lpetrich
Contributor
After noting Citizens United and large amounts of money going into politics,So much crypto is flooding into campaigns that the surge in Oregon’s 6th threatens to wash out a crypto bro already running in the race. Cody Reynolds explained to Willamette Week that after four previously failed attempts at federal office, he developed a new strategy and set out to work in the crypto world, hoping to translate new wealth into political power. “Before, I naively thought I could do that with ideas and passion,” Reynolds said, “but the political system is no longer a marketplace of ideas. It’s also about reach and money.” Reynolds loaned his new campaign $2 million to get off the ground.
The article then described how there is no counterbalancing anti-crypto lobby, meaning that the crypto lobby is like many other lobbies, without opposition focused on it. That enables such lobbies to get much of what they want.Some have run the gauntlet by simply saying yes to the crypto agenda. State Rep. Jasmine Crockett, running in a Texas district to replace Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, had no history as either an outspoken advocate for crypto or an opponent of regulation but facing the question in the campaign, she sided with the policy positions favored by crypto PACs. The two major crypto super PACs came in with $1 million each, helping to put her over the top.
Protect Our Future PAC, the one linked to Bankman-Fried, has also spent $2 million boosting Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath in her member-on-member contest forced by redistricting. The PAC is also backing Nikki Budzinski in Illinois and has endorsed New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, a crypto supporter.
One of the most outspoken Democratic critics of crypto in Congress is California Rep. Brad Sherman. This cycle, he’s being challenged by Aarika Rhodes, a school teacher organizing her entire campaign around the defense of crypto and opposition to Sherman’s critical approach, and has drawn support from crypto advocates. Whether the spending against Sherman will unseat him or not, other incumbents and challengers are observing the dynamic: Opposition to crypto risks an onslaught from the industry, and support of crypto invites a tsunami of supportive spending.
Author Ryan Grim then described how Democrats got in bed with the banking industry when they got into big-money corporate funding in the 1980's. Associating with car-industry executives would piss off labor unions, and associating with polluting industries would piss off environmentalists, but bankers seemed safe, at least at first.