As Popeye so memorably said on more than one occasion, “It’s all I can stands, ‘cuz I can’t stands no more!” (Then he would swallow a can of spinach and beat the crap out of someone or something.)
From a 2021 report: “Democratic Senators in battleground states are raking in donations from out-of-state donors, amassing a hefty cash advantage over potential GOP challengers who haven’t launched Senate bids yet. Four of the most competitive 2022 Senate races are in states held by Democrats: Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Nevada. Each of the incumbents in those states received more than three-quarters of their campaign cash from out-of-state donors in the first three months of 2021.”
Classic. A practice is “disgusting and abnormal” when it is aimed against Democratic Party incumbents, but just democracy at work when it benefits incumbents. And how is contributing to a political campiagn in a primary “corrupt”? AOC should stick with the old stand-by, since Jamaal Bowman is the incumbent in question. It’s racist not to support him.
Here’s the “special interest” any donor is displaying when he, she or it gives money to Bowman’s Democratic opponent in the upcoming primary: it’s the special interest, which I share, in not having lying, Marxist, embarrassingly stupid and incompetent people like Bowman in Congress. It is the common interest in sending a clear message that when you break a law by pulling a fire alarm when there is no fire but you’re trying to disrupt and interfere with the functioning of our government, you deserve to be kicked out of Congress. And when you slime your way out of that conduct by lying outrageously (“Oops! I thought the fire alarm would open the door!”) you REALLY deserve to be kicked out.
AOC thinks that working to defeat unethical and unfit members of the House is a “core threat to democracy.” How does that work, exactly? I also like how she throws in “It also fuels Trump” as an all-purpose—but stupid—appeal to the Trump Deranged. I bet defeating Bowman also will accelerate climate change, cause mass shootings, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… MASS HYSTERIA!
It’s frightening that either AOC or Bowman are members of Congress.
Ethics Alarms 
I think you’re making an error here. Her statement is accurate–it is unusual to see out of state donors make such vast contributions to PRIMARY races. And to make her look stupid, you unfairly compare it to…general election fundraising, in which it is NOT unusual for vast sums to come in from out of state interests.
Why don’t large interests invest in primaries very often, and rarely in large amounts? Because most incumbents win primaries relatively easily, and large interests hate wasting money. Also, primaries are USUALLY less expensive than the general election, and large donations aren’t as needed. Finally, large interests don’t want to burn their bridges by taking on incumbents when they have little chance of success, because the incumbent will always remember 15 million put into their opponent’s war chests.
Pro-Israel money has a history of going after Black Democrats in primaries that goes back decades. They’ve also gone up against some White Democrats, and even some White Republicans back in the day when it was the GOP that was less pro-Israel. But some of the biggest scalps on the AIPAC office wall are Black Democrats (Cynthia McKinney, if you remember). That keeps a lot of members of Congress in line out of fear. True, as you point out, that’s not UNDEMOCRATIC in the sense that it is all legal, obeying the rules as set. But a political system in which those with money have so so so much more power is also, at least theoretically, undemocratic. Take an issue on which you have great passion–abortion. Let’s suppose that in a given Congressional district, the people were largely pro-life, but not that intense about it (that’s probably how Bowman’s district feels about Palestinian rights and the Gaza War). If a few multi-millionaires from out of state consistently donated to pro-choice candidates in such districts, and knocked off incumbents in safe seats, thus scaring off a lot of other potentially pro-life voices, teaching them never to cross Big Abortion, well, the shoe might fit differently on the other foot?
Why don’t large interests invest in primaries very often, and rarely in large amounts?
Because there isn’t usually such an epically stupid, embarrassing, dishonest incumbent that has to be defeated.
I figured someone would point to the “primaries” distinction to justify AOC’s tweet. If she was intending to make that Clintoneque distinction, she’s smarter than I think.
Is most of the money coming from anti-terrorist special interests, or anti-stupid, dishonest embarrassments to the Democratic party special interests? Ethically, it doesn’t matter. Bowman was a disgrace before October 7. In ethics, doing the right thing for the wrong reason doesn’t make it a wrong thing. There are so, so SO many reasons for Democrats, Republicans, citizens of that district, Israel, the Planet Earth to want Bowman gone, that I didn’t even consider that the anti-Killing Jews lobby was probably the source of most of the out of state money. I should have—but it doesn’t change anything. Say thank-you to the Israel supporters, Democrats! They are helping to rid you of a blight on your party!
My posts are too long anyway, so one item I considered and left out was that Congress is a national institution, and if out-of-district or state citizens (or their groups) want to defeat a House member whom they believe is especially bad for the national interests and their own, they not only have the right to give money and time to defeat him or her, it’s admirable citizenship. If I had the discretionary funds to play, there are about 20 or more House members from both parties that I’d contribute to see defeated. If George Santos had run for re-election, I’d contribute to his opponent if it were Stormy Daniels.
Separate issue: campaign advertising, like all advertising, is over-rated. I think it’s likely that Bowman was toast if there were no outside money in the race at all. There is hope.
I would insert a caveat here — it’s unusual for out of state donors contributing to Democratic primaries. We have been seeing a number of cases where Democrats are contributing to Republican primaries or intervening in Republican primaries to influence who gets nominated on the GOP side.
I think one of the most successful attempts has been Democrats intervening in the Republican primaries to get Donald Trump nominated this year for president. Back before all the indictments started coming down, you may recall that Trump’s candidacy was faltering and DeSantis was surging, especially after the midterm results. I think it is fair to say that these Democratic prosecutors pretty much guaranteed Trump would be the nominee. No one else could get tracktion.
But now, their problem is that they’ve done their job all to well, and Trump has a real chance of actually winning the general election. They did all this thinking he would be the weakest candidate Biden could face — and they might have been right — but didn’t consider they might put him over the top.
Trump is the most high profile example of this, but there have been a number of Senatorial and Gubernatorial candidates in the last few cycles that have been helped in their primary campaigns by the Democrats.
The thing national Democrats seem to never have learned or taken to heart — be careful what you wish for, you might get it, good and hard.
“They did all this thinking he would be the weakest candidate Biden could face — and they might have been right — but didn’t consider they might put him over the top.”
Wasn’t that pretty much their plan in 2016 as well? Rember how early in the primaries the NYT was in favor of Trump? And remember how some of the leaked correspondence from the DNC explicitly suggested supporting Trump in the primaries around the same time?
Yeah, I think so as well. They thought Trump was a fun joke and had him on TV a lot — and then he won and their world was crushed.
——
Hmmmm. I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 and he won. I did vote for him in 2020 and he lost. Could it be that it is all up to me to decide the outcome of this election?
I remember around 2010 or so when the whole revamping of health insurance was being debated, a reliably-liberal – but little-known – theatrical and television actress whose name I will not mention here posted on social media that if Joe Lieberman filibustered health care reform, she would send a donation to his opponent.
So, yes, it is a double standard. Sending donations to opponents in order to defeat Republicans, Independents or people who don’t toe the party line is good. Sending them to defeat Democratic incumbents, regardless of how incompetent and untrustworthy they are is bad. It’s not the act itself they object to; it’s who the act benefits.
And that is the case regardless of what the act is.
Simply read as: “a core threat to Democratic party control of any branch of government, the house in this case.” There! Tah-Dah!
Where did all these thirty-something junior Commies come from? They seem to be everywhere. Colleges and universities? High schools?
And they’re not just red diaper babies like Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky and Robert Reich and Irwin Chemerinsky!
AOC might have a point if Bowman’s opponent in the primary were an unknown fat-cat or someone whose party allegiance might be in dispute. But he isn’t. He’s a mainstream Democrat who’s been involved in party politics for decades. Yes, it’s odd that so much money is being spent on a primary campaign, but I don’t see even a hint of impropriety here.
Curmie, I think it’s even MORE enraging to AOC that the guy is a veteran, old-line Democratic party pol. And he’s as white as white can be. He’s the kind of guy they’re trying to run out of the party!
it’s a great point—I left a LOT of great points out of this post—the guy is an old-fashioned, classic liberal Democrat, not some kind of anti-woke revolutionary. There’s no chance Democrats will lose the seat; it may be called a primary, but is really the election. The winner is in.
I find contributions of any amount given to candidates by out of state interests a fundamental flaw in or campaign finance laws. (What I mean is by those who simply want to buy a vote for their side but have otherwise no social or economic interests in that state.)
I recognize that political contributions are speech but if we ban foreign interests from contributing to candidates then why should California money be allowed to flow to candidates in Kentucky or anywhere other than California. Excess funds from outside the political subdivision drive up the costs of campaigning so that few people have the ability to raise the amount of money needed to offset that outside funding that is far too often directed at the politically entrenched. We limit individual contributions to candidates so we can limit contributions from outside sources. The logic is the same, let the people of the state decide who should be supported financially. Outside money distorts electoral sentiment. Senate races are especially problematic given that the Senators are supposed to represent the interests of their own state and not those of other states.
What distinguishes AOC and her ilk from normal, rational humans is that they simply don’t care about hypocrisy, or inconsistency, or non-sequiturs. Each response is deliberately bereft of context or analysis, and is completely ends-based.
AOC doesn’t argue. She spouts inane drivel and demands respect and admiration for it as if it were incisive.
This is what happens in a republic in decline. Oh, I almost forgot — the Left, including AOC seem to be blissfully unaware that America is not a democracy.
did it say where the money was coming from?
Democrat groups spending money on a Democratic primary contest does not seem improper in the least.
unusual maybe, but not improper.
-Jut
I don’t even think Republican groups spending money to defeat a certifiably awful Democrat in a primary is improper in the least. The assumption seems to be that the money is coming from pro-Israel groups. So what? I don’t blame them.
There are a number of congressional districts that are so strong for one party (gerrymandering?) that the primary is the election. The nominee chosen in the primary is a lock on election in the general. If change in those districts is to happen, it must happen in the primary.
AOC should know this as she won nomination in a lackluster primary, unseating a incumbent who thought re0nomination was a certainty.
And she was put up as a candidate by the Democratic Socialist Party and that Cenk Uhgyar guy. They pulled her out of a bar because she’d say whatever they wanted her to say, and she was young and kind of cute. THAT was cynical and unethical, but that’s how these Commies play electoral politics. It was basically a successful sneak attack.
It does occur to me just now that you don’t see Democrats intervening in the primaries for people like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz or George Santos or the like.
They will claim that these folks represent a threat to democracy, but whenever you see Democrats funding Republican primary candidates, it is in favor of that same type of person who, if they win, will then be labeled a ‘threat to democracy’.
There are times when I feel the RNC should engage in a bit of judicious pruning with some of these safe districts — Gaetz and his crew did quite a bit to hurt the GOP last year. They want a veto power, but they have no constructive agenda to push.