Into the fray
Tom Steyer jumped into the presidential race this week with a billiondollar question hovering over his nascent candidacy: What does he have to offer that 23 other candidates do not?
It’s not his experience. Steyer never has held elective office.
It’s not his agenda. His signature issue as an activist has long been climate change, but all of the Democrats are on board, to varying degrees, on the need for urgent action. Jay Inslee, the Washington governor, has made it his obsession — and he’s stuck in the 1% range in the polls.
Steyer has spent a small fortune on TV ads agitating for President Trump’s impeachment, but anyone who watched the first round of Democratic debates knows that position is about as standard as deploring high drug prices, advocating a bigger government role in health care, bashing GOP tax breaks for the wealthy or decriminalizing border crossings.
So where does that leave him?
“Really what we’re doing is trying to make democracy work by pushing power down to the people,” he said in his campaignopening video.
A couple of problems with that pitch: Sen. Kamala Harris seized a “For the People” slogan back in January, and multiple candidates have a more compelling I’moneofyou story, including the one who just dropped out, Rep. Eric Swalwell, who often highlighted his sixfigure student debt.
Steyer has promised to soon roll out a plan for “structural changes” in the campaign finance system. He also plans to spend at least $100 million on his race, which would dwarf anything his opponents have raised the hard way (within federal limits) — and present quite a paradox for him to explain in that expensive air time he plans to buy.
But his wealth will give him the chance to make the case against the corrosive effect of money in politics.