Pay To Play Culture 101: Submission Fees Suck (Just Say No!)

<"Dream big, kids! Starts at two bucks a pop...>
<quickmemes.com>

<i.>

Once upon a time in Rock 'n' Rollville, life moved at a straightforward clip. Bands played shows, "X number of sets for X dollars," for fees that the club owner or promoter adjusted up or down, depending on how drinks sold, and how many punters turned up. If you'd built up a big enough audience, and managed to put out a record or two, you might manage to wangle a guarantee out of the guy. (This being the '70s, it typically was a guy.) Or you might end up with a deal that guaranteed X amount of money upfront.

If your star was really hot, you could play two or three weekends a month, which might make enough -- after paying the band, booking agent/manager (if you'd landed one), and incidentals like food, gas, guitar strings -- to avoid working at the loading dock or the mall, God forbid. Theoretically, it meant your dream had enough legs to move up the ecosystem of small halls, then mid-sized theaters, maybe even arenas, who knows?

By the 1980s, though, a different business model slowly took hold, starting in the Los Angeles, CA area. Club owners and promoters began requiring bands to buy X number of tickets, to guarantee X number of attendees. Or it might mean paying (a hefty) X amount of dollars upfront to rent a venue, or enter some Battle of the Bands, for those hoping to work that angle.

No matter angle they worked, though, the powers that be pushing it made out. They covered all their costs. Hopefully, the musicians might sell enough tickets to make the arrangement pay off, before they'd earn a nickel from their night's work. These practices are commonly called "pay to play," which invokes a sports analogy, as its name suggests: Wanna get in the game, kid? Here's what it'll cost ya. What's it gonna be?

Just Say No...

<The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Nowadays, there are no shortage of pay to play schemes, and variations  to capitalize on them. Search online, and you'll find everything from corporate-co-opted film and music festivals, where you pay to get considered for a shot at playing there, or showing your work. Much of this model focused on SonicBids, though its hipness quotient and relevance seems to have cooled off markedly, judging by the research that I've done.

Got a competitive spirit? There's plenty of film, literary or music-related contests, promising some moon shot or other -- a publication here, a $1,000 prize there -- once you fork over the relevant fee. Hoping to become the next Hans Zimmer? New platforms are popping up all the time to serve that fix. Just submit Tracks XYZ to Middlemouth ABC. If he or she finds a buyer, they get a cut. Everybody wins, right?

Think you're the next Bukowski in waiting? That's the focus of Submittable, which major and minor rags -- from the Harvard Review, to Playboy, Debt-Ridden U. Review, and beyond -- are using. Think of it as SonicBids for the literary set. Click the relevant listing, cut and paste your bio, contact details and submission into the box, shell out whatever "reading fee" they want. Hit "Send," and you're done. 

Quick and painless, right? Beats pounding out your latest masterpiece on a typewriter -- for those who came of age in the pre-digital day -- and shelling out the postage, including self-addressed stamped envelope, and then (at last!) schlepping it off to the post office. But is it really?

I remember Writer's Market advising, back in the '80s, to submit at least 50 poems at any given time. If you check the Submission Fee Blacklist (see below), $2-5 seems the going rate (though some charge way more). At five poems per outlet, that's $10 to $25 a pop. When you consider that many journals pay only in copies, or a token amount -- as little as ten bucks, in some cases -- the deal stinks even higher to Heaven. Especially if submission fees become the new normal.

<iii.>

So what's wrong with submission fees, exactly? Let's count the ways, shall we:

1. "We need them to keep people in check." Actually, I've seen the opposite happen, on the music side. Slapping fees on anything doesn't discourage the rich kid-fronted band -- or the hobbyist who's got a great corporate job -- from plugging away, when they really should throw in the towel.

They'll grumble, but they'll pony up the money, because that's what our reality show-driven culture teaches them, and us (Success trumps self-satisfaction). The mom juggling multiple jobs with the Great American Novel is less likely to peck away, especially if she's faced with constantly choosing creativity over food and medicine.

2. "We need them to keep our contest/festival/publication afloat." There are better business models out there than treating talent like a revenue stream -- such as GoFundMe, Kickstarter or Patreon, for openers. Those platforms have their issues, too, but appealing directly to a potential audience sounds better than joining pay to play culture, doesn't it? At least, I think so, anyhow.

3. "We need them to raise credibility and professionalism." I might believe that one more, if everybody actually rushed to tell what us what they do with the money.  All outlets, I feel, should disclose their acceptance rates. What percentage of those submissions make it off the slush pile? And if they split those fees with somebody, they should come clean there, too. That way, if you still plunk down the money, you're at least making an informed decision, not just pissing in the dark.

4. "We need them to reduce the slush pile." A lot of editors fall back on this chestnut as their "get out clause." But the slush pile is usually the last rock that anybody turns. Most filmmakers, musicians or writers with any kind of profile often got there via the side door -- as in, a connection or relationship with so-and-so, that enabled them to bypass the fees, and the plebs who pay them.

And honestly, most gatekeepers aren't exactly toiling at the salt mines. I learned this lesson back in the '90s, after submitting a proposal on a friend's behalf to some cooler-than-thou-indie-or-other (think: bastard son of Loompanics). When it came back, I could see the decision maker's thumb and forefinger imprinted firmly in our pitch letter. There were no imprints anywhere else in our proposal. Such is life.

<iv.>

I've had mixed experiences, at best, in the play to pay arena. As I've documented in the "Jobs To Nowhere" series, I played overseas in a band, and we actually made that system work -- to some degree -- by vigorously pushing our co-workers, significant others, and whoever else we could round up at our gigs. On the other hand, I've rolled the dice on a couple of tries in the Submittable pond, without any returns.

Those scenarios fall under pay to play culture, which means that you're never in charge of your own destiny, because the ball is always in someone else's court -- in this case, somebody who ruled out sharing the proceeds with you, at least initially (and only if they like you). Somebody who can stack the deck as they please, without having to tell you how they cut the cards. And somebody who doesn't have to tell you where the wealth is actually going.

"But wait," I hear you say. "What's the problem? Submission fees are just a means to an end." Just remember, though: once the "new normal" takes hold, it doesn't take long to get seriously abnormal. As Atlantic notes in its article, the indie mags that hoped Submittable would remain free -- as its founders initially promised -- are now pondering fees just so they can afford to use it. (The resident wise guy is tempted to jibe: "You've heard of email, right? It's free.")

And that's my biggest problem. Pay to play culture is corporate culture, with all the baggage that implies. By nature, it can't coexist with DIY culture, which has no use for fees, let alone the gatekeeping systems that become addicted to them. To ignore it is to allow the long term devaluation of our work, and the swapping of creativity for convenience and corporate control. Still, it's never too late to draw your own conclusions, as one of my friends wryly about writing contests: "I stopped doing them when I realized that the favored local writer always seemed to win." --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before The Cost Of Your Dream Shoots Up):
Fear-Free-Film Fundraising Blog:
http://fearfreefilmfundraising.com/2014/05/fees-chumps-dont-pay-hit-submit/

Lit Reactor: Publishing: Submission Fees:
https://litreactor.com/discuss/submission-fees

Medium.com:
Why I Don't Use Pay-to-Submit Music Sites:
https://medium.com/@GoGirlsMusic/why-i-dont-use-pay-to-submit-music-sites-and-5-better-ways-to-invest-in-your-career-47eaa3aa2dcc

Tech Crunch: Submission Management Startup
Submittable Raises $5 Million:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/13/submittable-series-a/

Tech Crunch: YC-Backed Submittable
Makes It Easy For Writers To Manage Submissions:
https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/18/submittable/

The Atlantic Monthly: Should Literary Journals

Charge Fees For Their Submissions?:
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/why-writers-are-paying-to-get-published/411274/

The Submission Fee Blacklist:
https://englishkillsreview.tumblr.com/post/102013807776/the-submission-fee-blacklist

Wikipedia.com: Pay to Play:
https://medium.com/@GoGirlsMusic/why-i-dont-use-pay-to-submit-music-sites-and-5-better-ways-to-invest-in-your-career-47eaa3aa2dcc

Who Decides, Who Decides? The Orwellian Hit On Elizabeth Warren

<Elizabeth Warren
Official Portrait, U.S. Senate>

<i.>

Every candidate enjoys their moment in the sun, no matter how the race turns out, and Elizabeth Warren is no exception. I remember when it arrived, a couple of months ago, after covering a local board meeting. I was having the usual post-meeting chat with the board's spokeswoman.

Talk turned to who might make noise in this year's presidential election, which horses people were people, and why, all that stuff.

"Most of the folks in my circle," I ventured, "seem to be coalescing around Bernie -- faster than in 2016, when he came up as the candidate from nowhere."

"I'm hearing about somebody else," the spokeswoman responded. "If you look at all the mommy blogs lately, it's 'Warren, Warren, Warren.'"

"Wow, Elizabeth Warren?" The spokeswoman nodded. "Well, that makes sense, since she and Bernie represent the populistic side of the coin...you know, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

We shared a quick laugh, and hurried off to our cars. Another January night's work beckoned, in all its mid-teen temperature glory -- she, to write the usual post-meeting press release, and me, to serve up the usual post-meeting story.

<ii.>

But maybe the joke was on us. Voters in last week's New Hampshire primary seemed to laugh loudest, relegating Warren to a dismal fourth, at 9.2 percent, or 27,387 votes, and no delegates. It's a drop off from her Iowa performance, where she still managed a respectable third place (18 percent, eight delegates) behind the top finishers, Bernie, and his sleek 'n' scripted nemesis, Pete Buttigieg.

Yet the Orwellian erasure of Warren as a top contender has begun, with a haste that's not hard to miss. One clue came in the Democratic debate held on February 7, before the New Hampshire primary.

As The Week noted, Warren's total speaking time (16 minutes) essentially tied that of Minnesota Amy Klobuchar (16 minutes, 21 seconds), versus Bernie Sanders (19 minutes, 54 seconds), his floundering rival, former Vice President Joe Biden (19 minutes) and Mayor Pete (alias Mayo Pete, or Wall Street Pete, to those who loathe him: 18 minutes).

National polls showed Warren in third place. it's hardly a spot that any candidate wants to inhabit, but offers enough breathing room to move up. But that's not how the mainstream media treated her after New Hampshire. CNN didn't show Warren's post-primary speech. Not to worry, though. We did get Biden's live streamed (!) consolation pitch to supporters in South Carolina -- after he'd fled New Hampshire, where he fnished a notch behind Warren, in fifth place (8.4 percent, with 24,921 votes, no delegates).

Humiliated or not, though, Biden has two factors going for him. First, as a man, he can afford to tank twice in a row, as he did in Iowa, where he finished fourth (again, just a notch behind Warren). Second, there's the possibility -- faint though it seems, as badly as Biden's campaign has sputtered and misfired -- of him mounting the Great Comeback, depending on his showing in South Carolina primary (February 29).

Comeback tropes are a staple of horse race journalism, with all its lopsided focus on money, and momentum, standings and strategy. But that narrative still requires Biden's participation, if only for another week or two. Contrived as they feel, such dramas probably sound more appealing to the pundit class than Warren's populist stance -- which is a more measured offering than Bernie's, but still goes against the narrative they push: Hey, we can't fix income inequality, because capitalism needs a little inequity to work. Now leave us to it. Or else.

<iii.>

Another unpleasant surprise awaited Warren fans in New Hampshire, though. Amy Klobuchar emerged as the mainstream media's true darling, goosed along by her surprise third place finish, one that seemed ample excuse for the usual overripe puns that headline writers love to indulge ("Klobocharge," "Klobosurge" and "Klomentum," anyone?). But it wasn't a major surprise, given the rapturous coverage she'd already garnered in Iowa, where Plucky Amy proudly proclaimed: "We are punching above our weight." Watching at home, I wondered, What's she been taking? How can someone who finished fifth say such things? Is her mixture off?

The strangest aspect of all this flattery, though, is that Plucky Amy -- like her counterpart, Mayo(r) Pete -- has yet to prove that she can win a national race, especially when you see their standings among black voters. The last time I checked, Pete polled four percent, while Amy didn't even register, with zero percent. They do both equally dismally among young and less affluent voters (see my last post, "About That Electability Thing..." for reference).

That blacks seem especially allergic to Amy's and Pete's charms shouldn't surprise anyone with an IQ above room temperature, given their shaky records in dealing with those issues as Hennepin County Attorney, and mayor South Bend, respectively. Barring a major magic trick, I suspect that they're about to hit their electoral ceiling with a sickening thud.

But for now, at least, such trifling details -- like whether voters really want to elect them -- don't bother the pundits a bit. That's because Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete fit another horse race trope -- the Exotic Outsider beaming down from a galaxy far, far away, to coin a phrase. You know, the plain folk, decked out in cowboy hats, plaid shirts, and suspenders, tellin' it like it is to them uncomprehending city folk, those darn reve-noo-ers who want to tax us to death, and confiscate our corn stalks. Time for those pitchforks and torches! You get the idea.

Sounds absurd? Of course. As a Midwesterner, I find it bad enough when politicians from outside of the region stereotype us that way. But it's even more surreal when homegrown types, like Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete, run the same cornball shtick, one that ignores or sidesteps the region's radical history (see links below). Yet the stereotyping serves another narrative, one of "being outspoken about what Beltway elites consider to be objective truths about the limits of political possibility in policymaking," as the New Republic states.

In a weird way, it's reminiscent of the rock 'n' roll gold rush that greeted bands in the mid- to late-'80s, who hurriedly donned plaid shirts and straw hats, and boned up on their Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie covers, as they cranked out twangy ode after twangy ode to the heartland that they'd never known. That they grew up in suburbs surrounded by aluminum siding and got driven to school every day doesn't matter a whit. No forgiveness will await you if your narrative doesn't fit the marketing plan, as Elizabeth Warren is finding out.

<iv.>

So where does this messy post-primary fallout leave us? Critics suggest that Warren bears some of the blame for leaving too many fingerprints on the weapons that caused her poll numbers to sag -- notably, her revised stance on Medicare For All, which now can wait until the third year of her presidency, once she passes her own public option plan. Both ideas rest on huge, untested assumptions, but that's another post for another day.

Like Kamala Harris, however, Warren has found that pivoting on a pet issue won't help more people line up behind you. In many ways, Warren seems to have inherited all the angst of Hillary Clinton's 2016 defeat, as The Week notes --  because the Democratic Party seems skittish about shooting for the stars again so soon, with another female nominee rallying the troops.

But it's difficult to draw a different conclusion when all those old double standards grind on without letup. The commentariat has yet to call out Mayor Pete as a flipflopper, even as he's ditched the progressive rhetoric -- no more talk about boosting the Supreme Court's size -- that he used to launch his presidential bid. Or imagine if Biden suddenly embraced a single-payer system, after decades of opposition to one. He'd be hailed a visionary for changing his mind in a heartbeat. One's person shapeshifter is another person's visionary, and so on. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Time will tell if Warren sticks around for the long haul. However, her treatment by the US media machine seems especially galling, when smaller countries have no trouble electing younger women to lead them, as Finland and New Zealand have done, with Sanna Marin (34) and Jacinda (39), respectively.

Meanwhile, back in the US presidential primary jungle, we're conceivably looking at a race between two aging, go-driven, populist-preening, old white billionaires. At 73, it may be the only time that President Donald Trump can stake out a claim as the youth candidate -- since the man who's trying to buy his place, Michael Bloomberg, is five years older.

Where does this leave us, now that nearly all of the women and candidates of color have  gotten chased out of the race? Nowhere to go but sideways, or it seems. Or maybe straight down the chute. Time will tell soon enough. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before They Fix That Darn Glass Ceiling Again)
Columbia Journalism Review:
The Media, "Klomentum," And
The Erasure Of Elizabeth Warren:
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/klobuchar_warren_new_hampshire.php

The New Republic:
The Elite Media's Amy Klobuchar Blind Spot:
https://newrepublic.com/article/156294/elite-medias-amy-klobuchar-blind-spot

The Guardian/Yahoo News:
Politicians Pander To The Folksy Midwest:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politicians-pander-folksy-midwest-ignore-111610486.html

The Week: Elizabeth Warren 
Is Third In The Polls, But Fifth In Speaking Time...:
https://theweek.com/speedreads/894695/elizabeth-warren-third-polls-but-fifth-speaking-time-democratic-debate

The Week: The Sidelining of Elizabeth Warren:
https://theweek.com/articles/895463/sidelining-elizabeth-warren

Who Decides, Who Decides? About That Electability Thing...

<Cory Booker: Official Portrait,

114th Congress, U.S. Senate>

<i.>

The Vice-President-of-Something-or-Other stared without blinking. Finally, he offered a response to my question. "The issue isn't who has signature authority, or ever had it. The issue is...who decides, who decides."

"Excuse me? I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from, John..."

I had been trying to determine, for my college paper, if the Student Senate President had the right to sign bills and invoices, as he'd been claiming.

Campus was in an uproar, because this particular president was a left-leaning sort. He'd gotten elected -- along with roughly a dozen friends, most of whom I knew, or hung out with -- and wasted no time moving aggressively on his priorities.

Planning Homecoming celebrations was out; coordinating the Student Senate's response to the US invasion of Grenada was in. This didn't bother me, since I wasn't a Reagan fan, but  our college had other ideas, especially when the newly-minted President asserted signature authority (instead of passing that paperwork to the Senate's adviser, as custom held).

The vice president repeated himself, more firmly this time. "The issue is, who decides, who decides. Follow that, and you'll find your answer."

<Going, Going, Going...>

<ii.>

"Who decides, who decides." That may be the epitaph for Cory Booker and Julian Castro, who recently ended their presidential bids. What started as the most diverse field in memory has, yet again, been whittled down to...surprise! Old white people. They're the ones running Congress, the Supreme Court, and God knows how many other governmental institutions, right?

Now, on one hand, given my own long-standing support of Bernie Sanders, the Democratic and Republican Establishment's worst nightmare, you may argue that's not such a bad thing (especially if you see Elizabeth Warren as your fallback). Yet Booker's and Castro's exits do  raise troubling issues about that E-word that's getting tossed around like so much salad this campaign season: "Electability."

On paper, such news hardly seems surprising. Neither broke out of a polling sub-basement that showed them registering just 4 percent (Booker) and 1-2 percent (Castro), nor did they gain traction from the debates in which they appeared. Cue the inevitable death spiral: lack of coverage equals lack of momentum, and lack of donations (since nobody writes a check to a go-nowhere campaign, right?).

Still, there's something surreal about seeing them drop out, on the heels of Kamala Harris's own spectacular flameout, while Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar are ready to press on, no matter how tonight's Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary (February 11) turn out. What's interesting is that black voters, by and large, seem to have soundly rejected them as an option.

Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete are netting zero to three percent among blacks, depending on the poll. That's painful, compared to what the Washington Post showed in a January 11 poll for Joe Biden (48 percent) or Bernie Sanders (20 percent, fueled largely by blacks 35 and under). Warren's total is equally anemic (9 percent), but could well improve, as black voters learn more about her.

Given the importance of black voters to any Democratic nominee's chances, it's hard to imagine how Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete will remain competitive, since young people -- another constituency you're hearing a lot about lately -- don't seem terribly willing to embrace them, either. For example, Plucky Amy polls at zero percent among voters 35 and under, and just 1 percent in the 35-49 demographic, according to a Politico.com story published last month ("'Moderates Don't Excite Us': Amy Klobuchar Struggles to Win Over Young Voters").

If those results emerged from a movie testing lot, the stereotypical cigar-chomping decision-maker would bark, "One percent want to see this piece of shit? Leave it in the can! We'll just have to eat this one."  Who decides, who decides?

<Going, Going...>

<iii.>

But that's not always how it works. Film, music and politics share two major characteristics: merit doesn't always carry the day, nor do the rules apply equally to everybody. That explains the career of stars like Jennifer Aniston, who turn out three dogs for every decent picture they make, yet never have any trouble finding work, because somebody's always willing to dust them off, and give them another shot.

I'd say that Cory Booker and Julian Castro struggled with lack of media visibility, and the idea that both needed white voters' validation before other demographic groups could look at them. Most of the Booker-Castro coverage was decidedly negative. Would they make the next debate? Would they raise enough money to stay competitive? Why hadn't their campaigns caught on yet? And so on, and so forth.

So why not Castro? He served as Obama's Housing Secretary. Eight years of Cabinet experience seems on par, at least, with eight years of Biden's tenure as Vice President. Like Bernie Sanders, Castro only accepted small donations, and wouldn't take PAC money. And, like Bernie Sanders, Castro proved himself as an outspoken advocate for progressive priorities like single-payer healthcare.

Or why not Booker? His background bears a striking resemblance to Mayor Pete's resume. One went to Oxford (Booker), the other to Harvard (Buttgieg). Both cut heroic figures to the public, from pulling a woman out of a burning building (Booker), to serving in the military (Buttigieg). Both served as mayors of contrasting-sized cities, Booker, of Newark, NJ (population 282,090), Buttigieg, of South Bend, IN (population 102,245). Both built deep ties to the tech industry, on which they relied to pad their own fundraising.

Yet one candidate received way, way more attention. When Mayor Pete wasn't lighting up the podcast circuit, he was hosting town halls on CNN, cutting it up on "The Late Show," or sitting on the couch for "Ellen." In contrast, his rivals were increasingly reduced to playing the political version of GoFundMe to get any attention, such as Castro's plea last summer to an audience in New Hampshire: "So if you get a strange phone call, maybe from an unlisted number in the next couple of days, please answer it."

Technically, Booker should have proven no less electable, especially in stacking up his own resume against that of his white counterpart, Mayor Pete. yet the electability trope plays out in strange ways, as She The People's founder, Aimee Allison, told Politico.com: "He wasn’t a senator. He was the mayor of a small town. So if you just compare that, those two things, you realize how the narrative of electability acts as a bludgeon for campaigns who are trying to gain momentum in this environment.” 

Call it the Aniston Effect, political-style. Who decides, who decides?

<...Now Gone...>

<iv.>

Needless to say, I never got to the bottom of the whole signature authority debate. I never found, despite all my best gumshoe work, a single piece of paper that answered the question, nor any witnesses to answer it. The college administration says this, my resulting story read, the Student Senate says that, and both are claiming the high ground. We called it a day, left our readers to decide, and moved on to something else.

The fallout of Booker's and Castro's exit leaves me feeling likewise, now the Democratic National Committee has just scrapped those spiraling donor and poll thresholds that both men blamed for driving them out of the race. if billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer can simply buy a place on the debate stage, as they continue to carpet bomb the country with robocalls and ad blitzes...what's the point of having such rules in the first place?

Then again, as Jeremiah Wright once told me, "What is legal is not the same as what is fair, and what is legal is not the same as what is just." Those words rang through my head when I read Politico.com's wrap-up of Booker's departure, and South Carolina State Rep. John King's response to the now-scrapped thresholds: "“If we have people who are bold enough to put their names out there to run for office, they should have an opportunity to debate. They don’t have a threshold when someone runs against me. They don’t have a threshold when someone runs for governor. They don’t have a threshold when someone runs for U.S. Senate.”

But that's not how the system works, as Booker's now-former South Carolina co-chair, State Rep. J.A. Moore, who notes in the same article that it's designed "for people of color to have challenges in doing everything."

Or, as Moore puts it more bluntly: "The system is designed to keep people that are in power, in power. And the majority of the people in this country, unfortunately, that are in power don't look like me, don't look like Julian Castro, don't look like Cory Booker nor Kamala Harris. They're the exception, not the rule."

Or, if this were a box score, it might well read: Status Quo: 1, Something Else: 0. When that kind of stink test is allowed to stand, it's not just the Cory Bookers, the Julian Castros, and their supporters who end up being left out in the cold. Everybody's teeth chatters, everybody shivers -- and everybody loses. Who decides, who decides? --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Start Saving Up
For Your Debate Stage Slot Now):
CNN: An Immensely Frustrating 
Time For Julian Castro:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/02/opinions/julian-castro-dropping-out-is-a-loss-reyes/index.html

FiveThirtyEight
Why Klobuchar's Strength
In Minnesota May Not Translate To The Primaries:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-klobuchars-strength-in-minnesota-may-not-translate-to-the-primaries/

Politico.com: Booker Drops Out
Of The Presidential Race:
https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/01/13/booker-drops-out-of-presidential-race-1250519

Politico.com: How Julian Castro
Got Drowned Out:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/30/julian-castro-2020-president-profile-227985