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Originally Posted by filtherton
While the consolidation of power is likely an implicit goal of most people who have power, there are studies that show statistically significant correlations between campaign contributions to politicians and subsequent voting by those politicians. So that politicians tend to vote for things that help the people who give them money. Certainly, some of this effect has to do with the fact that people give money to politicians who share their interests, but given the fact that large donors seem to have better access to politicians than the average person, it seems plausible that the effect extends beyond just being a function of likemindedness. This is the problem. It has nothing to do with the fact that the better funded candidate doesn't always get elected.
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In my experience the influence you describe has more to do with motivation than money.
I recall a school board election I was directly involved in and when I spoke to people they fit into four categories with different levels of impact on the election based on their motivation. The group with the least impact were young and some old adults who had no children/grand-children in the school. The next was people who had children in school followed by parents of children with special needs and unions (we had a teachers union and a civil service workers union). Candidates who had the support of the unions and parents of children with special need won. If there was a meeting/rally/debate those motivated to show up were people in those groups. If letters appeared in the paper it was from those groups. Volunteers were from those two groups. People in those two groups attended the school board meetings. So, at the end of the day, those groups held the most influence - and it had almost nothing to do with money, but with their motivation. I see other special interest groups having the same kind of impact across the political spectrum. I suspect motivated people can have a bigger impact than the biggest campaign donors.
So, I am either optimistic about the power regular people have or I am a pollyanna. I truly believe that once regular people have had enough and get motivated, they will easily over-come big money interest. I think the Tea Party is and will be a reflection of that.
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Why does your relationship with your wife matter at all? Your particular experience could not be less relevant, unless you're Clarence Thomas.
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Unless you see the context of my bringing that up, you won't understand why it matters.
---------- Post added at 08:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by Willravel
I'd go precisely as far as you're willing to lie.
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I don't lie.
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I seriously doubt that Clarence Thomas, one of the supposed great legal minds of our time, can't understand a simple tax form for six years straight. And the part he made a 'mistake' on happens to be the part about his wife working for two conservative organizations, the Heritage Foundation and Liberty Central. I'm sure you're aware that these groups were very active in opposing healthcare reform. I'm also sure you're aware that the Affordable Healthcare Act's constitutionality has been challenged and may end up before the Supreme Court. Kagen promised to recuse herself from the same case because she used to be the solicitor general.
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I don't dispute Thomas' problem - my issue has more to do with the importance of the question. If the point of the question was really to disclose real conflict of interest, the question falls short. It is no longer 1950 were people have Leave It To Beaver family relationships.
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On top of that, he lied about an all expense paid trip in 2008 to Palm Springs to make a speech paid for by Koch Industries, who benefited directly from the Citizens United case which now is allowing them to significantly expand their influence in American politics. This is no small conflict of interest. Scalia is also guilty of speaking at the Koch event and should have similarly recused himself. The event was organized around the goal of creating new conservative strategies to affect political change and prevent liberal political movement, so it was clearly partisan.
BTW, Thomas had a 60 Minutes interview last year. I'm really disappointed that he didn't spend the entire hour in silence.
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I begin to think that you would have double standards on these issues based on political point of view.
Thomas is who he says he is, it seems to me that you simply want a system where people hide what they truly are. I find that much more of a problem than how a person fills out a form, who pays them for a speech, or what their wife does.