"}\u201cEvery two years, the money spent is more than the two years \nbefore that, and it just keeps on going that way,\u201d said Oxman. \u201cIt\u2019s an \namazing business model. It\u2019s why so many people want to get into it.\u201d
By\n that, Oxman meant consultants, not candidates, flocking into the \nbusiness. It\u2019s hard to think of other enterprises with the same levels \nof money washing through them and such slack regulation.
Few party\n regulars care to talk about the flimsy to nonexistent ethics that guide\n their fundraising. How did Sara Gideon end up with nearly $15 million \nleft at the end of her Senate campaign in Maine? Did she just overshoot \nthe mark? Or did her campaign know they couldn\u2019t spend all that cash but\n kept seeking it anyway? Would her donors have kept contributing if they\n knew their money was going to sit indefinitely in a dormant campaign \naccount?
And, by the way, what\u2019s she going to do with all that \nmoney? At last report, a couple of million dollars have gone to the \nstate\u2019s Democratic Party and to Maine nonprofits dedicated to causes \nthat include the fight against childhood hunger, but she retains about \n$12 million.
Why did Jaime Harrison use Mothership Strategies for \nhis digital fundraising\u2014an outfit that is notorious, even within the \nspammy world of political email, for sending out pure spam? A 2019 Washington Post story\n on Mothership said that some rival firms will not even say its name. \nThey refer to it as the \u201cM-word.\u201d (The story noted that one employee\u2019s \nbio on the company\u2019s website boasted that she had \u201cmastered the ALL CAPS\n SUBJECT LINE\u201d\u2014which at least indicates the outfit has a sense of \nhumor.)
A spokesman for Harrison said he would not comment. Ditto for Gideon.
In\n the course of reporting this piece, I talked to a couple of \nhigh-ranking Democratic media spokesmen. One called me cold after \nlearning that I was at work on the story. They both insisted that our \nconversations be off the record, and both took the same approach: Why \nwould I want to write about Democratic grassroots fundraising when the \nRepublicans were so much worse? It seemed like a pretty low standard \nthey were holding themselves to. But it did pose a question: Can you \nraise funds more hygienically and still succeed?
often, people say that the candidate who raises the most money always wins. that isn\u2019t 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\u2019 recent ad.