Lesson from Teachout: It won't be as easy for Rahm to buy the next election
You've really got to go back to Bloomberg's narrow escape in his 2009 victory in the NY mayor's race over relative unknown, Bill Thompson. Bloomberg poured $90 million of his own fortune into the race, a sum without equal in the history of municipal politics that gave him a 14-to-1 advantage in campaign spending. He won by only 5%.
Without Bloomberg's billions in the race, money wasn't a big factor in Bill de Blasio's landslide victory last year. BdB won because he ran as a progressive and had strong organization on the ground in the form of the Working Families Party.
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT just ran a strong race for governor against Republicrat Gov. Cuomo despite the fact that she was outspent 100-to-1 by Cuomo's Wall Street patrons. Cuomo raised $40 million to Teachout's $40,000 and political neophyte Teachout sill got 35% of the vote.
The New York Times described Teachout's strong performance as "an embarrassing rebuke to Mr. Cuomo, and it could put a dent in any national aspirations he may hold." I have no doubt that Cuomo, the favorite of the charter school hedge-funders and school profiteers likeEva Moskowitz, could have been beaten had Teachout received support from N.Y.'s chicken-poop teacher union leaders who are tied to Cuomo and the Democratic Party leadership by a thousand threads. Her defeat was also a defeat for the WFP which lost credibility when they endorsed Cuomo.
Lincoln Mitchell writes in the New York Observer:
Without Bloomberg's billions in the race, money wasn't a big factor in Bill de Blasio's landslide victory last year. BdB won because he ran as a progressive and had strong organization on the ground in the form of the Working Families Party.
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| Teachout a winner. |
The New York Times described Teachout's strong performance as "an embarrassing rebuke to Mr. Cuomo, and it could put a dent in any national aspirations he may hold." I have no doubt that Cuomo, the favorite of the charter school hedge-funders and school profiteers likeEva Moskowitz, could have been beaten had Teachout received support from N.Y.'s chicken-poop teacher union leaders who are tied to Cuomo and the Democratic Party leadership by a thousand threads. Her defeat was also a defeat for the WFP which lost credibility when they endorsed Cuomo.
Lincoln Mitchell writes in the New York Observer:
Ms. Teachout’s strong showing, however, demonstrates the enduring relevance of the activist wing of the Democratic Party, reinforces the ability of a smart but poorly resourced candidate to use social media and less expensive forms of communication to significantly balance out a huge fundraising disadvantage, and shows that establishment Democratic candidates would be well served to run with clear and compelling messages, rather than simply on inevitability and incumbency.In Illinois...The more of his own money billionaire Bruce Rauner pours into his campaign for governor, the worse he seems to be doing. Latest polls show him Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Lesson from Teachout: It won't be as easy for Rahm to buy the next election: