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.
