Chelsea Manning eyes U.S. Senate seat for Maryland
Chelsea Manning, the transgender U.S. Army soldier who served seven years in military prison for leaking classified data, is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate seat from Maryland, according to Federal election filings seen on Saturday.
[...] Democratic Senator Ben Cardin was elected in 2006 to that seat and is expected to run for re-election this year. He is the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Cardin was easily re-elected in 2012, beating his Republican challenger by 30 points in the heavily-Democratic state.
Previously: Chelsea Manning Released from Prison, Remains on Active Duty Pending Appeal
Harvard Dean Rescinds Chelsea Manning's Visiting Fellow Invitation, Calling It a 'Mistake'
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Monday January 15 2018, @03:11AM (3 children)
So out of curiosity how hard is it to win a senate seat? Is it very expensive, require a lot of resources and the right connections? One would thing there is enough weird shit and a very problematic background in the case of Manning that should more or less disqualify him as a candidate.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @03:20AM (1 child)
To determine the cost of winning a seat, do this rough calculation:
Start with 250 million dollars. Multiply by the number of years the seat is good for, then divide by the total number of equivalent seats.
President+VP: 250000000*4/1 = 1000000000 which is a billion
Senator: 250000000*6/100 = 15000000 which is 15 million
House: 250000000*2/435 = 1149425 which is 1.15 million
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 15 2018, @03:29AM
Those numbers are pretty accurate, although they may be rising:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/14/somebody-just-put-a-price-tag-on-the-2016-election-its-a-doozy/ [washingtonpost.com] ($2.4 billion divided by two)
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/the-price-of-winning-just-got-higher-especially-in-the-senate/ [opensecrets.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @09:32AM
Our voting system works wonders for celebrities as there are only votes for, not against. Hence no such thing as negative publicity.
Now when it comes to Chelsea, I'd certainly vote for her. She has something most politicians lack, a spine.