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News

Hedge Fund Kingmaker Has Accurately Picked Dem Nominees for 43 Years

The Secret Service was on edge at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the 2000 Democratic National Convention. There had already been several riots and violent protests outside the convention. So, agents sprang into action immediately when some goofball laid down on the floor of the crowded Staples Center and proceeded to take a nap, using his backpack for a pillow.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a terrorist who was about to set off a bomb directly underneath his head. It was just the quirky and reclusive Wall Street hedge fund billionaire Orin Kramer, who had decided to take a nap on the floor.

To call Kramer reclusive is a bit of an understatement. His Wikipedia page doesn’t even mention the year that Orin Kramer was born and does not have a picture of him. Google has lots of images of him, but it’s safe to say that most Americans would never be able to pick Kramer out of a lineup.

This is remarkable when you consider that Kramer has accurately picked the Democratic nominee in every presidential contest in America since 1976. And Kramer always picks the candidate long before it’s clear to everyone else who the nominee will be.

Back in 2008, everyone assumed that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee. It was “her turn” and she was entitled to be president. Every smart person in Washington and on television knew this and reassured us that it was true. But it shocked everyone when Orin Kramer threw his massive checkbook behind an unknown, unqualified and inexperienced senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.

In 2004, the Democrats had a really crowded field running for the nomination. Senators Joe Lieberman, Bob Graham and John Edwards were all strong candidates. Vermont Governor Howard Dean was primary favorite.

Even then-House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt was considered a fairly strong choice, up until the moment that voters started casting ballots. But months before the primaries, Orin Kramer threw his massive resources behind another candidate, John Kerry.

No pundit or talking head considered Kerry to have a chance at the nomination. Yet John Kerry, the unlikeable Senator from Massachusetts who had never passed a significant piece of legislation in his long political career, went on to capture the nomination.

Kramer was an early backer of Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, the one in which he took a nap on the floor of the Staples Center. No surprise there, because vice presidents tend to be strong candidates in a primary election.

But in 1992, no one could have predicted that a virtually unknown Governor from Arkansas would be the nominee. California Governor Jerry Brown was considered the frontrunner that year.

Senators Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey and Tom Harkin were all strong candidates. Even Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder had a bit of name recognition behind his campaign, since he was governor of the state right across the river from Washington, DC.

But Orin Kramer threw his support behind Bill Clinton very early in 1992. And of course, Clinton went on to win the nomination and ultimately the president. I could keep going, but you get the point.

Every time hedge fund billionaire Orin Kramer has opened his checkbook for a Democrat nominating contest since 1976, his candidate has gone on to win – even when all of the experts were cheering for someone else. The gobs of cash that Kramer throws at candidates is probably a factor in this.

He’s a person who shells out $50,000 for the Democratic National Committee every single year – and he probably yawns while he writes the check.

But maybe Kramer is also really good at predicting the nominee that Democrat voters will eventually settle on. The 2020 race seems wide open at this point, with several possible candidates still in the running to win.

Joe Biden is still the frontrunner, although Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are close and sometimes flip-flop with him for first place, depending on which poll you look at. Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, and Andrew Yang are bringing up the rear.

So, who is Orin Kramer backing for president in 2020? Kramer became a campaign bundler once again and started raising money for his candidate back in April of 2019: South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg.