Cisneros

Lottery winner and "ex"-Republican Gil Cisneros wants more than just his $266 million lottery winnings and his $10 million mansion in tony Newport Coast. He wants the word "Congressman" in front of his name. Fancy!

Republican Frito-Lay's potato chip taster Gil Cisneros won $266 million in a lottery and decided he should have his own congressional seat. So he switched parties and "became" a Democrat and Nancy Pelosi looked at the only qualification she ever considers for anyone ever running for Congress-- access to cash-- and anointed him a DCCC candidate.

Kamala Harris-- just like Obama... but without any substanceSaturday afternoon we noted the new book coming out by Phillip Anderson, The Case Against Andrew Cuomo, with a post entitled Anybody But Cuomo? Well Almost Anybody.

Gil Cisneros-- Does this look like an "ex"-Republican to you?A trusted political operative told me today about an encounter he had with a scumbag multimillionaire "ex"-Republican who the DCCC is trying to impose on a district filled with progressive Democrats. The "ex"-Republican is running as a Democrat and pretending to take progressive-- or progressivish-- policy positions.

What a contrast between Gil Cisneros, a fabulously wealthy "ex"-Republican lottery winner from Newport Coast who is bribing DCCC power players to back him, and Sam Jammal, a lifelong homegrown progressive who worked in the Obama administration and then as a clean energy executive. Although Cisneros' $10 million beach-front mansion is as far from CA-39's middle class neighborhoods as if it were in Scarsdale, NY or Darien, Connecticut or any other self-segregated rich-people-only enclave, he now vowing to buy another home in the district. Why not?

David Feldman interviewed me yesterday for his radio show and he threw me for a loop with one of the questions that suddenly popped up out of nowhere. He wanted to know, basically, if millionaires should be driven out of the Democratic Party. I can understand why he asked me, inasmuch as I sometimes go on and on about how the DCCC is always undermining working class candidates in favor of wealthy self-funders. But that's an entirely different proposition from kicking any class of people out of the party. The Democratic Party is out of balance at this point.

As you know, both the DCCC and the NRCC-- if anything, the DCCC is even worse than the Republicans on this-- look for rich candidates who don't have to worry about the financial repercussions of not working for 12-18 months during an election cycle.