Georgia Senate Race: Kelly Loeffler, a Wall Street Senator with a hardscrabble pitch

Her childhood best friend, Shelley Marquis, said that she and Mrs. Loeffler, like many local children, “walked beans” in Loeffler fields and pulled weeds out with a hoe for extra money. And Ms. Loeffler worked as a weekend waitress and said: “Not because she had to, but because she is motivated and motivated.” For her Olympic high Final prophecy of last year The future senator wrote, “Be on L.A. Law” or partner with a finance firm. “

The next year, The Chicago Tribune interviewed her father, Don, who described himself as a “simple farmer” – although one, the newspaper said, owned 1,800 acres, ran a transportation company with 10 trucks, 15 employees and a local banking authority. The article about a shock crop that made farmers literally broke into songs was headlined “Gold in the Fields”.

“This is reaping the fruits of our labor,” Don Loeffler told The Tribune. “And it doesn’t get much better than that.”

There was also help from American taxpayers. Since 1995, family members including Ms. Loeffler’s father, who is now retired, and her brother Brian, who was named the county Farmer of the Year last year, have had $ 3.2 million in farm subsidies, according to the federal government receive environmental working group, a non-profit organization. (Almost a quarter of that came from money Mr Trump used to compensate farmers for his trade war with China.)

Of course, that doesn’t distinguish the Loefflers from many other farmers. But it’s noteworthy because the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group that supported Ms. Loeffler, ran an advertising campaign criticizing its main antagonist, Mr. Collins, for supporting the farm rescue program. And Ms. Loeffler, as a Senator, also declined to continue the $ 600 additional unemployment benefit paid this year to workers who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic, saying people need to “get back to work and.” limit government dependency ”.

After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1992, Ms. Loeffler accepted a position as District Account Manager at Toyota in Los Angeles. Her starting salary was $ 28,500, she once told an interviewer, and she shared an apartment with roommates. At that point, she told the Times, she was “living from paycheck to paycheck to pay rent and utilities, car payments, insurance and living expenses.”