About big money in politics: It's a tad ironic...

[Otto Lidenbrock]

...that we held our candidates to some sort of purity test to take no PAC money and those who have received donations from billionaires get hounded for it.

Yet all it's actually done is encourage actual billionaires to sense an opening and join the race.

Beto ran out of money. Kamala ran out of money. They didn't lack in grassroots support. They had a healthy loyal band of supporters but they weren't growing their base because they didn't have the money to reach new people whether it was just through ads or actual ground game with pooling resources into different states.

Running with one hand tied behind your back is precisely why Bloomberg has joined the race. He doesn't need the small donors. He'll just blow you out of the water with what to him is pocket change.

[George II]

1. And the one candidate most outspoken about not taking Super PAC money has two working for him.

[redqueen]

3. Super PACs aren't affiliated with campaigns. Harris had one

they just got started too late it seems.

[msongs]

2. ironic since most of our candidates are at least multi millionaires nt

[bluedovepdx]

4. Sen. Harris

received $11.6 in Q3. Not bad but not great. Bernie was the top fundraiser and Elizabeth was next. No private fundraisers.... such as what Mayor Pete was doing. Strong grassroots support. Need to look at the spending as a factor in the Harris campaign finances. Was the campaign well managed? Reports have come out that it wasn't. The lack of grassroots $ flowing into the Harris campaign isn't a problem of the system or other candidates. Sanders and Warren have been successful at it. I think that's a very good thing. The problem was the candidate/campaign. They had to make the appeal to grassroots donors. Seems they failed.

[LanternWaste]

5. I dig millionaires running. Seems so... noblesse oblige, despite the sans coulette rhetoric

I get it... we're not support to say millionaires anymore; that amount of excessive wealth is inconvenient to the narrative, so the standard had to be raised to exclude sacred cows.

Millions. Pocket change, indeed.