Money can’t buy happiness, or so the saying goes. Neither can it buy a Democrat a statewide office in the state of Texas.

U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke’s campaign said April 3 that his campaign raised $6.7 million in the first quarter of 2018, outpacing other Democrats around the country and certainly more than his opponent, the mostly disfavored Ted Cruz — who will almost certainly win re-election.

The fundraising solidified O’Rourke as the new darling of the Democratic Party. With his good hair, charisma and just-left-of-center credentials, he may seem like the second coming of JFK’s Camelot to those beholden to the hagiography of party history.

Most media reports of the fundraising windfall were surprisingly measured, pointing out that O’Rourke remains the underdog in the race. Even Joe Kennedy III, driving through Houston with O’Rourke a couple of weeks ago and broadcasting on Facebook Live, suggested it’s difficult to imagine any Democrat taking a statewide seat in modern-day Texas. Then, he suggested O’Rourke would make a good presidential candidate instead.

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His chances of winning the Texas senate seat, though, more resemble Don Quixote than King Arthur.

The heat on O’Rourke seems inextricably tied to the money he’s raised. Money, either raised or spent, is a poor metric of popularity. Just ask Tony Sanchez, who spent $65 million in 2002 to lose to Rick Perry by 18 percentage points.

However, fundraising — rather than good legislation or leadership — has evolved into the most important measurement of political acumen.

Anyone who has ever peeped behind the curtain of national politics was unsurprised with the recent revelation, during Steve Stockman’s fraud trial, that the then-congressman had interns working in fundraising boiler rooms, dialing thousands of potential donors each day.

The most venerated of our political animals, either elected or working behind the scenes, are rewarded for raising money with the tenacity of an Amway seller.

Then we’re surprised when a politician gets caught spending money like it didn’t require a few hundred college kids in a locked room to raise.

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Stockman, of course, raised a lot of money for his campaign and his non-profits, then allegedly used it as he saw fit for campaign and personal expenses. It’s easy to imagine there’s a cigarette boat docked somewhere in Clear Lake with the moniker “501 Sea Three.”

Even worse than the elected officials are political appointees to high-level positions of power (and abuse). Many of these appointments — especially those not needing Senate confirmation — are doled out to large fundraisers. And presumably in Donald Trump’s administration, on the basis of sycophancy.

After a few years in D.C., ousted either by their boss or getting caught jetting around the country in a private jet at taxpayer expense, these appointees experience major culture shock if they return to the private sector. No longer can they expect an aide with a Diet Coke at the ready in a suit pocket. Nobody around to ensure the flags on the front of the car are pointed in the right direction.

Of course these appointees are spending taxpayer money. That’s not even real money. It’s like Monopoly money.

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Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt (who may well have recently changed his name to “embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt”) is the latest Trump cabinet member discovered to have a predilection for first-class travel and other misappropriations of government funds.

Pruitt, like fellow spendthrifts Tom Price (formerly of Health and Human Services) and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, are all former elected officials. They’re used to people giving them money and then being able to spend the heck out of it.

Large campaign donors are often seeking access, or at least a sympathetic ear, on some issue or another. Lesser donors may just support a candidate or dislike an opponent. Then they discover they signed up for biennial harassment from a politico’s fundraising team. Which ought to make any politician unpopular.

Beto O’Rourke may be well-liked in Washington and on talk shows, such as Bill Maher’s. Frank Bruni, of the venerated (also hated) New York Times, confessed last weekend to being “Beto-struck” and waxing himself poetic into the growing cult of personality that is Betomania. Of course, nobody quite understands the mindset of a Texas voter like a columnist at the New York Times.

O’Rourke has dazzled the media and political elite, mostly through his prodigious coffers, but fundraising prowess gives little indication of how he will perform in the coming election. It might make the former punk rocker “competitive,” in the same sense that an out-matched football team is competitive if it can play to the final whistle. Despite predictions of a “blue wave” in Texas, the time is not yet right for a Democrat to seduce the entire state.

Ted Cruz (Full disclosure: I used to live in the same building as Cruz and often spied his entourage of three big, black, ominous SUVs whenever he was in town. No stranger to spending, our senator.) rubs even Republicans the wrong way. Even so, he won’t likely break a sweat garnering the votes to vault past his even the magnetic O’Rourke.

Reynolds is a writer living in Houston.