Plutocrats: More Effective Behind The Scenes
By Tom Steyer won’t be running for Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat in California.
Steyer seems like a good guy, a committed environmentalist, but this is almost certainly excellent. news. for. Democrats. First, as Rebecca Leber says, his money is almost certainly better spent on a variety of swing races rather than on a safer-than-safe blue seat. And then there’s this:
Neither did Steyer, which doesn’t exactly solve that problem. When he started looking at the race, Steyer let it be known, through aides and memos, that he’d serve one term if he couldn’t get his agenda through the Senate. If carbon dioxide output wasn’t decreasing, if tax loopholes hadn’t been closed, he’d be out in 2022. His pre-campaign network was even called Team Cincinnatus, named for the dictator of the early Roman Republic who willingly gave back power as soon as his job was done.
Preemptively declaring a dramatic flounce should you, as a freshman senator, fail to achieve a very ambitious progressive agenda during a period in which the Republicans are nearly certain to control the House for 2/3rds of the time…yeah, I think this is someone the Senate caucus can really do without.