By Alex Bragan
Paul Perry checked all the boxes for an ideal #Resistance-era Democratic candidate: youthful, black, an Ivy League pedigree, and the son of LGBT parents, to boot. Yet to his surprise, while running to represent Pennsylvania’s heavily gerrymandered 7th district, Perry found his main obstacle in the Democratic primaries to be not his closer-to-center opponents, but the Democrats themselves. In a recent essay published by The Intercept, he chronicles his experience financing a progressive campaign, lamenting the ethical quandaries that arise when a candidate must abide by the rules of the very game they are trying to reform. Perry’s essay is disheartening for those on the left hopeful of providing a meaningful rebuttal to Trump in November’s midterms, as it makes startlingly apparent the extent to which the Democratic establishment cannibalizes its own efforts in the name of big money and centrist palatability.
To understand how – and why – this is the case, one must first begin to understand the seedy world of campaign finance. Many imagine America to be a democracy in a fairly pure sense of the word, a system in which open elections are contested among citizens equal before the law and where the public serves as the final judge of who is most fit to represent their interests. Some citizens might possess vague notions of the country’s past being fraught with bumps along the road to this unique moment in the history of government, but they assume Tammany Hall-style political machines and party bosses, which circumvented the democratic process by essentially picking who got to run for office and when, were simply the growing pains of a fledgling system.
The truth is that such forces are still mechanized in the work of entirely legitimate organizations known as Hill committees. Both Republicans and Democrats operate Hill committees to assist their candidates in winning Senate and House elections by providing financial, logistical, and organizational support. On the surface, these groups violate no democratic principles. However, because of their powerful stature and the selective allocation of their resources, the committees act as ideological gatekeepers, endorsing candidates that they deem most viable and of the least financial risk.
Perry bore witness to these political machinations in his dealings with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The DCCC, or “D-trip” as it is known inside the Beltway, is the Democratic Hill committee for the House. Attesting to its importance and sway, the DCCC’s Chairperson, a position currently held by Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), ranks fourth in the party hierarchy, behind only the Minority Leader, Minority Whip, and Caucus Chairperson. They run a trio of programs for representatives of various standings including Frontline, which helps at-risk incumbents defend their seats; Jumpstart, a not-so-wittily named initiative to “jumpstart” the political careers of promising new candidates; and Red-to-Blue, an attempt to flip districts populated by conservative incumbents, which is their chief objective in 2018.
As President Trump continues to lose his hold on white suburbanites (particularly women), the Democratic leadership grows increasingly optimistic that they can initiate a “blue wave” in the 2018 midterms. However, far from galvanizing the left to promote progressive candidates, Trump’s scandals and right-wing agenda have been a Siren on the rocks, luring the Democrats rightward based on the assumption that the only way to win back Congress is through running a slate of moderate candidates that appeal to politically disinterested conservatives, the type whose primary grievance with the President are his Twitter antics.
A centrist ideology isn’t the only thing the DCCC looks for in a candidate, though. In his essay, Perry describes failing the so-called “Rolodex test”, an exercise wherein a candidate will be asked to pull out their phone and exact the amount of donations they can expect to pull from all of their contacts. Reportedly, a number north of $250,000 is considered “passing”.
Admittedly, until the nation’s oligarchic campaign finance laws are reformed, access to donors can make or break a campaign. As former Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell described the activity, “Look, fundraising sucks. Almost anybody who runs for office who has any scruples at all will tell you that it sucks, but it is a necessary part of the business.” The business of contesting elections is also highly volatile. It is not wrong that Democrats should take a strategic approach to winning, but as an ostensibly progressive party, they should not be content operating within a broken status quo. Instead, organizations like D-trip should be increasing access to congressional seats by levelling the playing field for candidates whose backgrounds don’t afford them the luxury of hosting campaign dinners that garner $15,000 a head.
The DCCC’s track record is also rather spotty. Recent efforts to smear Laura Moser, a candidate in Texas’ Seventh District who was considered too progressive to win, has forced a runoff in the Democratic primary. Her success arrived in spite of a memo released by D-trip urging Texans not to vote for Moser, a move that drew heavy criticism even from DNC chairman Tom Perez. Additionally, there is little evidence supporting the idea that voters are concerned with such nebulous issues as “electability” and “fundraising,” or even that a candidate who is better at fundraising stands more of a chance of being elected.
Nonetheless, it was on these grounds that Perry was ignored by the Democratic establishment and ultimately dropped out of his congressional race. As he wrote, “When we let wealth and connections drive who gets elected in the country, we get the dismal politics we now awake to every morning.” If America is ever to cure its many ailments – wealth inequality, mass incarceration, crumbling infrastructure – the first step is ushering in a generation of elected officials that are not beholden to the financiers that made their campaigns possible.