Maybe it's time to rebrand the Democrats as the party of the rich.
This month saw the election of Jay Robert "J.B." Pritzker as governor of Illinois. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, is worth an estimated $3.2 billion, and spent $171.5 million to get himself elected, according to Money magazine.
Another winner was Edward M. "Ned" Lamont Jr., in the Connecticut governor's race. Lamont, an heir to the J.P. Morgan banking fortune of his great-grandfather Thomas Lamont, estimated his assets in 2006 at between $90 million and $300 million, and showed reporters tax returns last month with income totaling $18 million over 5 years.
The winner of the election for governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, filed financial disclosure forms as a member of the House of Representatives indicating estimated wealth of more than $300 million.
Pritzker, Lamont, and Polis are all Democrats.
The Democratic Party's list of possible presidential contenders for 2020 includes Michael Bloomberg, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes at about $47 billion. A declared presidential candidate is a Democratic congressman from Maryland, John Delaney, who is worth an estimated $90 million. John Forbes Kerry might have another go at it, having recently acquired an $11.75 million, 18.75-acre property on Martha's Vineyard to go with his $10 million house on Boston's Louisburg Square.
And the list of potential successors to Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House includes a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, Joseph Kennedy III, whose disclosed wealth of about $42 million stems primarily not from the Kennedy side of his family but rather from his mother Sheila Brewster Rauch's status as an heir to the Standard Oil fortune.
When President Trump named an initial team that included Rex Tillerson, Wilbur Ross, and Betsy Devos, the press was quick to label it a cabinet of plutocrats. "Trump's wealthy cabinet choices hark back to gilded age," was the headline The Financial Times put over it.
Somehow, the wealth of Pritzker, Lamont, and Polis has gotten less attention, perhaps because it doesn't so easily fit the country-club Republican stereotype. Instead of writing about the limousine liberals who are so rich they make the Trump cabinet look like a bunch of paupers, the press has been obsessing about how a newly elected congresswoman from the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, can't afford to rent a place in Washington until she starts collecting her congressional salary.....
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Originally Posted by MMC
