{"id":6469,"date":"2016-03-22T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6469"},"modified":"2016-03-21T23:39:16","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T03:39:16","slug":"pagnucco-on-trone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6469","title":{"rendered":"Pagnucco on Trone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is by Adam Pagnucco:<\/em><\/p>\n

The shadow of Total Wine co-owner David Trone has loomed large over CD8 since the day he got in the race.\u00a0 Rivals fear his apparently limitless self-funding.\u00a0 His opponents say they are \u201cfighting big bullies\u201d and \u201cunder fire from big money.\u201d\u00a0 Their supporters perceive Trone as a Potomac plutocrat bossing, blustering and buying his way into office.\u00a0 Laptops and smartphones groan under the weight of his omnipresent digital ads, begging their owners to be shut off until after the election is over.<\/p>\n

So who is this guy and why is he running for Congress?<\/p>\n

In person, David Trone is a disarming character, far different from what one might expect of a wealthy, Wharton-educated CEO.\u00a0 He is by turns ebullient, gregarious, intense, and blunt.\u00a0 He possesses all the nuance of a nose tackle on the goal line.\u00a0 Argue with him and you will get a roaring laugh and a jabbing index finger.\u00a0 Trone\u2019s political mastermind, Andrew Friedson, is no doubt trying to smooth out these edges.\u00a0 Earth to Friedson: it\u2019s not gonna take!<\/p>\n

Understanding Trone requires appreciation of two key aspects of his life experience.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. He sees himself as an underdog even if others do not.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Trone called himself an underdog<\/a> as he launched his campaign despite his nearly unlimited self-financing capacity.\u00a0 This is a recurring theme in his life.\u00a0 Trone\u2019s father held a number of occupations before buying a farm and ultimately losing it due to alcoholism, leading to divorce and economic hardship for his family.\u00a0 Later, Trone put himself through Wharton with a combination of loans, selling eggs and running his first beer store when he was not in class.\u00a0 (Once his chickens caught avian flu and died, Trone concentrated solely on beer.)\u00a0 These were clear disadvantages compared to Trone\u2019s privileged, blue-blood classmates who aspired to be the next Gordon Gekko.\u00a0 Trone may be wealthy now, but his mentality remains that of the I\u2019ll-show-you Pennsylvania farm boy who surpassed his supposed betters.\u00a0 That mentality gives him the edge he uses to win.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. He relishes disruption.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In certain localities, the alcohol retail industry behaves like a political-economic oligopoly in which trade associations collude with politicians to draft anti-competitive laws, thus benefiting both of them.\u00a0 Trone ran into this shortly after he opened his first beer store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and began advertising his low prices.\u00a0 His competitors persuaded the state legislature to outlaw the practice and Trone was arrested<\/a>.\u00a0 The law was thrown out when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a similar law in Rhode Island.\u00a0 Trone is frequently opposed by native competitors when he attempts to expand into new markets, including Minnesota, Texas and Connecticut.\u00a0 One local trade association even drafted a handbook on how to compete with him<\/a>.\u00a0 A state bill designed to keep him from expanding is now pending in Tennessee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      Trone is detested by his competitors across the nation, and he wears that as a badge of honor.\u00a0 His business model combining low prices, large selection and highly trained customer service is massively disruptive, forcing his competitors to step up their game or shut down.\u00a0 Trone\u2019s view of the American political system is shaped by this experience.\u00a0 Like local alcohol markets, he sees Congress as a place that is dominated by an iron cartel of special interests and venal politicians that ultimately does not deliver on behalf of constituents.\u00a0 Trone has disrupted the alcohol business, and now he wants to disrupt politics.<\/p>\n

      How would he do this?\u00a0 Trone waxes nostalgic for the days when members of Congress formed friendships with each other regardless of party and figured out how to move the ball forward.\u00a0 He estimates that he has stores in 101 Congressional Districts and engages in significant charitable activity in all of them, thereby creating some commonality with colleagues on either side of the aisle.\u00a0 Impervious to the constraints of fundraising and party hierarchy, he is not subject to the typical factors that whip House members into line behind their leadership.\u00a0 Trying to intimidate him would be like trying to stop a rhino with a peashooter, as many competitors have learned to their detriment.\u00a0 Trone\u2019s beliefs in independence, relationship building, working with the opposite party, negotiation and common interest may seem na\u00efve by today\u2019s standards, but does anyone believe that the perpetual partisan warfare now in Congress benefits the country?<\/p>\n

      Trone is vulnerable on the issue of money and political influence.\u00a0 Trone the businessman frequently hires lobbyists and makes political contributions to battle his competitors, who of course do the exact same things.\u00a0 A notable example is in Connecticut, where he is trying to throw out a state law that sets minimum prices for alcohol<\/a>.\u00a0 (Can there be anything more odious to consumers?)\u00a0 Trone the candidate takes credit for helping consumers in his mail, but decries the use of lobbyists and political contributions which he himself has employed as a businessman.\u00a0 Trone declares on his website without a trace of irony, \u201cI have learned firsthand the problems with political donations.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 We bet he has!\u00a0 Trone\u2019s opponents are sure to accuse him of wanting to have this issue both ways and he needs a convincing comeback to use in his defense.<\/p>\n

      In the eyes of the local political establishment, perhaps the most disquieting aspect of Trone is that he has defied the customary ways of moving up in MoCo politics.\u00a0 Most people who aspire to elected office here rise up through the party precinct structure, the civic community, county advisory committees and\/or political-governmental staff positions.\u00a0 They go to event after event, network with the similarly ambitious, defer to those who require it and go for smaller positions before trying for bigger ones.\u00a0 Congress is regarded as at or near the top of the heap.\u00a0 Trone the disrupter eschews all of this, preferring to spend millions on TV and mail rather than kissing political rings.\u00a0 A not insignificant portion of anti-Trone sentiment from local Democratic activists derives from his failure to pay his dues.\u00a0 \u201cYou can\u2019t do that!\u201d they say.\u00a0 But David Trone does what he wants and it has been that way ever since he was a young man, selling eggs and dreaming of better things.<\/p>\n

      David Trone has disrupted the alcohol business.\u00a0 He has disrupted the CD8 race.\u00a0 Will he get a chance to disrupt Congress?\u00a0 That\u2019s up to you, the voters, to decide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The following is by Adam Pagnucco: The shadow of Total Wine co-owner David Trone has loomed large over CD8 since the day he got in the race.\u00a0 Rivals fear his apparently limitless self-funding.\u00a0 His opponents say they are \u201cfighting big bullies\u201d and \u201cunder fire from big money.\u201d\u00a0 Their supporters perceive Trone as a Potomac plutocrat … Continue reading Pagnucco on Trone<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1330],"tags":[1545,1778],"class_list":["post-6469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eighth-congressional-district","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-david-trone"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1Gl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6469"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6471,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6469\/revisions\/6471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}