The choice of readers of this forum to fund Flynn in the primary plus the massive influx of money from PACs guided by EA principles made it more likely that she will lose this general election...
Unfortunately, the contributions you made plus the many millions from the PAC funded by Bankman-Fried required Salinas supporters to dig deeply in their pockets to respond to a tsunami of ads, including untrue attacks.
I think giving persuasive detail about this claim would contribute to the goals of this ask, especially given how central this idea is to this post.
What special actions did Salinas perform or have performed for her that resulted in depletion, in response to the Flynn candidate? For example, did she spend or deploy favors that were earmarked for the general?
If Salinas has been depleted, can you explain or illustrate this with some anecdotal information (a few sentences/paragraphs) that show why Salinas has been put in a worse place?
Are you suggesting that election funding resembles a fixed pot of spending each cycle? Doesn’t the perceived closeness of elections and other specific factors strongly drive election spending?
In general, can you explain how people from the EA did harm and explain what EA’s duty of care is here as a result for actions?
Let’s say that EA did not donate money and instead, Flynn did well because EAs got out the vote and worked hard for him. Salinas had to spend a lot of money as a result. Would EAs need to compensate the winning candidate Salinas then?
If in the scenario above, you don’t think EAs need to compensate Salinas, then why would the use of money be a special case, compared to the other substantial resources used, and how fundamental money is to US political campaigns, including Salinas (exemplified by your post)?
In all close primaries, are the losing candidate’s supporters expected to compensate the winner?
Are you asking individual EAs who made personal donations, or are you asking SBF for money?
If you’re asking EAs personally for money, can you explain/show why these individual donations was abnormal, and if it was abnormal, why it was “bad”?
As an aside, basically, no individual normal EA “wanted or approved” the 8 figure donation strategy.
In the aftermath, isn’t it common to believe/speculate that much of the SBF money was neutral or negative to the Flynn campaign?
The other candidates orchestrated a major press event, uniting against the Flynn campaign
The regional paper began a sustained series of hostile, critical takes on Flynn.
Doesn’t it seem plausible that the absolute, net result of the SBF money, was a strong reaction that unified and concentrated support behind Salinas, who has a powerful narrative that embodies many traits (background, political career) that Flynn lacked in his narrative?
There was at least one other well-funded candidate (millions of dollars of personal wealth) who literally complained that this crowded out his strategy.
Didn’t the House PAC give $1M, comparable to the total of the EA donation amounts? Do they need to compensate for their behavior too?
Thank you, Charles, these are really good questions. I apologize for writing in haste initially. With the passage of time, I can add some more information and, hopefully, answer your questions and comments.
Why Salinas instead of contribution to someone else in this general election?
Assuming that Carrick Flynn came to know some of Salinas during the primary and that he reflects some of the values of EA forum, his contribution to Salinas in the general election is noteworthy. As quoted above from Flynn’s twitter feed.
Today I donated the maximum amount, $2900, to #OR06′s @AndreaRSalinas. I earned less than $45k last year, so my money is where my mouth is when I say that I believe she will do an excellent job representing Oregonians in DC. [1/2]
This is a tight race and we must win it not only to get Andrea into office but also to keep Congress blue. Please consider digging deep and donating to her campaign here: https://tinyurl.com/2p8m9nwh. And for those planning to help GOTV, I’m right here with you. [2/2]
In pursuit of answers to concerns about Salinas’ focus on pandemic prevention, I talked with her. She would welcome consultation, lobbying, or other support from Carrick Flynn or other experts on what kind of legislation would be responsive to this issue. As vice chair of the Oregon house health care committee and majority whip, she demonstrated her skill at crafting and passing health related legislation. Andrea is also ready to move forward faster than many novice legislators. In her career she first served as an intern to Senator Dianne Feinstein in her San Francisco district office, then as legislative staff to Senator Harry Reid, as tax and trade policy advisor to Congressman Pete Stark and finally as a district aide to Congresswoman Darlene Hooley.
As to the probability of Andrea winning, the race is currently rated as a toss up by the Cook Political Report. While Fivethirtyeight’s Deluxe model shows her winning by a good margin, the classic and lite models that rely more on polls and past data show either a much tighter race or her losing significantly. These models change daily, but have not trended well, partly because of an onslaught of negative advertising.
Finally, someone asked about examples of how the $13 million plus PAC and candidate spending for Flynn In the primary affects Salinas’ current ability to collect money. I can give a personal example. In the primary, Salinas faced a barrage of negative ads near the end of the campaign. At that time, she had few funds to respond and asked for donations to make a low budget ad in response. I gave more at that time than I have ever given before to a campaign. She got the ad out and she won. Now, facing another difficult campaign with an opponent who has much personal funding as well as good outside support, I am not able to give as much as I normally would. I am maxed out for this year. I hear this from many people wishing to support this race. It probably doesn’t make a big difference because our donations are a drop in the bucket compared to some of the large PACs, but it represents less discretionary money that the campaign has available.
I used to work on policy at a number of levels. I was drawn into also working on elections because I realized that sometimes the quickest way to achieve a policy goal is by making sure there are good, thoughtful, informed people making legislation and determining funding. Andrea Salinas is such a person. If one of the routes to achieve real pandemic preparedness is through Congress, she is a powerful candidate to achieve it. I urge you to help her get there. Thank you: https://www.andreasalinasfororegon.com
This seems thoughtful, thank you for writing this.
You responded to me, but I’m one of the least influential or important people to respond to.
I’ve written some thoughts, trying to be succinct and helpful:
Around sensitive issues like money or duty, EAs, like other many other conscientious people, prefer to be direct and logically exhaustive and avoid emotion—I’m not sure all the communications in this post was successful for reasons related to this. I’m not sure it makes sense to try to write something to get a lot of funding quickly.
The people involved in OR-6 genuinely want a good candidate for the district, and good trust and coordination on issues like pandemic preparedness.
I think successful involvement from EAs, requires a high level of trust and communication (and not fully achievable on an internet forum).
With a somewhat uncertain chance of success, if you choose to invest time, I suggest you maybe reply or private message this person or this person, who might be able to communicate offline with you?
Ideally, you would already be in contact with EAs who can give you further advice.
Probably one of the most important person to coordinate with and speak to is Carrick Flynn, who I presume you are in communication with or have tried to speak to.
This is somewhat of a separate idea, and this would be a major time commitment, but I think your first comment was overwhelmingly liked. If you or your staff, continued to write in a way that tried to mainly educate and inform EAs, I think that would be welcome and potentially drive support to you, in a longer timeframe.
Thank you, Charles, this is helpful. As I am trying to invest time as a volunteer in lieu of having much money to give to the campaign, I am afraid I can’t spend much more time reaching out here—and you confirm my sense that, as someone unknown in the community, it is harder to have an impact. But I appreciate you taking the time to help me understand how things work. I am intrigued and generally supportive of what I know about EA.
I think giving persuasive detail about this claim would contribute to the goals of this ask, especially given how central this idea is to this post.
What special actions did Salinas perform or have performed for her that resulted in depletion, in response to the Flynn candidate? For example, did she spend or deploy favors that were earmarked for the general?
If Salinas has been depleted, can you explain or illustrate this with some anecdotal information (a few sentences/paragraphs) that show why Salinas has been put in a worse place?
Are you suggesting that election funding resembles a fixed pot of spending each cycle? Doesn’t the perceived closeness of elections and other specific factors strongly drive election spending?
In general, can you explain how people from the EA did harm and explain what EA’s duty of care is here as a result for actions?
Let’s say that EA did not donate money and instead, Flynn did well because EAs got out the vote and worked hard for him. Salinas had to spend a lot of money as a result. Would EAs need to compensate the winning candidate Salinas then?
If in the scenario above, you don’t think EAs need to compensate Salinas, then why would the use of money be a special case, compared to the other substantial resources used, and how fundamental money is to US political campaigns, including Salinas (exemplified by your post)?
In all close primaries, are the losing candidate’s supporters expected to compensate the winner?
Are you asking individual EAs who made personal donations, or are you asking SBF for money?
If you’re asking EAs personally for money, can you explain/show why these individual donations was abnormal, and if it was abnormal, why it was “bad”?
As an aside, basically, no individual normal EA “wanted or approved” the 8 figure donation strategy.
In the aftermath, isn’t it common to believe/speculate that much of the SBF money was neutral or negative to the Flynn campaign?
The other candidates orchestrated a major press event, uniting against the Flynn campaign
The regional paper began a sustained series of hostile, critical takes on Flynn.
Doesn’t it seem plausible that the absolute, net result of the SBF money, was a strong reaction that unified and concentrated support behind Salinas, who has a powerful narrative that embodies many traits (background, political career) that Flynn lacked in his narrative?
There was at least one other well-funded candidate (millions of dollars of personal wealth) who literally complained that this crowded out his strategy.
Didn’t the House PAC give $1M, comparable to the total of the EA donation amounts? Do they need to compensate for their behavior too?
Thank you, Charles, these are really good questions. I apologize for writing in haste initially. With the passage of time, I can add some more information and, hopefully, answer your questions and comments.
Why Salinas instead of contribution to someone else in this general election?
Assuming that Carrick Flynn came to know some of Salinas during the primary and that he reflects some of the values of EA forum, his contribution to Salinas in the general election is noteworthy. As quoted above from Flynn’s twitter feed.
In pursuit of answers to concerns about Salinas’ focus on pandemic prevention, I talked with her. She would welcome consultation, lobbying, or other support from Carrick Flynn or other experts on what kind of legislation would be responsive to this issue. As vice chair of the Oregon house health care committee and majority whip, she demonstrated her skill at crafting and passing health related legislation. Andrea is also ready to move forward faster than many novice legislators. In her career she first served as an intern to Senator Dianne Feinstein in her San Francisco district office, then as legislative staff to Senator Harry Reid, as tax and trade policy advisor to Congressman Pete Stark and finally as a district aide to Congresswoman Darlene Hooley.
As to the probability of Andrea winning, the race is currently rated as a toss up by the Cook Political Report. While Fivethirtyeight’s Deluxe model shows her winning by a good margin, the classic and lite models that rely more on polls and past data show either a much tighter race or her losing significantly. These models change daily, but have not trended well, partly because of an onslaught of negative advertising.
Finally, someone asked about examples of how the $13 million plus PAC and candidate spending for Flynn In the primary affects Salinas’ current ability to collect money. I can give a personal example. In the primary, Salinas faced a barrage of negative ads near the end of the campaign. At that time, she had few funds to respond and asked for donations to make a low budget ad in response. I gave more at that time than I have ever given before to a campaign. She got the ad out and she won. Now, facing another difficult campaign with an opponent who has much personal funding as well as good outside support, I am not able to give as much as I normally would. I am maxed out for this year. I hear this from many people wishing to support this race. It probably doesn’t make a big difference because our donations are a drop in the bucket compared to some of the large PACs, but it represents less discretionary money that the campaign has available.
I used to work on policy at a number of levels. I was drawn into also working on elections because I realized that sometimes the quickest way to achieve a policy goal is by making sure there are good, thoughtful, informed people making legislation and determining funding. Andrea Salinas is such a person. If one of the routes to achieve real pandemic preparedness is through Congress, she is a powerful candidate to achieve it. I urge you to help her get there. Thank you: https://www.andreasalinasfororegon.com
Hello Dr. Greenough,
This seems thoughtful, thank you for writing this.
You responded to me, but I’m one of the least influential or important people to respond to.
I’ve written some thoughts, trying to be succinct and helpful:
Around sensitive issues like money or duty, EAs, like other many other conscientious people, prefer to be direct and logically exhaustive and avoid emotion—I’m not sure all the communications in this post was successful for reasons related to this. I’m not sure it makes sense to try to write something to get a lot of funding quickly.
The people involved in OR-6 genuinely want a good candidate for the district, and good trust and coordination on issues like pandemic preparedness.
I think successful involvement from EAs, requires a high level of trust and communication (and not fully achievable on an internet forum).
With a somewhat uncertain chance of success, if you choose to invest time, I suggest you maybe reply or private message this person or this person, who might be able to communicate offline with you?
Ideally, you would already be in contact with EAs who can give you further advice.
Probably one of the most important person to coordinate with and speak to is Carrick Flynn, who I presume you are in communication with or have tried to speak to.
This is somewhat of a separate idea, and this would be a major time commitment, but I think your first comment was overwhelmingly liked. If you or your staff, continued to write in a way that tried to mainly educate and inform EAs, I think that would be welcome and potentially drive support to you, in a longer timeframe.
Thank you, Charles, this is helpful. As I am trying to invest time as a volunteer in lieu of having much money to give to the campaign, I am afraid I can’t spend much more time reaching out here—and you confirm my sense that, as someone unknown in the community, it is harder to have an impact. But I appreciate you taking the time to help me understand how things work. I am intrigued and generally supportive of what I know about EA.