Fundraising in the USA: Red Verses Blue Turns Consultant Green

Photo by JP Valery, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I got my hands up, they’re playing my song, they know I’m gonna donate today. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaah, it’s fundraising in the U.S.A.

U.S. House candidate Kim Klacik walked onto Mike Huckabee’s cable talk show last August as the latest conservative celebrity, riding high on a viral campaign ad that had attracted 10 million views and was shared on social media by President Donald Trump and his eldest son.

“We raised close to $2 million,” the Republican congressional hopeful said of the three-minute spot, which showed her marching in a red dress and high heels past abandoned buildings in Baltimore, asserting that Democrats do not care about Black lives.

But later that night, Klacik’s staff told her it would be best to stop disclosing how much money the ad had raised for her campaign against Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D) — because she wouldn’t be keeping much of it, Klacik recounted in an interview.

The company that produced the video, Arsenal Media Group, would take a cut. And a firm hired to promote the video, Olympic Media, would keep up to 70 percent of the money it generated, some of which was not disclosed in Klacik’s initial campaign finance filings.

Klacik, a self-described college dropout who launched a nonprofit organization to help disadvantaged women before running for office, said she did not personally approve or know about the contract with Olympic Media until that conversation.

“When I saw it, I almost passed out,” she said.

Her campaign is an example of how some consulting firms are profiting handsomely from Republican candidates who have robust appeal in today’s politically charged environment — even when they are running in deep-blue districts where it is virtually impossible for them to win. The more viral the candidate goes, the more money the companies make — a model possible only through the online outrage machine of hyper partisan politics.

Fundraising companies say their fees are well-earned and still leave candidates with more money than they would have if their ads had not been shared widely. But critics, including Klacik and some other 2020 candidates, say the system is deceptive, trapping first-time politicians in onerous contracts that siphon away cash their donors intended for them.

Kimberly Klacik can spare us the fundraising fainting couch soundbite; she was well aware the money was flowing in and if she didn’t check to make sure what her cut was that is on her. Why didn’t she check the fine print? Well, hard to worry about such things when you are living the high life off them in the moment:

Klacik certainly got something for the millions she paid her vendors: a national political platform. Within days of the Baltimore ad’s release, she landed a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. By October, she’d taken in more than $6 million — mostly from small-dollar donors across the country.

She spent more than $50,000 on private jets. She joined Donald Trump Jr. at a rally in Arizona, and the president himself in Atlanta to announce a plan to increase capital in Black communities. She traveled her district on a customized bus and spent thousands of dollars on a campaign event at Trump’s hotel in downtown Washington.

Part of the reason Klacik’s ad took off so rapidly was the influencers that Arsenal and Benny Johnson recruited, including Trump Jr., who were willing to praise and share the spot on their social media accounts.

However did it come to pass that poor innocent Kimberly Klacik was duped, bumfuddled, bamboozled even, to be taken in by such things…truly, one of life’s great mysteries…

Anyhoo..

It is not just long shot Republicans that run this game. Amy McGrath raked in over $90 million dollars for the unicorn hunt to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell, $30 million more than the most powerful elected Republican in 2020 not named Trump, which purchased her much media attention and a 20-point loss. The list goes on and on, and the election cycles change the names, but the game remains the same. High profile campaigns bring the big bucks, and with it folks seeking to make said big bucks their own.

After every election cycle, each party seeks to reflect upon where its resources were well-spent and where it could have been more strategic. But donors are often the opposite of strategic, tossing gobs of money at unwinnable races because they really dislike the incumbent.

That was the case in 2020 — to a massive extent.

Democrats flooded the coffers of Kentucky Senate candidate Amy McGrath, for example, with more than $93 million, in the hope of unseating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). But the race was never a top target for the party, and McGrath lost by about 20 points.

The other attempt at unseating a much-derided GOP senator came in South Carolina, where Jaime Harrison raised about $130 million against Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). This one was considered potentially competitive, but Harrison lost by 10 points.

That’s more than $220 million for two campaigns that didn’t wind up being close.

Not to be outdone, Republicans tossed tens of millions of fundraising dollars at even less-winnable House races. They gave about $42 million combined to candidates running against Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and to a Baltimore candidate, Kimberly Klacik, whose message deriding the Democratic leaders of urban cities was frequently promoted by Trump. None of them got even 30 percent of the vote. Klacik went from 25 percent in a special election earlier this year to 28 percent.

Then there was the 2020 election debacle of false fraud claims and the Georgia Senate runoffs:

Much of the money raised by Stepien and the Trump campaign won’t go towards challenging election results, however, but to help set the stage for the president’s next act. The Trump campaign has a recount fund, but the money won’t go to it unless someone gives more than $8,333. Rather, 60 percent of a donation up to that amount for Trump’s “Official Election Defense Fund” is routed to a new PAC started this week by the president that can pay for a wide range of activities — but is likely legally barred from spending on recounts, lawyers say. The remaining 40 percent goes to the Republican National Committee, which is allowed — but not required to — spend on the recount. Prior to Tuesday, the majority of a donation went to helping Trump’s campaign cover its debt.

The twin Georgia Senate races turned out to be the most expensive ones in history. The senate race in neighboring South Carolina between Senator Lindsey Graham and Jamie Harrison was sandwiched below Jon Ossoff’s win and just above Raphael Warnock’s victory in money spent, which saw the long-time Republican Graham breeze to a 10 point win. This new record breaks the previous most expensive senate race of the long, long ago of 2018. 2022 will have a really good shot at breaking that one. Trees don’t grow to the sky, the old Wall Street stock saying goes, but it sure looks like the spending of campaign fundraising dollars just might.

There is nothing new under the sun. There is always the stated purpose of fundraising money, then the actual acquiring and using of fundraising money. During the gold rush days, the real money wasn’t to be made panning or digging for the elusive yellow stuff; it was in the surrounding infrastructure. Selling goods to the flood of newcomers, and more specifically giving them saloons, brothels, and gambling halls to blow off steam and currency, was the real game. If you want to make money on the internet, you can do that, but the easiest way to do so might well be to set up shop telling others how to make money on the internet. YouTube vides, blog posts, and explainers a plenty will be happy to tell you how you too can make friends, increase followers, and rake in the big bucks if you just click here, subscribe, and pay for the privilege.

Why anyone would donate to a national level candidate at this point is a valid question you could ask. But if one is so inclined to express themselves politically through the distribution of the Benjamins, they should endeavor to read the fine print on where said donation is going. Chances are that pop-up on the website, in your news feed, or flooding of inbox is the conduit to many places the donator’s money is going, and where they think it is going probably ain’t going to be one of them.

But that’s the beauty of the long shot candidates being highly visible on the interwebs. Political fundraising is sports betting, religion, and pro wrestling combined in one. You can pick the avatar of your choice, know some inside information, spend lots of money on them to feel like you are doing something, and blame everyone from them to the system to the method of fundraising if it doesn’t work out. Which just primes you for the next demand for the next most important election of our lifetime that you better give to right now if you don’t want the Statue of Liberty to fall on this box of puppies.

Same old song and dance.

Too much pressure and I’m nervous
That’s when the taxi man turned on the radio
And the WinRed song was on…
And the ActBlue song was on…