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If Democratic complaints about high-dollar super PACs always rang hollow to you, it’s because they never meant it, as evidenced by the fact that the Left now relies on them just as much as conservatives and Republicans do.

And while some outlier candidates like socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are genuine in their disdain for super PACs in favor of ‘millions of small donors,’ the fact remains it takes money, and a lot of it, in order to run for office. That is especially true of the presidency.

Speaking of Sanders, as The Hill reports:

Progressives are embracing super PACs with newfound vigor as they look to put their political influence and organizing tactics to use in the aftermath of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign.

A handful of new liberal outside groups have cropped up in recent weeks, many of them founded by former aides and allies of Sanders and other prominent progressives. Their goals range from boosting the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden to patching what they see as electoral holes in the Democrats’ organizing strategy.

The expansion of super PACs on the Left still irks ‘progressive’ Democrats who have long shunned and criticized such groups for the alleged outsized influence they have in politics.

That includes Sanders, who, The Hill claims, has expressed angst in private over one super PAC in particular, originally called “Future to Believe In PAC” in reference to Sanders’ campaign slogan.

The group was founded by some former aides to Sanders’ failed presidential bid, to include his former senior adviser Jeff Weaver, as they seek to promote Biden among the Democrat Party’s extreme Left.

Still, Sanders’ frustration with the group’s name led founders to change it this week to the misnamed “America’s Promise PAC,” so as to dissociate itself from the Vermont senator’s campaign.

For Weaver and other like-minded progressives, the decision to form a super PAC, according to The Hill, is due to a sense of “urgency,” not because they really like them. But in fact, super PACs can raise and then spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they’re not coordinating with a specific candidate or campaign.

And let’s face it: Maybe Sanders generated some interest and enthusiasm among the Democrat Party’s Left-wing extremist faction, hence his ability to raise a lot of money from small-dollar donations (and in spite of the fact that the progressive Left supposedly shuns old white guys). But Biden doesn’t have that ‘enthusiasm factor’ among the Democrat Party base.

The Leftist mainstream media is doing its part to bolster Biden, reporting on his “dominating in the polls, his fundraising is going gangbusters and he’s showing broad support from key political players in the early presidential states,” Politico noted as far back as a year ago.

“So where are the big energetic crowds?” asked reporters Marc Caputo and Natasha Korecki, who proceeded to tell readers that there’s a “lack of enthusiasm for an establishment nominee,” a byproduct of Hillary Clinton’s “bitter 2016 defeat.”

The situation hasn’t improved much since. Recall that before coronavirus lockdowns were implemented and in-person campaigning ceased, Biden was still playing to small venues as his campaign failed to energize supporters.

Weaver seems to have acknowledged the general weakness of Biden as a candidate in a memo Friday, warning that declining support and enthusiasm among progressive Democrats make it more likely to thwart his chances of defeating President Trump in November.

America’s Promise PAC could help the presumptive nominee “make up that ground.”

“[D]espite best intentions, the Biden campaign and the [Democratic National Committee] are far behind on digital organizing, Latino outreach and progressive coalition-building – all critical to reaching and winning over Sanders supporters,” Weaver wrote.

In Mel Gibson’s film “The Patriot,” his character came under assault for refusing to back war with Great Britain despite the fact that he believed in the American cause.

“And your principles?” Gibson’s character, Benjamin Martin, was asked during the debate over a war levy in Charles Town, South Carolina.

“I’m a parent, I haven’t got the luxury of principles,” he responded.

Transposed with this year’s presidential election and the apparent weakness of their candidate, Weaver might respond, “I’m in a campaign to seize political power, I haven’t got the luxury of principles.”

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Jon Dougherty

Staff Writer
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Jon is a staff writer for BizPac Review with 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.

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