Seitz-Wald

Hard Ball by Nancy OhanianIn terms of political parties, it was once clearer who the good guys were and who the bad guys were in the Dark Money world or legalistic, systemic bribery. Now... not so much.

Ask a progressive challenger to lay out a roadmap to beating a conservative incumbent and inevitably you will hear about a muscular voter registration drive. That becomes a lot trickier with a pandemic raging. But not impossible. In Arizona there are quite a few organizations that work to register people who are likely to vote for Democrats.

One of my friends called the other day and reminded me that I had first met Barack Obama when he was a state senator, soon after I had discovered that he wasn't an Israeli Irishman. He was running for the U.S. Senate and conventional wisdom said he had no chance at all. He was in 4th place in an 8 person race. Some friends and I put on a fundraiser for him here in L.A. where his presentation stunned everyone in the room. I recall that it cost $75 to get in. After he was done speaking, there was not a single flat surface in the house that wasn't taken by someone writing another check.

American Bridge is a SuperPAC founded by David Brock, one of the oddest ducks in American politics. Once a right-wing journalistic assassin-for-hire and purveyor of Bill Clinton conspiracy theories, he turned against the GOP after coming out of the closet and was reborn as some kind of super-operative for the Republican-wing of the Democratic Party.