Mahan's Troubles Continue
The end is near...
Today, the Sacramento Bee reported an Independent Expenditure (IE) associated with Mahan shut down and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings asked for his $1 million donation to Mahan’s Back to Basics IE back.
Hastings is one of the only donors who have asked for his money back based on David Crane’s “money back guarantee” for the IE.
Mahan’s campaign, coupled with the Silicon Valley struggles with the Billionaire Tax Act (BTA) prompted Labor’s protagonist, Lorena Gonzalez to take a victory lap today. She called them out in March. She kept it up through the campaign. Mahan was the embodiment of the scorn she heaped on Silicon Valley in general.
There must be a lot of people in Silicon Valley thinking about the lessons they learned with Mahan and getting hit with the BTA. It is not about “soul searching,” or “messaging” being the issue. The failure was far deeper. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on Mahan and will be spent protecting against the BTA. These are examples of bigger issues.
To be continued…but the early evidence is showing. As I mentioned to a prominent political reporter this week- it was a huge missed opportunity too, going back to the Commonwealth Club interview in April.
There must be a lot of soul searching on how millions got spent in politics I am sure in the Valley or wherever they are this holiday weekend. Lorena Gonzalez’s post on X says it all.