Redlemon

With so many candidates being millionaires, there is often the accusation of someone attempting to "purchase the election". However, I couldn't believe this one in my morning paper...

(This is the race in Connecticut to replace Chris Dodd in the U.S. Senate.)

I don't know why, but this seems beyond the pale and borderline illegal. Can anyone cite similar election giveaways? Or is this a modern version of paying people to vote?

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Baraka_Guru

Well, you could argue that it's not much different than people who stand out during election day with signs that say vote for so-and-so. The difference is more related to the brand power of the WWE.

I'm not sure if it's illegal, but I'd say it's immoral. The WWE is a multimillion dollar entertainment empire.

It's another example of how America seems fine with the influence of an oligarchy and/or plutocracy on politics. Many of us are adamant about the importance of the separation of church and state, but what about the separation of money and state?

Should the wealthy have the biggest influence over the governance of the nation? Should they be allowed to buy that influence?

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loquitur

Not new. IIRC the history books, William Henry Harrison's supporters gave out hard cider and biscuits at polling places in 1840.

Willravel

I'm quite happy that millionaire Meg Whitman is now polling well below 50% (44.7% as of this morning according to FiveThirtyEight) despite having spent record breaking amounts on her own campaign. Last I hear, she was in the $160 million range, $140 million if it being hers. There's a 96% chance of a Jerry Brown win.

When Linda McMahon loses the election, does a referee come out of nowhere and slap the mat three times?

loquitur

So, Will, what effect should that have on the idea that campaign expenditures need to be regulated because they are distortionary?

Willravel

If Meg Whitman had run an identical campaign but only had access to Jerry Brown-level campaign funds, she would almost certainly be polling in the low single digits. Between being publicly caught lying constantly by virtually every newspaper and local TV news program in the state, the crap with her housekeeper being at odds with her stance on immigration, and her shady business past, there's just no way she'd be polling in the 40% range without millions and millions of dollars in PR.

We've needed public financing for a very, very long time. Corporate money dictates too much policy. Politicians beholden to corporate interests are too big a problem to ignore.

ASU2003

I would be more willing to listen to an ad if I got something. It might not change my mind, but I can't be so sure about if this should be done. It does seem like if candidates give something of value or promise something specific in return for voting for them, that it doesn't help society and the country.

There are too many millionaires in power right now anyways.

loquitur

Ah, I see, Will. So once again the lefty solution is to pull down the monetarily successful person rather than to urge the less successful one to do better. Though Brown does seem to be doing ok in the election - proving once again that union clout is more powerful than mere money - evening the playing field isn't just a matter of dollars and cents.

When you're ready to outlaw union involvement, come back and we'll talk about public funding.

Plan9

By the people, for the people... IN A STEEL CAGE.

I'm disappointed in you, Will.

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loquitur

actually, let me clarify that, because I was being flip and therefore maybe not clear.

I don't want to restrict anyone, of any kind, from using whatever legal tools are available to get their message out. What I object to is the notion that we should not regulate things that favor Democrats, but should regulate things that non-Democrats can use to break the hegemony of Democratic machines.

Money is jsut a tool. People of any persusasion can use it to get their message out and make people aware of them and what they stand for. That's all money can do. It can't force people to vote for the spender. But it can level the playing field against a candidate with built-in institutional advantages, such as Jerry Brown -- he is son of a governor, former governor, former mayor, lots of political chits, darling of the public employee unions who are choking the state economy. To break through against someone like that, yes, the opponent has to spend a lot of money. I agree with you, Will, that without the spending she wouldn't be on the radar screen, but I disagree with your conclusion -- I think having money to be an equalizer is a good thing. I see no reason why a hack like Jerry Brown should be insulated from challenge by relying on his non-monetary, hidden, back-room advantages, including heaven only knows what sorts of backroom deals and winking understandings.

To my thinking, if we are going to regulate ONE tool, we should regulate EVERY tool. But it just can't be that the regulations are focused only on techniques that people other than Democrats use. Most campaign finance reform is aimed pretty much at entrenching the Democratic Party.

And that's why I think most campaign regulation should be eliminated. That's the only way to level the playing field completely fairly, and not exclude any voices.

Redlemon

I'm glad to see the Connecticut Post editorial page agreeing with me this morning.

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Willravel

I will never understand why the right worships the rich. The fact that Meg Whitman has more money than Jerry Brown does not mean she is more suited to be governor. Unfortunately, it does mean she can afford to spend $140 million of her own money to launch a state of the art campaign with many of the best analysts and pr folks in the game. It does mean launching her campaign months before Brown because, hey, she can afford it. It does mean breaking a record for campaign spending, outspending even Mayor Bloomberg.

The "pulling down" you mention is at its core actually an attempt to shift the focus of campaigns away from media blitzes and toward the actual candidates. Issue vs. issue, qualifications vs. qualifications, plan vs. plan, the democratic process should be about two or more individuals with the ability to do the job attempting to explain to the voters what they would do if given the opportunity to represent them. It should be a fair race between people who can easily run on their qualifications and plans.
There are plenty of unions in California that have thrown their weight behind Whitman, particularly police and firefighters unions which have a great deal of political power in the state.
Public funding means no money from corporations or unions.

Xazy

Look at the Senate, almost all of them Democrats, Republicans are rich. I consider myself right, I do not worship any of them, sadly I vote like almost everyone here (per other conversations on this forum) lesser of evil.

This case with handing out stuff for votes, personally disgusts me. It all stemmed when someone from from the secretary of state in Conn through down the gauntlet and said poll workers can not wear WWE garb. While understandable in a way that was overstepping the rule about campaigning, legally and I assume gave Vince a reason to do what he is doing.

The only positive I may see from it, is maybe we will get a better turnout for the election there.

If rich people do want to spend hundred million or more on a campaign go for it, redistribute your wealth it is your money and your choice. The people in the end have the final say.

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loquitur

No, Will, I don't worship the rich. But I don't despise them, either, and I recognize that different people have different talents. Making money is one talent that the world can use more of. It would be really nice if everyone was rich.

I'm also not superstitious about money the way lefties are. Lefties tend to think that money has a supernatural effect like mind rays, that people can be forced to do things simply because someone with money says they should. I know I don't do things I don't want to, and I bet you don't either, so why do you think that most people are at the mercy of corporations or people with money? No corporation can force me to do anything, but the government can (and those corporations that can force me can only do it with government backing).

Whitman's money got her message out. That's all it did. It can't force people to vote for her. If people don't want to buy what she is selling (so to speak), there is nothing she can do to force them. The money simply got her a somewhat less uneven playing field against Jerry Brown, who started out with huge advantages. If she loses the election (as it appears she will), well, obviously she lost fair and square, right? So much the worse for California, but hey, it's a free country and people get the government they deserve. When the state goes bankrupt because the prison guards' union took all the money with Brown's blessing, the voters will have no one to blame but themselves.

Willravel

I don't despise Meg Whitman. I don't trust her first off because of the IPO scandal, but more so because of the dishonest campaign she's run. She's lied about Brown on crime, the school system, pollution, and of course jobs. FactCheck has repeatedly nailed her and for good reason.

Regarding campaign money, you're welcome to think that it's not important, but the facts speak for themselves. According to this study which tracks the impact of money on open seat races in the House from 1990 to 2004, "election outcomes are highly sensitive to the major-party candidates' campaign spending ratios, and increases in spending ratios are shown to translate into non-trivial increases the candidate''s probability of winning, a result that holds for both Republicans and Democrats." I'm looking for more studies, but I think the consistent results seen there do speak in volumes about the weight of money on elections.

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.

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).

Having said that, I will acknowledge that if I were running for office (perish the thought) I'd prefer having enough money to having to worry about whether I have enough. But that's very different from the proposition you're talking about. And "enough" is something that different people can disagree about and that will vary from campaign to campaign and from situation to situation.

Sorry, but your contention just doesn't support the kind of regulation you want. If there is a proposal to restrain political speech or political spending -- that is, restricting people's liberty in a very blatant way -- it will have to be supported very, very well on the facts and for very, very good and compelling reasons. Abstractions won't cut it.

Willravel

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.
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.

loquitur

Will, I'm a human being like anyone else and so are you. Why do you think other people can't recognize bullshit when they see it if you and I both can?

As for Bloomberg, his money got him a level playing field in '01 and '05 because in NYC it's very hard for Republicans to be taken seriously (yes, I know we have had Republican mayors since '93 but that's really a fluke - there are almost no other Republican officeholders of any kind in NYC to speak of, at any level of govt). And his overspending in '09 came very close to losing him the mayoralty because people were massively turned off, and they were also pissed about his end-running term limits. So yes, there is no linearity there.

I think you're not really disagreeing with my basic point, which is that spending can make a candidate competitive but can't get him to win if s/he isn't otherwise an attractive candidate. All it can do is get him/her into the race. Otherwise Michael Huffington would have won in Calif, John Dyson in NY, Meg Whitman in CA, etc etc etc.

Cimarron29414

I tend to agree with loquitur - money can't purchase the election. As embarrassing as candidates like O'Donnell and Greene (SC) are, they prove that elections are still open to everyone. While part of me is terrified that they got as far as they did, at least it means that elections aren't exclusive to the rich aristocracy.

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