…and my further insistence that everybody who is screaming that both parties are indebted to Big Money and are therefore the same, while understandably outraged, is also, at best, impractical. At worst, naive and deluded.
A reminder from DailyKos Elections why no matter how progressive you consider yourself to be, you can’t tar every politicians with the same brush. Nor can you ignore the necessity of having a huge campaign chest if you are running for office. Because no matter how much you’ve been able to raise, the Koch Bros will beat you. And I’ve bolded the evidence:
• IN-Sen, MO-Sen: It’s only mid-February, but it looks like the battle for the Senate has just gotten seriously underway. The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity just launched $4 million in new TV and digital ads (split roughly evenly) attacking Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill for refusing to support the GOP’s tax cuts. Their main spots are basically clones of one another: They feature the same scripts, just with names and states swapped, and even feature some of the same stock footage—despite each ad starting with a narrator saying, “Tax reform is sweeping across [Missouri/Indiana].” So which state are that car dealership and ice cream shop in? Very possibly neither!
AFP already spent millions hectoring Donnelly and McCaskill about the tax bill last fall, but this time, Democrats are firing back. The Senate Majority PAC and Priorities USA are putting $1.8 million into TV and another $600,000 into digital platforms, and both spots are likewise similar: They attack the Republican tax law for giving 83 percent of benefits to the richest 1 percent and adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt while also saying that “to pay for it, there’s a plan to cut Medicare for seniors.” The Missouri spot also takes a dig at Attorney General Josh Hawley, the likely Republican nominee, for favoring all of this. (There’s still a tossup GOP primary in Indiana.)