To the Editor:
Re “Steyer Spent $558 Million and Lost. What a Waste,” by Michelle Cottle (Opinion, June 14):
Much of the post-California gubernatorial primary conversation — including Ms. Cottle’s essay — has focused on what I spent on my run and what I could have funded instead. I’m sympathetic to these arguments.
For 14 years I’ve made good on my pledge to give my wealth to charity while I’m alive, funding clean energy, affordable housing and youth voter mobilization efforts nationwide. But I’m under no illusions that individual philanthropy is a substitute for structural reform.
Piecemeal donations — even to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars — are far less effective than a system that serves working people by design. But in a world where Citizens United is the law of the land, achieving that system is fundamentally a battle of money. And money does not tend to be on the side of working people.
Largely unreported was the $55 million of corporate money spent to stop me. My support for single-payer health care summoned the insurance companies. Taxing A.I. summoned Meta. Lowering electric bills summoned Pacific Gas & Electric. And my plans for clean energy got Chevron off the sidelines for the first time in a decade.
Their spending, like mine, was about values. Money is just how those values become politically legible.
That isn’t how the system should work, but I live in the real world, and I’m proud of how my campaign took on a system that depends on its ability to outspend anyone who threatens it. And although I didn’t advance, more than two million voters supported my vision.
I agree with my critics on one point: You shouldn’t have to be a billionaire to fight for structural change. That’s what my campaign was about.
Tom Steyer San Francisco The writer, a Democrat, is a former candidate for governor of California.
To the Editor:
I find billionaires as distasteful as the next guy. However, I do think it’s worth looking a little bit past just the fact that somebody is filthy rich. Elon Musk is a billionaire. Actually, he is now a trillionaire. He is also a jerk. He also doesn’t know anything about public policy. We can say this about many other billionaires who meet the criteria for people who think they can do things just because they are billionaires.
You do Tom Steyer a disservice, though, to lump him in with these other people. If you had paid more attention to his actual proposals, you’d see one of the most progressive agendas around, especially when dealing with climate change, which we seem to be forgetting is literally burning up the planet.
Kris Olsson Ann Arbor, Mich. The writer is an ecologist and a climate activist.
To the Editor:
It is frustrating to consider all of the ways in which Tom Steyer could have channeled the whopping $216 million he spent on the California governor’s race toward real and pressing issues squeezing his state’s citizens.
Yet, was it a waste? I don’t think so. His loss is yet another rebuke to the idea that the ultrawealthy can buy their way into positions of political power. At a time of widening income inequality and mounting support for economic populism, that means something.
Alexa Marsh Middleburg, Va.
A Missed Opportunity on the 250th
To the Editor:
Two hundred and 50 years. What a milestone in our nation’s history!
A no-brainer for a vast patriotic celebration. Fireworks, great musicians, hundreds of thousands of Americans in Washington to celebrate. A day of festivity to serve as a timeout for the day-to-day worries of our lives.
This, of course, requires setting aside politics for that day, while hoping that the good moods could linger for the four months until Election Day.
Any president would have craved the chance to throw a nonpartisan national party, especially when the mood of the country was sour. It’s one of those opportunities that screams “can’t miss.”
Oops.
Jay Margolis Delray Beach, Fla.
The post Money and Politics: Tom Steyer and Others Reflect on His Campaign appeared first on New York Times.
