Patrick Ruffini has a very insightful post at The Next Right on self-funding candidates and their role in the conservative battle against the GOP establishment. I don’t necessarily share quite his vehemence against self-funders, but he makes a lot of excellent points about why Republicans should be skeptical of them as standard-bearers. A sample:
Self-funders are particulary popular among money-addled political insiders for a few key reasons. First, their personal money takes the need for much party money off the table, or so it’s thought. Second, they can afford to pay consultants, and lots of them, and for eye-popping amounts. Third, they will often refill the coffers of local parties in a wink and nod exchange for much-needed endorsements.
But the record of self-funders in American politics is notoriously poor…
It’s not just that these candidates were running unwinnable races. Often they were way ahead after an early barrage of advertising. But they blew it, despite their money.
The dollar signs dancing around in consultants’ heads don’t make up for the fact that most self-funders tend to be subpar candidates for important structural reasons. First, they’re political dilettantes unfamiliar with the rigors of elected politics. They make rookie mistakes. They assume their records before their recent entries into politics aren’t relevant or won’t be scrutinized. They have less political acumen or knowledge than many of the people I follow on Twitter, or even most of them.
Read the whole thing.
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
Excellent.
Third Street (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 12:28PM EST (link)It applies perfectly to Carly Fiorina, the non-self-funding self-funder.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” –Wilkins Micawber, “David Copperfield”
Hey, that's what I was going to say ...
joayn (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 1:23PM EST (link)“the non-self-funding self-funder”. Heh. Good one.
America is an idea; a noble idea that essentially boils down to the shocking belief that the masses are in fact not asses. John Nolte
Self-funding and campaign loan
redtillimdead (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 5:33PM EST (link)Are tow different things. Fiorina will invest millions into her campaign, but she will also fundraise. Linda McMahon is self funding. She is not actively fundraising, and will support her campaign almost exclusively on her own cash, two totally different things
Nancy Pelosi can kiss my asstroturf.
What Fiorina did is even worse.
Joshua Trevino (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 8:40PM EST (link)Implicit in a loan is a payback, of course. By loaning her campaign money just two weeks into its formal existence, Carly Fiorina sent two messages:
1) Her exploratory phase was, from a financial standpoint, unsuccessful.
2) More important, that donors will be donating in part, not to win, but so Carly can pay herself back.
If the Carly effort doesn’t dramatically improve from the past five weeks of mediocrity, at some point in the spring, the impetus to get out of the red will take precedence over the impetus to secure the nomination.
Just imagine how donors will line up to support that.
We are but warriors for the working-day.
Wisconsin's Example
Duke Friday, December 11th at 12:40PM EST (link)Every hear of a hunk of broccoli called Sen. Herb Kohl (with appologies to the broccolli)? He owns the Milwaukee Bucks, and used to own a regional chain of supermarkets. He’s never been married (orientational rumors abound), and has too much money to even keep in a bank. He’s a Democrat.
Kohl’s been our mostly invisible Senator since 1988, his first (and most likely last) elective office. I think he spends a lot of time in DC, but I’m not too sure he actually does anything while he’s there. Self – funded.
It’s not about a purge. It’s about an insurrection.
First word = "Ever"
Duke Friday, December 11th at 12:41PM EST (link)Listening to Rush while trying to type!
It’s not about a purge. It’s about an insurrection.
This is a total rabbit trail, but ...
Joshua Persons (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 4:13PM EST (link)When looking up Herb Kohl’s history on Wikipedia, I found out some crazy facts about a few of our Congressmen and women. If Wikipedia is to be believed:
-In addition to being the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, Kohl is actually the founder of Kohl’s department store
-Jane Harman (D-CA 36) is married to a man 26 years her senior. They have two children together
-Darrell Issa (R-CA 49) is the voice behind the “PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE CAR” Viper auto alarm.
Formerly jpers36
NARF
So what's this guys "Solution"?
USNJIMRET (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 2:39PM EST (link)Surely not the proved corrupt, yeah I used that word, current Party funding system.
Then you are dependent upon, a slave to, the claimed political acumen of yet another batch of ‘experts’ who are little known outside the Party elite.
Personally, and it would probably require a Constitutional Amendment to accomplish, I like the idea of 100% public financing of ALL elected offices in the Federal government.
And a seriously toothy FEC to force compliance with money limits.
But I already know that there is a better chance of a snowball in hell surviving then an effort to get the stupid amounts of money involved in political campaigns stopped.
About all anyone can do, if they hope to have any chance for their ‘guy’ to get elected, is play the game better then the other guys do.
And the train to greater and greater corruption of the system just keeps chugging along, gather speed and heading for the ravine with no trestle in sight.
No to public financing
seandparnell (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 3:43PM EST (link)There’s a reason you’d need a constitutional amendment to accomplish what you propose, because there’s already one that governs such schemes – the First, in fact. I for one am not interested in trading the First Amendment for something that will give politicians access to public funds to run their campaigns.
Sean Parnell
President
Center for Competitive Politics
http://www.campaignfreedom.org
The USSR had really cheap elections (nt)
zuiko (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 3:52PM EST (link)Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. – Milton Friedman
Money Is Important
crosley (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 3:56PM EST (link)I agree that we shouldn’t automatically anoint someone if they can self-fund, but I don’t think we should shun them either. As far as the success of self-funders, correlation is not always causation.
The reason self-funders fail is because they don’t work their way up the political ladder. They go straight from the private sector and run for a “big” office, like Governor or Senator, instead of starting out like most politicians in the state legislature or some other local office. They aren’t seasoned and they think they can just buy their seat. Many of them also approach the office as they would a hobby or other extracurricular activity.
But I can point to a lot of races where money made the difference. Corzine bought a Governors seat and a Senate seat with his wealth, and nearly won reelection despite his enormous unpopularity simply because of his incredible war chest. Had Corzine not self-funded the last campaign, he would have lost by double digits, instead he lost by only a few points.
Republicans should look at the field and choose carefully, but if there isn’t a strong alternative, I would go with someone who can adequately self fund. I’ve seen strong incumbents nearly get taken down by horrible candidates that made it a race simply because they were able to flood the airwaves.