thorburn. They are such scumbags-- but also stupider than shit and unable to cover their own tracks. This is the site that has been taken down-- "Committee name here" written in the disclaimer box-- instead of anybody's disclaimer. Watch them screw up another race!

Meanwhile Cisneros sued the other candidates for something spurious, the kind of frivolous law suit Republicans use against each other all the time but that Democrats try to avoid. Remember, Cisneros has invested a lot of money in Walmart and oil stocks and is also a slumlord. Like Trump, Cisneros is a funny and ridiculous character, and really dumb. His high-priced consultant-run campaign just put out a new TV ad showing he can read a script that makes him sound almost like a Democrat. Yeah, he’ll "stand up to the NRA" just like real Democrats do. But he owns something like $10 million in iShares, a mutual funds company that invests in the gun industry. That’s Gil! And have you seen the Climate Hawks Vote call for Cisneros to divest from his approximately million dollars worth of oil stocks? But at least his consultants are teaching him to sound like a Democrat.

I reached out to Mac Zilber, who works with Thorburn. His statement was kind of boiler plate considering the DCCC’s role in this Cisneros bullshit: "It comes as no surprise that a Republican like Gil Cisneros is making up lies about a progressive Democrat-- that's what Republicans do. Gil Cisneros is misleading voters to distract from the fact that he invests his lottery millions in gun stocks and tobacco-- that is, when he's not donating that money to Republicans." Zilber also pointed me to a Setting the Record Straight page that exposes the lies Cisneros and the DCCC are spreading about Thorburn. And below is the mailer Thorburn sent to labor union members on Gil, revenge I'm assuming... but who knows? My suggestion... get behind Sam Jammal.

Rich People Don't Think Less Well-Off People Need Health Insurance

On Friday, we took a look at the latest Republican Party vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, this time in the guise of Fred Upton's "fix". I didn't mention that Upton is a parasite who has never worked an honest job in his life and inherited millions and millions of dollars from a family whose ancestor started Whirlpool. Whirlpool is embarrassing to Upton because they shipped all the jobs in his district to low wage third world countries where they could exploit starving workers. So Upton sold most of his shares in the family firm-- and bought oil stocks instead. He's now the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a wonderful perch to watch over your investments.

But the slimy Upton is far from the only congressional multimillionaire who voted to kill Obamacare on Friday. And they were't all Republicans. Here's a list of the 15 wealthiest Members of the House with their estimated net worths:

• Darrell Issa (R-CA)- $355 million
• Mike McCaul (R-TX)- $114 million
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)- $68 million
• Jared Polis (CO)- $68 million
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- $45 million
• Jim Renacci (R-OH)- $36 million
• Chellie Pingree (D-ME)- $34 million
• Vern Buchanan (R-FL)- $32 million
• Robert Pittenger (R-NC)-$28 million
• Diane Black (R-TN)- $25 million
• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)- $24 million
• Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)- $24 million
• Chris Collins (R-NY)- $22 million
• Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)- $21 million
• Gary Miller (R-CA)- $18 million

Every single Republican multimillionaire voted to make sure 40 million less well-off Americans do not get health insurance. No surprise there; all of them are merciless class war fanatics. But what about the rich Democrats? 39 Democrats joined the GOP in the disgraceful vote Friday. The wealthiest Democrat is the House is freshman self-funder John Delaney who generally represents the interests of his own socio-economic class, rich assholes. This year he introduced a bill that would grant a tax amnesty to multinational corporations which Wall Street loves and, predictably, he's been an outspoken advocate of using Chained CPI to cut Social Security benefits for retired people. Scott Peters and Suzan DelBene are also immensely rich New Dem self-funders who always stand up for the interests of wealthy people over ordinary working families. Both voted with the Republicans on Friday as did 2 other very rich New Dem self funders, Brad Schneider and Bill Foster, each of whom is a multimillionaire conservaDem. The other 3 Democratic members of the Top 15 Richest are progressives and they put their own personal economic interests aside and voted for what's good for the country instead. One was Nancy Pelosi. She was on David Gregory's ridiculous Beltway show, Meet The Press, and she slapped down Gregory's imbecilic zombie talking points:



Meanwhile, it's worth noting that Steve Israel is out beating the bushes for more multimillionaire, self-funding candidates to run for Congress. Congress already had FAR, FAR too many multimillionaires. The Democratic Party should be nominating ordinary men and women who understand the problems American families face, not more multimillionaires who empathize with CEOs and people who hang out at country clubs. That's what a Republican Party is for.

Do Businessmen Make Good Political Leaders?

Pete Aguilar, Steve Israel's idea of a successful "businessman"

All the corrupt, vehemently anti-democracy/anti-grassroots Beltway committees -- on both sides of the partisan divide--revel in self-funders. They live for millionaires candidates, although they tend to refer to them as "businessmen," not multimillionaires. Before I retired and became a full-time blogger, I was a businessman. I started my own record company and eventually became president of one of the biggest international record companies in the world. I know the business world and what makes someone a successful businessman might make them a horrendous politician. CEOs, for example, are accustomed to being obeyed, not negotiated with. On the other hand, I've run into folks in government service and at non-profits who seem extraordinarily lame and incompetent. Upshot: it's all about the individual, not the category... or provenance.

This morning, The Hill ran a story, GOP Bets On Execs To Help Retake Senate. That's fairly natural for Republicans and a far from unnatural for Democrats as well.

A half-dozen top GOP candidates boast records as wealthy businessmen and entrepreneurs. If voters decide they’re successful job creators on Election Day, Republicans could be on their way to the six seats they need to win the upper chamber.

But if Democrats can successfully tar the candidates as out-of-touch millionaires, as they’ve done in a number of past campaigns, their profiles could cost the GOP dearly.

Looking for candidates with a “job creator” pedigree is nothing new for either party, but for Republicans it’s been especially risky in recent years.

Republicans argue this year’s crop of Senate recruits is better than the several self-funding businessmen who crashed and burned in 2012. But they acknowledge that whether their candidates’ resumes hold up to scrutiny could determine who holds Senate control next year.

“ ‘Businessman problem solver’ good, ‘wealthy businessman out of touch with workers’ bad,” one national GOP strategist wryly noted.

…Private-sector candidates from both parties have some inherent strengths. Most aren’t tainted by the “career politician label” and can bill themselves as outsiders. They also don’t have to worry about past votes, and if they’re wealthy enough, they can help fund their own campaigns. Tillis, Jacobs and Perdue have already given their campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, while Land has spent $1.6 million of the $5 million she’s promised to personally invest.

But there are a number of pitfalls. Businessmen often have to deal with any lawsuits their companies have faced, any employees they’ve laid off and any other unpopular moves their companies made.

“This is the classic Mitt Romney problem. There is a ton of information out there in the public sphere, especially for candidates who made their fortunes through publicly traded corporations. There are SEC filings, court records, and various other reports you can dig up ... and frequently the best business decision isn’t necessarily the best political decision,” said Matt Thornton, a Democratic strategist. “The more candidates are going to rely on their business acumen as a qualifier for office, the more they’ll have to defend everything that goes along with their business experience.”

Thornton was a senior strategist for the Democratic opposition research firm American Bridge when the group helped craft the line of attack that helped define the GOP presidential nominee and other candidates’ business backgrounds in 2012. He said he’d almost always rather face a candidate with an extensive business record and no political record than the opposite.

“The problem with many of these businessmen and self-funders is everything that comes out about them is new and potentially controversial,” he said. “There could be surprises around every corner.”

Some Republicans privately agree.

“There is absolutely a tradeoff,” said one GOP strategist who’s worked for a number of self-funding GOP businessmen but asked not to be named because of his current client list.

“By and large these guys are first-time candidates who don’t have that voting record and aren’t tainted as a politician,” he continued. “But a successful businessperson in this country has likely been sued, they could very well have had personnel issues, there could be government agency issues. It’s a whole area of potential problems that rank-and-file citizens who run for office don’t have to confront.”

…“Millionaire Republican Senate candidates who dump their fortunes into campaigns in an attempt to cover up their reckless and irresponsible agendas in order to buy Senate seats will inevitably fail just like Linda McMahon, Rick Berg, Jon Bruner and others did last cycle,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Justin Barasky.

Meanwhile, DCCC Chairman Steve Israel has put 23 Democratic candidates on his Jumpstart list this cycle. Most of them are abysmal candidates and many have no chance to win whatsoever. Of the 23, almost half go to considerable pains to hide the specifics of their political agendas but instead go all out in describing themselves as "businessmen." The Jumpstart candidates who aren't walking around with big neon signs that say "businessman" on their heads are the candidates who are well known public servants, some good, like Tompkins County legislator Martha Robertson and some putrid, like ex-Ohio legislator Jennifer Garrison. None of these have "businessman" claims on their websites: Aimee Belgard (NJ), Erin Bilbray (NV), Ann Callis (IL), Jerry Cannon (MI), Gwen Graham (FL), Patrick Henry Hayes (AR), Rocky Lara (NM), John Lewis (MT), Domenic Recchia (NY), Andrew Romanoff (CO), James Lee Witt (AR) or the two former spies Israel dug up, Bobbie McKenzie (MI) or Kevin Strouse (PA). These claim to be businessmen and businesswomen:

• Pete Aguilar, a small time career politician and former corrupt savings and loan lobbyist, describes himself as "a small business owner," but doesn't mention what business he owns. He's supposedly some kind of "consultant" for something but that's all very mysterious and hush-hush.

• Staci Appel, a former state legislator who was defeated for reelection and then worked as a financial consultant- "I’m running for Congress because I’m exhausted with Washington and career politicians not working for Iowans. As a mother and businesswoman, I will bring Iowa common sense to Washington, come up with practical solutions and get Congress working together to get things done."

• Pam Byrnes, a former state legislator, describes herself as "a mother, grandmother, lawyer, and small business owner."

• Michael Eggman: "Michael  farms 40 acres of almonds and manages over 1,000 beehives."

• Sean Eldridge, a gay rights advocate who married Facebook billionaire Chris Hughes, describes himself as "the president of Kingston-based Hudson River Ventures, an investment company that has created local jobs and grown small businesses throughout our region, including family- and veteran-owned companies. Hudson River Ventures has helped grow more than a dozen local businesses, including Bread Alone, Prohibition Distillery, Gigi Hudson Valley, and many others."

• Jennifer Garrison, a right-wing anti-gay activist and former state legislator describes her very remunerative legal business of enabling fracking in Ohio as serving "her community and to create jobs in Southeastern Ohio. She began the Southeastern Ohio Landowners’ Association (SEOLA), where she has successfully negotiated over $200 million of shale oil and gas mineral leases, providing landowners with some of the best financial outcomes, while also protecting their land and water. She is also a member of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association and the Washington County Ohio Shale Task Force."

• Suzanne Patrick, a corporate consulting business executive for investment banks looking to profit off military contracts, describes herself as "a business executive well-versed in global economies" who "understands that the military families and facilities of Virginia’s 2nd Congressional district are the backbone of the local economy as well as the nation’s fighting forces."

• Amanda Renteria claims on her campaign website that "in her first job out of college, Amanda gained nearly four years of valuable private sector work experience as an investment analyst in Los Angeles. In this role, she gained a deep understanding of how our economy works, how government policies can help or hinder job creation, and how families can best manage their finances."

• Martha Robertson, a well-known and distinguished public servant in Tompkins County, NY, felt she needed to show some business bona fides too: "I literally grew up in a small business. My parents had a flower shop and nursery, with the house right next to the shop. We were open 24/7, so if a customer came in, someone had to jump up to go wait on them. My brothers, sister, and I helped sell the trees, water the shrubs, and make the bows in the flower shop. It was called Liberty Nursery, and that’s where I learned about hard work."

• Alex Sink might be best known for her term as Florida's CFO but her website emphasizes her time as a businesswoman: "Alex’s commitment to solving problems is driven by her 25 years of real world experience as one of Florida’s business leaders, culminating in her leadership of one of Florida’s largest banks… Driven by her results-oriented experience in the private sector, as CFO Alex also spearheaded commonsense initiatives that saved millions of dollars for taxpayers by cutting red tape, introducing performance metrics to hold government accountable for waste and abuse and creating the right fiscal environment for businesses to create jobs."

Steve Israel has never been successful at anything in his entire miserable life beyond sucking up to the rich and powerful and thriving on their table scraps. He has no clue how to run the DCCC so, of course, just mimics, badly, with the lame Republicans do.