Abdul el Sayed says he rejects super PACs. He’s benefiting from them anyway

Abdul el Sayed spent his whole primary campaign running against super PAC money like it was a personal enemy. Now Schumer-aligned outside groups are pouring millions into his Senate race and el Sayed's basically shrugging. That's not a contradiction that needs a nuanced explanation. That's just how it works when the money shows up on your side of the ledger.

The "no coordination" rule is the fig leaf everyone hides behind, and everyone knows it's a fig leaf. Nobody actually believes a candidate who's been railing against dark money for a year suddenly has no idea why millions of favorable dollars are landing in his race the moment he becomes the nominee. The timing does the talking.

What makes this one worth writing about isn't the hypocrisy itself, because candidates take money from PACs they claim to hate all the time. It's that el Sayed built his entire brand on being the guy who wouldn't play that game, the outsider who wasn't beholden to the party machine or its money. He even said he wouldn't back Schumer for leader. And here comes Schumer's network anyway, bailing him out in a tough battleground race, no questions asked.

Voters can decide for themselves whether that bothers them. But let's not pretend this is complicated. El Sayed wanted the moral high ground and the millions. Turns out you can have both, as long as nobody checks the fine print.