Thread by @RepresentORL

The GOP tends to get a lot of press coverage about how they are in bed with corporate interests and lobbying groups, but the reality is that both major parties are dependent on their money.

This article is a great example.

theintercept.com/2019/08/29/dsc…

In this country, corporations, lobbying groups and Super PACs have significant influence not only on campaigns (and hence on who gets elected), but also on the day-to-day process of policy making.

Another area of influence that gets less media attention is how those groups influence who gets to run for office.

This is what's known as the #InvisiblePrimary or the #MoneyPrimary

This article details how lobbying groups influenced the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (the group tasked with coordinating national fundraising and political spending efforts to elect as many Democrats to the Senate as possible) to endorse their preferred candidate.

Not only did DSCC endorse the candidate preferred by the lobbying groups, they did so before the candidate had officially decided to run for office.

The DSCC also used other strong-arm tactics to discourage other, less corporate-friendly candidates from even launching campaigns.

For example, the DSCC “made it clear to a number of the firms and individuals" who were considering working for one campaign "that they wouldn’t get any business in Washington or with the DSCC" if they worked with them.

These are the behind-the-scenes actions of the #InvisiblePrimary. Our system of government was designed so that the people, via primary election, get to decide who can run for office in the general election...

...but the reality is that corporations and lobbying groups (and, let's be hones, politicians) have created an earlier, largely-invisible #MoneyPrimary that decides, to a large extent, who even launches a campaign.

The result is that the large majority of candidates (from *both* parties), by the time they announce their candidacies, have already been vetted by the corporations and lobbying groups.

And the candidates who decide to launch campaigns in spite of the lobbyists and Super PACs often don't survive, because they can't raise sufficient funds to hire strong staff and match the advertising budgets of the candidates backed by the corporate and congressional Super PACs.

So, by the time we get to the general election, the only candidates who have a realistic chance of winning are the ones who are supported by one or more special interest group.

Our system has evolved such that it is almost impossible for a candidate who has no allegiances to special interest groups to make it to and win a general election.

The #MoneyPrimary is a structural problem with how elections are financed and conducted in this country, and must be fixed if we want to break the stranglehold of special interest groups and return control of government to the people.

#RepresentUs is working to make that happen.