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Originally Posted by loquitur
Will, that study doesn't tell you the effects of lots of other factors, either. For that study to be even remotely probative they'd need to hold a lot of things constant, and I it can't be done. In fact, I defy you to find any study that can possibly do a ceteris parabus analysis of the effect of money in a political race. I really don't think it is possible.
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As you suggest, it's unrealistic to look for a study which can account for every single variable in something as complex as elections, but short of that there is some data upon which can can start to form an opinion. That's why I posted the link. A correlation was demonstrated between money and the success of a campaign. I never suggested it was causal, but I cannot imagine how you can say "more money does not equal more persuasion" when you live in a city where the mayor has spent over $250,000,000 on his three elections.
Quote:
Originally Posted by loquitur
And remember, there is no linearity there, either - more money does not equal more persuasion. I wasn't in CA during this last campaign so I know about it only secondhand, but the impression I got from following the news is that (1) Whitman is NOT a good campaigner, it's not in her personality; (2) she tried using money to compensate for her lack of talent at campaigning; (3) she massively overspent, to the point that people got sick of her ads; and (4) her story wasn't told well and she never managed to make herself appealing (i.e. a lot of her money was wasted). Are my impressions wrong? I can tell you that having lived through the last Bloomberg campaign for NYC mayor, where he spent something like $120 million, and the recent McMahon-Blumenthal dustup in CT, which was horrendously expensive and assaulted us constantly with TV ads, the spending was not even remotely persuasive (in fact, both CT candidates gave me the creeps).
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We're not talking about what might sway you or me, loq. I suspect that what sways people like us comes from hours of studying the candidate's history along with careful deconstruction of debates. We aren't representative of the general voting public. While it's likely every person in the history of media hates political ads, they do influence voting. If you don't believe me, you should ask Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. They
lied through their teeth about Senator Kerry in a political attack ad and they are largely considered to be one of the main reasons President Bush won in 2004. They were so successful that "swift boating" is now common language for attack ads that target a candidate's patriotism. How much do you think that ad campaign cost? Considering the donations to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (a 527), it cost millions.