Always Follow The Money

STORY #1

In my first race for U.S. House, I had finally gotten an audience with the Chair of the DCCC, Rahm Emmanuel. We had never met. After being forced to wait in his office for 45 minutes (a pretty transparent power play in my view), he walked in, didn’t even bother to shake my hand, and sat down behind his desk. The first words out of his mouth were, “Are you a self-funder?” Essentially, the first and most important aspect of my viability as a candidate to him and the establishment was the size of my personal bank accounts (for what it’s worth, my answer was, “I can put in a few bucks, but I’m not going to jeopardize my family’s future and my kids’ education on this campaign. I’ll raise what I have to.”). He then laid down the law: “If you are competitive in the polls, have a media plan that we approve, and raise $xx million, we night consider supporting you in the last couple of months of the cycle.”

STORY #2

Again, it’s a repeat of my personal story re my first encounter with Call Time (it’s in my forthcoming book) but I believe it’s worth repeating.

When I was running, one day I was at DCCC headquarters and had some down time. I wanted to call my spouse, so I asked Mark Udall (then a congressperson from CO), who had been assigned to be my "mentor", where I could make a call; he hesitated, then pointed down the hall to a door. I walked through the door - it was a call center with cubicles filled with Members and staff dialing for dollars. Call Time. After making my call home, I rejoined Udall in the hallway. I'll never forget his words: "I was worried if you saw that room, you might change your mind about running.”

It was then that I realized the problem. Members of Congress hate call time. They despise having to raise money. Yet, it worked for them - they got elected. And while they still hate Call Time, once elected, they know they have the advantage of incumbency over challengers when dialing for dollars. So they’re afraid to change a system they hate. One part fear, three parts self-preservation, which, it turns out, is the primary motivating factor for most (not all, thankfully) federally elected politicians.