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Current cycle is demonstrating that Dems have a lot of deep-pockets donors and orgs they can tap - there are Dem donors writing checks to almost every candidate running in the primary! - but GOP grassroots donors are tapped out after one grifter squeezes a check from them.
Lots of blame for the grifter situation to go around. The Tea Party saga revealed a real schism between grassroots GOP voters and the party, a breach of trust that will take a long time to heal. GOPe failure to deliver on campaign promises makes it worse.
The core problem, in the U.S. and Europe, is that the political class is out of step with grassroots voters. The Dem and GOP elite agree with each other more than they agree with folks in flyover country on numerous issues, such as immigration.
That means the big money in Washington, the streamlined organizations, the big-ticket political talent, is lined up against what grassroots conservatives want. The demolition of the Tea Party was a potent demonstration of that.
Lots of people who want to be active, care about their issues, have a little money to donate... but they have good reasons for distrusting the establishment. They don't want to buy another ticket to Failure Theater.
It makes them vulnerable to grifters because there are few tightly-run, well-connected, effective organizations in D.C. that truly want what the grassroots voters want, but the dream of outsiders coming in to tear down the Establishment persists.
It's a pity the GOP didn't absorb the energy of the Tea Party and reinvent itself, but then, they never really wanted to. Sometimes the GOP is as much of a grift as any scam-PAC with an email list. It all needs to change, but hard to see how it could be changed quickly. /end
