The Myth of the Midterm Insurgent

Carly Fiorina, a GOP candidate for US Senate in California. Flickr/TechShowNetwork

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Associated Press reports today on Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), yet another incumbent candidate once thought a shoo-in but who is now facing a tough reelection bid in November. The liberal, anti-war Feingold will likely square off against businessman Ron Johnson, the presumed GOP candidate, in what’s shaping up to be a brutal midterm election for the Democrats. On the whole, the AP’s take on the brewing battle up in Wisconsin—according to several polls, Feingold, a four-term senator, leads Johnson by a mere one or two percentage points—is standard stuff.

What’s most intriguing about Wisconsin’s Senate race—and what the AP fails to dig into—is Johnson’s background and wealth. Johnson made his fortune through his company making plastic packaging materials, and it’s becoming clear he plans to use that wealth to defeat Feingold. The GOPer has already spent $1 million on ads, and could spend up to $15 million to beat Feingold. If he does, Johnson will join a veritable bloc of candidates in battleground states like Florida and California who’ve staked out a paradoxical, almost hypocritical position in the midterm elections: the super wealthy who claim to be political insurgents and who, in some cases, ally with the influential tea party masses. They’re candidates who somehow think voters won’t notice or care that they’re spending millions this election season, cutting ads and jetting around their states, while claiming to relate to and connect with normal Americans at a time of record unemployment and economic hardship in the US.

This camp includes, most notably, people like Carly Fiorina, the GOP challenger to longtime California senator Barbara Boxer. Fiorina has cozied up with the tea party, and cast herself as an anti-elitist outsider that’ll bring a fresh perspective to cash-drenched Washington politics. Her campaign slogan—”Had enough?”—and she claims that government is “out of touch” and “arrogant.” Yet this is the same Fiorina who took criticism for her ample use of the corporate jet at Hewlett Packard, where she was CEO before her ouster in 2005. She sniped Boxer for the senator’s hairdo in an off-mic moment caught by a TV crew. And as a candidate, Fiorina has shown little hesitation splashing lots of her own cash to boost her electoral chances, including $3 million in a single month this spring.

Then there’s Democratic candidate Jeff Greene, running for US Senate in Florida. Greene also sees himself as an outsider, an insurgent—but one who also happened to profit handsomely from betting against the housing market and essentially predicting the foreclosure crisis. A former Beverly Hills resident, Greene, whose million-dollar wedding three years ago featured Mike Tyson as the best man, has spent $4 million on advertising inside and outside of Florida. That spending has propelled Greene from an unknown who’s only lived in the Sunshine State for a handful of years to a Democratic frontrunner neck-and-neck with his party’s other candidate, Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.). But despite his private jet and Florida mansion, Greene is selling himself on the promise that he’ll take on the entrenched ways of Washington; as his website blodly states, “I am the only candidate running for Senate who is an outsider, independent from the political system and not tied to career politicians and Washington insiders and the way they think.”

All of these deep-pocketed “insurgents” and “outsiders” share a common refrain: that job creation is at the center of their campaign platforms. (One of Greene’s slogans, for instance, is “Jeff Greene: Jobs, Results, Florida.”) That refrain will no doubt resonate with voters in an election where jobs and the economy’s health are top of their priority list.

But Fiorina, Greene, Johnson, et al will also have to reconcile that smart jobs message and their recognition of the US’ economic plight with their own profligate spending as candidates. It looks awfully hypocritical when a candidate spends $3 million in a single month on her campaign while at the same time claiming to be someone who will repudiate the money-driven culture of Washington, a city where lobbying and influence are everything. It’ll be fascinating to see whether voters ignore that contradiction when they hit the polls in November, or see through the faux-populism.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate