Millionaires just get no respect these days. Billionaires take it all.
by digby
The Washington Post reports on the very sad plight of a group of wealthy former bundlers who just aren't rich enough to garner the attention from politicians that billionaires do:
“They are only going to people who are multi-multi-millionaires and billionaires and raising big money first,” said Neese, who founded a successful employment agency. “Most of the people I talk to are kind of rolling their eyes and saying, ‘You know, we just don’t count anymore.’ ”
It’s the lament of the rich who are not quite rich enough for 2016.
Bundlers who used to carry platinum status have been downgraded, forced to temporarily watch the money race from the sidelines. They’ve been eclipsed by the uber-wealthy, who can dash off a seven-figure check to a super PAC without blinking. Who needs a bundler when you have a billionaire?
Many fundraisers, once treated like royalty because of their extensive donor networks,are left pining for their lost prestige. Can they still have impact in a world where Jeb Bush asks big donors to please not give more than $1 million to his super PAC right now? Will they ever be in the inner circle again?
“A couple presidential elections ago, somebody who had raised, say, $100,000 for a candidate was viewed as a fairly valuable asset,” said Washington lobbyist Kenneth Kies. “Today, that looks like peanuts. People like me are probably looking around saying, ‘How can I do anything that even registers on the Richter scale?’ ”
Sexual favors? Offer to kill someone? There must be something.
This is so twisted you have no choice but to laugh. These people are feeling slighted because they aren't rich enough to gain the attention of politicians. Welcome to the world the rest of us inhabit, friends. But perhaps they need to ask themselves why they are treating these people as if they're royalty or demi-Gods in the first place. This is supposed to be a democracy and politicians are supposed to be seeking the approval of the citizens. Instead we have citizens seeking approval from the politicians and the politicians seeking approval from the ultra-wealthy. Something isn't quite right.
Still, you have to feel sorry for them for this terrible loss of status. It's gotta hurt to be a millionaire member of the upper five percent, used to being treated with deference by the servant class (the rest of us) and suddenly find yourself tossed aside as just another useless poor person. The answer to this dilemma --- the answer they would certainly give to any of the sad middle class and working class people who would ask this question is --- must be to "work harder" and become a billionaire themselves. Isn't it the case that rising to the top is just a matter of having a good work ethic? And if you fail, it's because you just don't put the kind of effort into it that billionaires do? That's what I always heard anyway.
Come on, millionaires, buck up. Anyone can become a billionaire if they really try. This is America. You only have yourself to blame if you just don't have enough money to make a politician care what you have to say.
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