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Friday, December 18, 2015

#TheIntercept Why Pierre Omidyar Needs a Super Pac and an Online TV News Channel @pierre

(I wrote this in the comments section for this Intercept article. )

Boy I sure hope Pierre is mad about that, even though technically he’s from France its hard to see how he would pass Trump’s Muslim affiliation test. I’m guessing that will be a very racist test. Now he can start a First Look Media online television station. This would include the Young Turks, Democracy Now, the Real News, Abby Martin, people fired by MSNBC. Lots of contenders. Or just buy one. I’d buy something like the Esquire channel and just add news blocks if I had 1 billion to burn.
Of course, as I mentioned on twitter: why doesn’t Pierre have a political pac? I have one, which is a bit underfunded, as in not funded, called the Greater Good Coalition.
Here’s two things we could do with money.
1. We could fully adopt the Ben Jealous Plan which would turn states like Georgia and Texas blue simply be registering unregistered black and Latino voters. He’s estimated a cost of $60 million. I’ve crunched the numbers as a longtime doorknocker and canvass director (knocked on more than 30000 doors.) and I’m pretty sure you could do it for $20 million dollars. I think you could also do it before November 2016 if you start in the next month or so.
What are the implications of achieving the Ben Jealous plan? It would mean that the Democrats would have electoral lock in for the presidency and probably gain enough house seats to retake the US house, even though the gerrymandering done by the GOP is at a high level.
2. You could spend another 25 million by yourself or in coalition with the Tom Steyers and Nick Hanaurs of this world, and retake the US house. This would put anywhere from 30 to 50 field canvasses in at least 40 races so that could retake the US house. Nothing decent gets done without Dem majorities in the US House and US Senate. Bernie Sanders could win the presidency and you would still get the same awful policies.
If Omidyvar , and the left coalition of left big spenders, were to spend 50 million on just those two campaigns, then you could beat the 1 billion or so being spent by the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson.
But Phil, Pierre is saying as he’s writing the check because I’m optimistic, why can’t the DNC do that? Because, and you make the check out to the Greater Good Coalition, its not entirely clear that the Dems want to retake the House or the Senate. Notice how little Hillary talks about retaking congress. Sanders at least hints at it because he can’t get anything done without retaking the house and the senate. I think the dems made a deal to not contest congressional control to their big donors. I can’t prove this its just a gut feeling. The only group that’s tried to influence congressional or state house races in my state of PA is Working Families. And they’be been inactive for three years. Labor has completely failed to move the needle or they’re happy with pro labor republicans, which is a very foohardy relationship. Or just ask the right to work state of Indiana.
So if Mr. Omidyar is really mad and wants to do something about it here’s his chance.
PS: Here are some links about this:

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