froggerslogger
I was just talking to another local dem after the local debate watching party this week about Steyer. I’m not sure why he needs to be in the debates, but I am appreciative that he could at least be a billionaire voice in favor of a wealth tax and a serious addressing of inequality. That might be worth it to me.
But I also want to say that I live in a tiny coastal town and Steyer has absolutely been throwing his money behind local democrats all over the country. A couple of years ago we had three of five seats open in our local port races, and Steyer’s PAC hired a full time community organizer and campaign manager to come up and run the campaigns. They also helped with other local elections organizing campaigning and messaging, training new canvassers, and organizing media campaigns. Locally we have timber and industrial interests who would love to dominate the port and have played a large part in running the place into the ground over the last 20 years.
Thanks in part to the help of Steyer we won all three of those seats, and three years later we are finally seeing some progress at our Port.
So while I think there might be good reasons to question his candidacy, I also think it’s inaccurate to paint him as someone who isn’t helping in other ways or is just out to feed his own ego or something.
https://www.reddit.com/r/democrats/comments/dj7glj/tom_steyer_has_spent_476_million_on_his/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2018/11/09/how-billionaire-tom-steyers-123-million-made-a-difference-in-the-midterms/#58c889413ed1
Steyer, who went from hedge fund manager to environmental and political activist, spent the majority of the money—more than $80 million—on two efforts: Need To Impeach, his online petition and media blitz to oust Trump from office, which later included a Need To Vote initiative; and NextGen Rising, a youth voter mobilization effort.
According to political strategists, Steyer’s youth voter turnout campaign was critical and likely helped Democrats take back the House. The impeachment rally cry? Not so much.
Steyer, a consistent mega-donor to Democrats cycle after cycle, is leading efforts to impeach President Donald Trump and to combat climate change by pumping millions of dollars into races and advertising efforts through his PAC, Need to Impeach, and nonprofit organization NextGen America.
He leads every other liberal donor, including Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, contributing almost $248 million cumulatively to candidates, PACs and other political organizations. Much of that cash goes toward PACs and organizations that spend money independently of candidates, including attack ads on Republicans.
Steyer has previously considered running for office himself, floating the idea of running for U.S. House in 2016 and California governor in 2018. He made a trip to Iowa earlier this year where he was expected to announce his 2020 presidential bid. Instead he said he was not going to run in 2020, opting to use his platform to continue calling for the impeachment of President Trump. Steyer didn’t immediately give a clear reason why he reversed his decision not to run.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/07/tom-steyer-enters-2020presidential-field/
, and just bought myself a new bumper sticker..
[/img]
= new reply since forum marked as read
