Steyer seeks support in Ohio for presidential campaign
“My argument and the basis for this campaign is simple: There has been a corporate takeover of our democracy. We need a solution for it.”
Billionaire Tom Steyer wants to break corporate control of government and deal with climate change on an “emergency basis” as he tries to rally grassroots support in Ohio for his fledgling campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“My argument and the basis for this campaign is simple: There has been a corporate takeover of our democracy. We need a solution for it,” said Steyer, a former hedge fund investor who has run ads encouraging the impeachment of President Donald Trump, in an interview with The Dispatch.
Steyer has spent part of this week touring Ohio, with stops in Cleveland, Mansfield and Lordstown, and is scheduled for a stop in Columbus on Saturday to meet with small business owners and activists, a group of Latino Democrats and some Democratic state lawmakers. Lunch at the Jazz & Rib Fest also is part of his Columbus itinerary.
Steyer wants to take a model of grassroots organizing that has helped ballot campaigns he has backed in California and other places to a national level, so he is visiting states such as Ohio to talk with voters about what they want from their government.
Government officials have not delivered comprehensive immigration reform, national health care, gun reform, an adequate response to climate change or other policies that Steyer believes people want.
The campaigns of the two dozen other Democrats running for president have focused too much on policy details, though, Steyer said, and not enough on how they will deliver on those promises if elected.
“This government has failed. I think the question for people in Ohio (choosing a candidate) is a very practical one: What can you actually do? That’s what I’m focused on,” Steyer said.
He pointed to successful issues he backed in California taking on oil and tobacco companies as evidence he can deliver on his promise to rein in corporate interests.
Steyer launched his campaign earlier this month with a plan to spend $100 million of his personal fortune, targeting early primary states with television ads. Tom Steyer, Democratic presidential candidate
He has tried to position himself as a political outsider who intends to disrupt Washington.
But that is where the similarities end between Steyer and Trump, who won Ohio by 8 percentage points in the 2016 general election, he said.
“I can’t think of anyone in this world with whom I’m more different than Donald Trump,” he said.
Steyer has personally bankrolled the “Need to Impeach” campaign, calling for Congress to impeach Trump and remove the president from office, spending millions on television ads and town halls, including in Columbus last year. Trump has hit back at Steyer, calling him a “weirdo” Democratic donor who “doesn’t have the guts or money to run for president” on his Twitter feed.
Several Democratic presidential candidates have visited Columbus during the 2020 election cycle. Former Vice President Joe Biden spoke in June at the LGBTQ organization Human Rights Campaign’s Columbus dinner. And Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren held a rally on the West Side in May. Candidate Andrew Yang spoke at an Upper Arlington elementary school.
Campaign spokesman Alberto Lammers said Steyer will seek political contributions even though he plans to invest his own money in his campaign. Steyer has vowed to not take “any corporate money or PAC money,” Lammers said.
Fundraising is among the criteria used to determine which Democratic candidates make the debate stage, where Steyer hopes to be for the third round in Houston in September. He will not be among the 20 candidates in the second Democratic debate July 30 and 31 in Detroit.