“Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” as legendary California politician Jesse Unruh put it. It’s hard to get ahead in politics without money, and the more of it, the better.

It used to be that the road to dollars in Democratic politics went straight through the party establishment and the big donor networks that were linked to it. Lots of people didn’t like it, but that was the game you had to play, with the endless rounds of calls to big donors, begging political action committees, unions, and party committees for money and attending big-dollar events. While those are still important, another model has started to emerge that circumvents the establishment and relies on small donations and nationalized politics.