Today (primary day in Arizona) is the first day of the rest of Lawrence Lessig's Mayday PAC's life. Odds are it will be (spinnable as) a pretty good one, with an Aug. 11 PPP poll tilting strongly in favor of Mayday's (and Daily Kos's) endorsee, Ruben Gallego [D; AZ-07] over his fellow Democratic (and Hispanic) contender for the open seat, Mary Rose Wilcox.
Amid the usual crush of inch-deep fanboy swoons that have, so far, passed for thoughtful discussion of Mayday in the national media, Yale poli sci lecturer Walter Shapiro's Politico Magazine article stands out as a uniquely observant critique of the emperor's new clothes:
Like most congressional primaries in this dreary election year, the battle in Arizona 7 is mired in small-bore squabbles [....] The only thing distinctive about this campaign is a modest $81,000 online ad buy by a Super PAC designed to boost [Democrat Ruben] Gallego. The spot, with a male voiceover and cartoon imagery, describes Gallego as “committed to fixing a corrupt system for funding campaigns, making sure that politicians are responsive to us—not the billionaires.” According to the liberal Democratic website Daily Kos, the Super PAC has spent another $34,000 on direct mail with a similar Gallego-is-a-reformer theme. In contrast, Gallego and Wilcox have each raised about $500,000 for their primary campaigns. Oddly enough, Gallego’s website does not highlight campaign reform as one of his major issues....
The Gallego-Wilcox primary will be the first test case of the potency of Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig’s Mayday PAC, which has been ballyhooed on the front page of the New York Times as a novel way to crusade for campaign finance reform [....] It all sounds laudable and plausible until you come back to the messy realities of the contest in Arizona 7. Mayday PAC only announced its support for Gallego two weeks before the primary, so their ad and mailings failed to reach those who took advantage of Arizona’s early-voting option. Little of the local media coverage of the race mentions campaign finance . Moreover, a victory by Gallego is likely to be regarded as a symbol of generational change in the Phoenix Latino community and a referendum on Wilcox’s combative tenure on the board of supervisors—and not the catalyst for a national movement to enact public financing.
Maybe New Hampshire? In advance of the state’s Sept. 9 Senate primary, Mayday PAC is on the air with radio ads boosting long-shot GOP contender Jim Rubens, a former state senator from the unicorn wing of the Republican Party [....] There is only one problem with Rubens: No one, with the possible exception of his immediate family, thinks he can win the primary.