"Whereas the people of our realm, rich and poor alike, were accustomed formerly in their games to practise archery – whence by God's help, it is well known that high honour and profit came to our realm, and no small advantage to ourselves in our warlike enterprises... that every man in the same country, if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows... and so learn and practise archery. [25]"
In 1415, England had “zero marginal cost” ordinary folks trained in longbow archery. Those trained archers allowed England to mostly dominate warfare in Europe until guns replaced archers.
In 2018 ordinary folks, some of them highly skilled communicators, use smartphones. The “zero marginal cost” way that elections will be won in 2018.
"Lissa Lucas, a first-time Democratic candidate for the statehouse in West Virginia’s District 7, was outraged that the legislature was considering expanding the rights of gas drillers at the expense of property owners.
So she drove 100 miles to the state capitol and read off the list of fossil fuel donors to lawmakers at a public hearing. The presiding official, Republican Delegate John Shott, equated this recitation of public information as a personal attack and promptly expelled her from the chamber.
In an interview with The Intercept two days after being thrown out of the legislature, Lucas wondered if Shott had overplayed his hand by having her expelled. “He brought so much more attention to it by having me thrown out,” she noted.
It has certainly helped her fundraising. 'As of this writing, her campaign has raised more than $50,000. Lucas told The Intercept that this is a nearly elevenfold increase from the $4,000 she had raised prior to her address at the legislature. 'I’m blown away,' she said.
The significance of this amount cannot be overstated. The website Ballotpedia tracks the total campaign contributions in District 7 for every campaign cycle going back to 2000. Lucas’s sum raised so far is more than twice the $17,498 raised by all three candidates in 2016. It is larger than the total funds raised during any cycle in the district in the 21st century. (The second-highest fundraising was $23,994, raised by four candidates in 2006). The current amount raised by the incumbent, Republican Jason Harshbarger, is not yet publicly available, but he raised just $9,300 in 2016.
Lucas is doing all of this without attending the high-dollar fossil fuel fundraisers she has criticized many in the legislature for patronizing — including Harshbarger. In December, he was hosted at a fundraising event by a phalanx of fossil fuel lobbyists brought together by the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association.
'All these legislators — if they were really working for us — they’d be working to get the influence of money out of politics, too,” said Lucas. “They’d be saying like, ‘I don’t want to spend 50 percent of my time making calls to see if this or that rich person will give me some money.’”
MORE AT:
Candidate Thrown Out of West Virginia Legislature for Reading Off Fossil Fuel Donors Raises Historic Sum of Campaign Money
Zaid Jilani
February 13 2018, 5:23 p.m.
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