John Jordan, heir to a polluting energy fortune who now runs his family’s California vineyard, decided to dump $1.5 million into trying to defeat Ed Markey in the special election for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Markey won by 10 points, a big win for a Democrat in a low-turnout special election.
Why did Jordan think he had a shot at beating Markey? As the Wall Street Journal’s Neil King, Jr. reports, a busload of Republican consultants paid for their three martini lunches in DC this spring by convincing the political neophyte Jordan to waste a considerable chunk of the family fortune on a race that was never particularly close:
The creation of Mr. Jordan’s super PAC, Americans for Progressive Action, stirred speculation earlier this month about the group’s origins and backers. Its treasurer, Nancy Watkins, used to work for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, while its spokeswoman, Sheena Tahilramani, once served as chief of state to former Bush White House aide Karl Rove. […]
Mr. Jordan has allied himself in recent months with conservative activist Dick Morris, who is also helping advise on Mr. Jordan’s campaign to assist Mr. Gomez. In February, Mr. Jordan financed and helped craft a poll of Latino immigrants to the U.S. The poll’s methodology was widely panned by critics.
Many of these same consultants just got done freeloading off the campaigns of the entire Republican ticket, from Mitt Romney on down, while running it straight into an Election Day ditch. Dick Morris famously predicted a Romney “landslide.” Jordan apparently hired him anyway.
John Jordan is easy to make fun of. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, posts lots of pictures of himself at fancy parties on Flickr, and actually kind of looks like a Chris Farley character – sure, he has fun stompin’ grapes in the family vineyard, but can he take the reins of an oil & gas fortune? Hilarity ensues!
But it’s hard not to feel bad for him. The poor guy just got swindled out of $1.5 million by Republican consultancy hucksters. His chosen candidate of Gabriel Gomez was utterly clueless on how to solve America’s problems.
Jordan says he’s a centrist. If he really is, I hope he learns from this experience and refocuses his efforts to get the Republican Party out of the fever swamp of consultant-run, extreme-right campaigns.
Cross-posted from The Green Miles
He has been so consistently horrible on the Right, he may be a “closet Democrat” bringing the GOP down from within. Perhaps?????
There appear to be a growing list of examples of Republican political operatives getting wealthy people to donate massive amounts of money to their lost causes. Mr Rove is not alone in being a beneficiary in such, uh, projects.
Which country did Rove think he needed a chief of state for? Besides ours, I mean.
The rich are not like us.
Look, would you drop a nickle on a long-shot effort to unseat, say, Mitch McConnell? In an environment in which a nickle could possibly be decisive?
Even if you lost you would not regret the nickle very much.
This guy Jordan has a dilettante’s interest in politics. The $1.5 M served to keep things interesting for him. It’s no skin off his nose, he’s not going to cut back to rice and beans or anything like that. It was surplus discretionary cash.
The rich are not like us: they have more money.
They seem to fall up rather than fall down.
http://www.wbur.org/2013/06/28/gomez-gop-rift
No doubt he will still be able to find work and probably be paid better than before.
Her resume indicates she was chief of staff. Probably a typo.
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Kirth is quite capable of replying all on his own. It wasn’t clear to me what the correct reading was.
His PAC is named Americans for Progressive Action and he put $1.5M toward defeating the progressive candidate.
Those two things, when juxtaposed, suggest malice or stupidity. Which applies to Mr. Jordan is an exercise left to the reader.
…there are no truth in labeling/advertising laws for political ads.
For those with no soul… it seems like there is a lot of money to be made from scamming these rich right-wingers out of their “hard earned” mon– sorry… had a hard time saying “hard earned” without laughing. 😉