While walking around meeting voters in Trump-voting rural Virginia, there was one note that struck a cord with each voter that I met. If you don't like your representative and you can't vote his rear side out, who point does that serve?
Almost every voter knew that a career politician has protections which they guard with their life because their livelihood is at stake.
In the last election that I ran in 2015 as a challenger for the House of Delegates, every incumbent won. Every single last one of them held their seat.
Are they doing a great job? What is going on here? When politicians are as able as fleas, who thinks they are doing a great job?
The reason the incumbent has little chance of losing his seat in Virginia is first, the districts have been gerrymandered to provide safe seats for both parties and every decade they fight over Redistricting maps with the party in power succeeding to draw itself the majority of safe seats.
Second,the campaign finance laws help incumbents. So when a politician brags they "out raised " the opponent, well duh, they already had it stacked up in favor of the incumbent unless the opponent is independently wealthy.
The Federal Election Commission statistics show that most donors give about on average $100. The millions of dollars sent out to big campaigns that filters down to all incumbents and parties comes from somewhere other then the individual donors. They are the big money interested in manipulating the political system.
Lobbyists, big business and special interest donors give big to incumbents. These groups give to the person already in power because they have their vote on matters of importance that will favor them.
Not only do incumbents have a huge fund raising advantage, in Virginia, we have no limits so a tsunami of outside money pours in.
No one with a job, family or any kind of life can afford pan handling for two years to get all the funds. Challengers need to make a living while incumbents can seek donor connection while in office using their staff to help them. Oh yes, this is paid for by your taxpayer dollars to keep them in office. They can complain about fund raising but they can also vote to change the system that keeps this going.
Incumbents also get free publicity, free town halls, and an experienced staff to make connections with constituents. We challengers have nothing close to that advantage.
So the next time you read about how an incumbent raised more than their challengers, remember that between the fine print there are hundreds of small donations that came to us, the newly indoctrinated politician while the incumbents rely on the old politics as usual to keep their seat. I see nothing to brag about an incumbent out raising a challenger.
This is the people versus the big money. I want to be a public servant not a private company or private interest servant, so those small individuals donating are the real things to brag about.
By the way, we out raised those incumbents with individual donations by a landslide. If that is the way we judge winning, we get the blue ribbon in the Blue Ridge.
We can make a significant change..
Angela Lynn
House District 25
FB: lynn4virginia
www.Lynnforvirginia.com
Twitter @LynnforVirginia