One lucky eBay user recently purchased a stunning Mountain Dew wall clock.
The clock is in excellent condition. It’s 18 inches in diameter, which is larger than a standard-sized wall clock. It was listed on eBay for $33.35, plus $17.25 shipping. It says “MOUNTAIN DEW” in big letters. Whoever bought it can put it in their kitchen, or a room with a mini-fridge; they can point and say, “It’s Mountain Dew O’Clock” and then Do the Dew anytime.
Also, they can tell admiring guests that the clock was sold to them by a candidate for the United States Senate.
Since announcing his Senate candidacy in late summer of 2023, self-anointed businessman Reid Rasner has been barnstorming the state of Wyoming, pressing his case to towns of dozens of people that he’s more MAGA than incumbent Sen. John Barrasso. Over the same time span, it seems Rasner has sold upwards of 1,600 items on eBay, including a Jamal Murray T-shirt, a “vintage” 2XL Ed Hardy hoodie that the buyer complained smelled of “cheap perfume,” countless Christmas ornaments, and a Nazi trinket described in shorthand as “Original from WW2 Reich finance admin.”
Rasner, 40, is Barrasso’s only real GOP competition, but he’s nevertheless going to get crushed during Wyoming’s primary on Aug. 20. He’s so off-putting that another far-right Wyoming politician—Rep. Harriet Hageman, a Donald Trump sycophant who flattened Liz Cheney in 2022—reportedly sent Rasner a cease-and-desist letter, because his social media posts suggested he’d earned her endorsement (he had not). His public speaking style is best characterized as a somehow lower-energy Ron DeSantis doing a Trump impression.
But hey, Rasner’s eBay operation is undeniably robust. His recently submitted financial disclosure form—a required document for Senate candidates—shows about $70,000 in eBay store income in 2023 alone. Unlike his Senate run, his eBay store is also well endorsed: 5,100 items sold in total, with a 99.5 percent positive feedback rating.
And yet, Rasner has glossed over his eBay bonafides. His Ballotpedia page instead makes the absurd claim that he’s a “prominent American entrepreneur and political figure, known for his role as the Founder and CEO” of his own financial investment firm. He chose not to tout his eBay wheelings and dealings on the campaign trail until I, a prominent American journalist known for my role as the Founder and CEO of portfolio site Alex-Shultz.com, found his store and asked him about it. (There aren’t very many eBay stores in and around Casper, Wyoming, it turns out.)
“Reid is an entrepreneur and supports free enterprise. His eBay store is an example of what millions of Americans do to support themselves every day,” his campaign wrote in a statement. Rasner declined a formal interview request, though, so I was left to my own devices to trace his political aspirations and, more importantly, dig around his eBay collection for the good stuff. And the other, not-good stuff.
Reid Rasner says he was born and raised in Wyoming. He lived in Nevada for a bit, and ran for city council in Las Vegas, where he garnered 74 votes. He did not win. Now, Rasner is back in Wyoming and gunning for the U.S. Senate, a puzzling attempt at a promotion akin to going from editorial assistant to the editor-in-chief. Rasner was encouraged to make this leap, he’s said, by nameless friends and business clients.
“I’ve got my finger on the heartbeat I think of not just Wyoming, but of America, and I can really feel the pulse,” he told the Powell Tribune last October. The same month, he sold a cream-colored, medium-sized fedora for $30. “Arrived FAST. In immaculate condition! Could not be any happier!” the fedora buyer wrote. Rasner also sold a pack of Hot Wheels, and a display case, for $20.
On April 24, Rasner’s eBay store sold a She-Hulk eyeshadow palette for $10, to rave reviews. On April 26, Rasner told Cowboy State Daily that he’s traveling 2,500 miles per week as part of his effort to convince GOP voters to embrace him in Wyoming’s primary. He claimed to have awakened at 3:15 a.m. on the day of that interview, and said he’s clocking 16- to 18-hour days, a combination of campaigning and his job at his financial services firm, which is called Ominvest. He did not make mention of his eBay store, which is called Omnisellers, or how many hours a day that takes up while he’s on his Mark Wahlberg grindset.
Rasner also provided Cowboy State Daily with the platonic reality TV show quote: “I’m not here to make friends,” he said of his insurgent campaign. Rasner’s happy-go-lucky social media photos with Hageman and State Rep. John Bear, among others, certainly imply otherwise. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a relationship with the politicians he was photographed next to, and they were not happy with him after he posted those photos. “What he’s doing is ugly politics,” Bear told Cowboy State Daily on May 3. The same day, Omnisellers sold off a “Chevy GMC Truck Instrument Cluster Speedometer” for $59.96. (“It's perfect just what I wanted,” the buyer wrote.)
On the issues, there’s little daylight between Rasner and Barrasso, the third-highest-ranking member of the Senate Republican Conference, a septuagenarian who stands behind octogenarian Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at pressers. Both Rasner and Barrasso are Trump loyalists. They are staunchly anti-abortion. Rasner has pointed to his opposition to funding the war in Ukraine, and his call for term limits, as two of the central differences between him and the incumbent. He’s repeatedly criticized Barrasso for (just barely) acknowledging the existence of climate change. Barrasso does not care about climate change, to be clear; he spent years dodging straightforward inquiries about whether it was real, in fact, and worried aloud that a Green New Deal would lead to the end of ice cream, cheeseburgers, and milkshakes. But one time in 2021, he made the mistake of outright admitting climate change is both real and man-made (though we shouldn’t do anything meaningful about it). That was a step too far for Rasner, who recently posted a drawing of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the queen of the Green New Deal, dog-walking her pet, Barrasso.
Unlike Barrasso, Rasner does not have lots of staff and funding. He reportedly has a “volunteer bodyguard” who watches out for him at certain campaign stops for reasons unknown. When I called Rasner in the hopes of doing an interview about his eBay store, what sounded like a 20-year-old kid answered and identified himself as Rasner’s campaign manager. I was connected to his communications director, who was perfectly kind, and also sounded like a kid.
The point is: I am genuinely perplexed at how Rasner is maintaining a full-fledged eBay store while campaigning around a vast state. I assume he’s got some help at home. Indeed, some of the photos that are posted by Omnisellers include a pair of hands that seem to belong to a person who’s older than 40. Whatever his methods and techniques, Rasner has this eBay stuff down to a science. For upwards of five years, his store has been firing on all cylinders. Rasner regularly leaves reviews of other eBay store buyers and sellers he works with, too: “AAA+ ebayer!!” was the go-to for a while, followed by a temporary switchover (“Great transaction!!!!”), and lately, we’re back to variations of “AAA+ ebayer!!”
Anytime Omnisellers is marketing a knick-knack—like an insanely creepy 1950s Christmas elf or separate, insanely creepy Christmas elf ornaments—Rasner (or whoever is helping him) places a measuring stick next to the item for sale. Omnisellers will also sometimes include a can of chicken soup as a sizing comparison. Many items are photographed on top of a washer. See: This untested hand crank telephone from the 1940s. And this collection of Princess Diana commemorative stamps from around the world. And this sombrero.
There is little rhyme or reason to what Rasner is offering up. Omnisellers doesn’t have many big-ticket items; I didn’t spot anything for more than a few hundred dollars. One of the most expensive listings is a package of 59 Blu-Ray movies for about $250. I have no idea if these are from Rasner’s personal collection, or just Blu-Rays he grabbed and is flipping again.
That applies to pretty much all of the more than 1,100 items on the Omnisellers store. There’s a healthy selection of clothing, especially shirts that are not advisable to wear in public, like a kid-sized Tennessee Titans Marcus Mariota jersey, a “Life is Crap” T-shirt where a sad stick-figure woman is falling off a motorcycle, and a T-shirt that says “I’m still young enough to chase girls … downhill.” I spotted Crocs with chili peppers emblazoned on them. This 76ers crewneck is actually pretty cool.
I also noticed a fair amount of old-school audio equipment, including $4 Walkman in-ear headphones listed as new, and a set of portable CD players being sold “for parts.” Perhaps my favorite listing, besides the Mountain Dew clock, is the Risk board game, board only, “for replacement or decoration.” For just $9.99 plus shipping and handling, the person out there who has all their Risk pieces but no board can get back to playing the game they love.
It appears that Rasner is making a mistake by highlighting his financial services firm over his eBay business while out on the campaign trail. Financial advice is boring. Nobody cares about the national debt and balancing the budget. Rasner needs to talk about how hard he had to work to obtain a Dale Earnhardt clock, and how he’s trying to make a few bucks of profit off it. Rasner should tout his thousands of solid eBay reviews, and let the world know how quickly he’s shipping stuff out. It’s Rasner’s last and best shot at closing the gap against Barrasso in the month ahead. Or, if nothing else, it’ll help lay the groundwork for his 2028 presidential run. It’ll still be Mountain Dew O’Clock then, too.
