By Roberta Millstein
Recently, I’ve had people ask me why it’s so bad that the Eric Jones campaign is spending millions of out-of-district dollars. I was surprised by the question at first, but since a few have asked it, here is my attempt to answer, with links to many of our previous Davisite articles. Please share this article to help get the word out before Nov 3.
10. It raises the bar for political spending. Jones $15M contributions to his campaign — to buy a seat in the House — are record-setting in CA and make his congressional campaign spending one of the highest in the country. It’s a waste of money that could be used on other things and makes it harder for ordinary citizens to run for office. Someone that wasteful of money and resources would not make a prudent candidate.
9. It’s carpet bagging. Jones’s direct donations are mostly large, out-of-district voters, many in high tech and finance. There is no reason to think that these donors have District 4 interests at heart.
8. Jones is supported by a Super PAC, New Leadership Now, of associates from his former firm, Dragoneer, where he was a venture capitalist (not a “businessman” as he likes to call himself) for 12 years, 8 as partner. Jones misrepresented this from the very beginning, claiming not to take corporate PAC money, but to date NLN has spent more than $5 M on Jones’s campaign. Super PACs, which are not supposed to coordinate with campaigns, are typically shady — this one, which has supported only Jones, was formed even before he declared his candidacy and while Jones was still an active partner at Dragoneer.
7. Jones’s wealthy donors helped him advance to the General Election by funding his lesser known Republican opponents and running attack ads against his main Republican rival. Yet now Jones courts Republicans and pretends to be on their side. It’s shady and hypocritical.
6. It allows him to buy polls of unknown methodology and get press coverage for them. Our underfunded media is no match for that kind of money, apparently.
5. It allows him to carpet our mailboxes, cell phones, social media, and TVs with false and deceptive ads that require millions of dollars to counter. I’ve done my best to get the truth out, as have many others, but it’s hard to compete with. In particular, he has lied about Mike Thompson — most recently saying that Thompson supports ICE, which is completely false, as was his howler of a claim that Thompson didn’t support impeaching Trump (Thompson did, twice). Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of the CA congressional committee, had to call Jones out for lying about Thompson.
4. Jones has money for burn for different flyers to give to Democrats and Republicans. — even on the same street on the same day! One mailer had quotes from Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna on them, even though neither endorsed him; meanwhile, Jones donated the legal maximum to Jonathan Bush’s (of the Bush family) run for governor. He also donated $10,000 to Maine Dream, Inc., a Super PAC formed to back Jonathan Bush. Jones is whatever he thinks will fly with his current audience, and he’s got the money to tailor those messages.
3. Jones can pay people to make constant updates on his website. Thompson aptly called Jones’s website an “etch-a-sketch.” That has enabled Jones to flip-flop on immigration; taxes; housing and renting; balanced budget amendment and sunsetting programs; and abortion, childcare, and transparency. That is a breathtaking amount of flip flops in one short year.
2. He can toss out ridiculous ads just to see what sticks: for example, comparing himself to Jesus Christ and making it seem as though he was endorsed by Barack Obama (he wasn’t). These ads also reveal his hubris.
1. Would we even be talking about Eric Jones without the millions behind him? He has no political experience whatever. He has lied, flip-flopped, and deceived. It is implausible that he and his backers are spending these millions for the benefit of District 4. All evidence points to his real interests being in big tech/crypto/AI and data centers. This is a Trojan Horse for Silicon Valley. This is not someone who should in elected office.
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