STUMP » Articles » Following Through: When There is No "There" There » 31 July 2014, 03:14

Months ago, I was looking into a particular issue, hyped up by another site, and I thought there might actually be something juicy…started following the money…yadda yadda…and it was a big old nothing.

I could have deleted the draft entirely, but I have it sitting in draft mode as a reminder to myself not to get sucked into a rabbit hole. But sometimes I still don’t think clearly.

For amusement purposes, I will share with you how I wasted about 15 minutes of my time (not counting writing this post).

Instapundit linked to the decrease in median household net worth story that I wrote about yesterday, and then he linked to this item on change in net worth of various Congresspeople since elected — So Chellie Pingree really leapt out at me. WTF? A 73K% PER YEAR GAIN?

I go to her Open Secrets page and see nothing nothing nothing …. HOLY CRAP WHAT HAPPENED IN 2011?!

So I start combing through her assets and her transactions trying to figure out how she was corrupt, yadda yadda, and why did nobody cover it before? Why isn’t this brought up in any of the articles about her?

And then I go to her Wikipedia page.

She married Donald Sussman in 2011. This Donald Sussman. I’m sure his net worth is more than $40M, but I suppose Pingree doesn’t have to report all of it.

….Never mind.

Anyway, numbers can be eye-popping, but sometimes there’s no real story there.

Of course, if Pingree were bitching about hedge fund managers left and right, I might cock an eyebrow at her (or wonder how her marriage is doing), but that’s something different.

(And, of course, the reason for Pingree’s leap is even mentioned on the original Ballotpedia page

Rep. Chellie Pingree’s dramatic net worth increase is due to her marriage. Because of this, Ballotpedia removed Pingree when calculating the averages for this study, while continuing to list her in the chart.

Dangit.)