Why We're Polarized

by Ezra Klein

That’s another difference between party-centric fund-raising and candidate-centric fund-raising. Parties know who’s running for office where. They pay a phalanx of staffers to research which districts are vulnerable, which candidates are capable, which races deserve money. But voters don’t have a full-time staff picking through candidate résumés six days a week. So candidates who want to raise big money from individuals need to somehow get known by those individuals. You can do it by being a generational political talent, like Obama when he ran for Senate in 2004. You can do it by running against someone whom your party really hates, as O’Rourke did in taking on Cruz. You can do it by pulling a controversial stunt that makes you the center of a national firestorm, like Wilson did. You can do it by going viral on social media, as Ocasio-Cortez does, or getting yourself regularly interviewed constantly on the news, as Senator Chuck Schumer was famous for in New York. You can do it by renting lists of past party donors and trying to send them fund-raising emails or making fund-raising calls that get their attention. But somehow or another, you need to stand out.