antoine-roquentin:

“Every two years, the money spent is more than the two years before that, and it just keeps on going that way,” said Oxman. “It’s an amazing business model. It’s why so many people want to get into it.”

By that, Oxman meant consultants, not candidates, flocking into the business. It’s hard to think of other enterprises with the same levels of money washing through them and such slack regulation.

Few party regulars care to talk about the flimsy to nonexistent ethics that guide their fundraising. How did Sara Gideon end up with nearly $15 million left at the end of her Senate campaign in Maine? Did she just overshoot the mark? Or did her campaign know they couldn’t spend all that cash but kept seeking it anyway? Would her donors have kept contributing if they knew their money was going to sit indefinitely in a dormant campaign account?

And, by the way, what’s she going to do with all that money? At last report, a couple of million dollars have gone to the state’s Democratic Party and to Maine nonprofits dedicated to causes that include the fight against childhood hunger, but she retains about $12 million.

Why did Jaime Harrison use Mothership Strategies for his digital fundraising—an outfit that is notorious, even within the spammy world of political email, for sending out pure spam? A 2019 Washington Post story on Mothership said that some rival firms will not even say its name. They refer to it as the “M-word.” (The story noted that one employee’s bio on the company’s website boasted that she had “mastered the ALL CAPS SUBJECT LINE”—which at least indicates the outfit has a sense of humor.)

A spokesman for Harrison said he would not comment. Ditto for Gideon.

In the course of reporting this piece, I talked to a couple of high-ranking Democratic media spokesmen. One called me cold after learning that I was at work on the story. They both insisted that our conversations be off the record, and both took the same approach: Why would I want to write about Democratic grassroots fundraising when the Republicans were so much worse? It seemed like a pretty low standard they were holding themselves to. But it did pose a question: Can you raise funds more hygienically and still succeed?

often, people say that the candidate who raises the most money always wins. that isn’t what the investment theory of party competition says. it says that money raised is a good proxy for buy-in from local elites for a political candidate. if money is pouring in from out of state, it muddles that reality and gives to a parasitic political machine focused more on doing stunts for eyeballs at the national level than winning at the state level, like gary chambers’ recent ad.