Trump And The Republicans Are Far From The Only Candidates Taking Big Money With Plenty Of Strings Attached-- Let's Look At Raja Krishnamoorthi

Kim Davis and Ro Khanna-- kind of "Democrats"

Hopefully Steve Israel won't figure out that Kim Davis, the crackpot religionist fanatic clerk in Kentucky's Rowan County, is a Democrat. No doubt, if he did, he'd want to recruit her to run her against Hal Rogers. Something attracts Israel to Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. And there are lots of them, although fewer and fewer as unhinged as Davis, who is on her fourth marriage. Most of these Republican-lite Democrats are just economic Republicans, like the New Dems and Blue Dogs-- from Patrick Murphy (FL), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Sean Maloney (NY), Dan Lipinski (IL) and Jim Costa (CA) to Gwen Graham (FL), Henry Cuellar (TX), Cheri Bustos (IL) and Scott Peters (CA).

Last cycle, Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- with the help of outright Republicans-- tried defeating California progressive icon Mike Honda. Ro Khanna spent $4,427,101 smearing Honda, and his SuperPAC, Californians for Innovation, spent another $662,259 on the race. Honda beat the atrocious crooked corporate Dem Khanna 68,001 (51.8%) to 63,293 (48.2%). And this cycle Khanna is back for another try. (You can help defend Mike Honda here.)

Meanwhile, there's a very similar shady character, another corporate Dem with a Republican perspective, running for the open seat in IL-08, west of Chicago. Raja Krishnamoorthi is running against progressive state Senator Mike Noland, and many of the same people who spent lavishly to defeat Mike Honda are funding Krishnamoorthi. Over 20 of Khanna's biggest donors have already given tens of thousands of dollars to Krishnamoorthi's campaign, in just the first three months of fundraising. 

John Rogers, founder and CEO of Ariel Capital Management/Ariel Investments in Chicago maxed out ($5,400) to defeat Honda last year. His first contribution to Krishnamoorthi is $1,000. Another maxed-out Khanna donor, Navin Thukkaram, founder and CEO of NT Capital Partners (who reports to the FEC as a resident of Park City, Utah; Seattle; Northbrook, Illinois; and New York City) was a Romney donor as well as a Ro Khanna donor and has already given several contributions to Krishnamoorthi-- as well as to the Republican National Committee. Same pattern again and again. Mark Ferguson, an attorney with Barlit Beck Herman Palenchar and Scott, generally gives to conservative Democrats like Cheri Bustos, Bill Foster, Ann Callis, Brad Schneider, Evan Bayh, Jim Webb. He contributed $2,600 to Khanna and now $2,600 to Krishnamoorthi. Without exerting too much effort we found 15 other Khanna donors who together have given over $50,000 to Krishnamoorthi in the past three months. Like Ann and Kanwal Rekhi of Monte Sereno, a small, very wealthy bedroom community for Silicon Valley executives. Kanwal is a managing director and partner at Inventus Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. The Rekhis have given many thousands of dollars to conservatives in both parties and maxed out to  Khanna ($10,800), the same amount they just gave Krishnamoorthi.

Noland is a working-class union guy who doesn't have these kinds of strings-attached multimillionaire donors. He's always depended on working men and women who want to elect progressives to help him out in the fundraising department. If you'd like to help, you can find a slot for Mike Noland here. And look who else is backing Krishnamoorthi, predictably:

Inevitably, Steve and Raja found each other