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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 443
CEG\'er
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CEG\'er
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 443 |
Originally posted by caltour2:
Big contributors control elections because campaign money is the "mother's milk of politics." Just about the only way to win an election nowadays is to spend more on advertising, outreach, organization and payola than your opponent.
Define big contributors, there are a number of limits on campaign financing resulting from the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 that limit campaign contributions for the various elected offices. Are we talking about campaign finance only or are you lumping in PAC's and lobbyists into this discussion (which are an entirely different story really)? The fact is that the lions share of money (some 408 million in the 108th Congress alone) spent per year is on issue specific advertising (four out of every five dollars) in regard to K street/lobbyists, from corporations. This money has nothing to do with campaign finance of course, but the fact is that's where corporate America spends the majority of it's money when it comes to influencing votes in Congress, not on campaign finance for influencing individual votes.
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Come on, Cjbaldw. This has been all over the media for years now. Here's just one example:
Washington Post on big Republican money buying influence in Washington.
Money wins elections.
I generally put very little weight in what the press says. Since we live in a capitalist society, it would seem to make sense to me what you are saying, that money talks. I've also seen several studies that have stated that for all of the money spent on campaigns, very few people alter their votes when all is said and done. Most people vote along party lines no matter what because their belief system lines up better with one system than the other (or put in a way I prefer, voting for the lesser of two evils), and this rarely changes. Since roughly half of Americans vote in the national election, with much less of a percentage voting in local/state/congressional elections, the biggest determiner of who wins would seem to be whatever party can get the voters to the ballot box. The country seems pretty evenly split along party lines right now, so at least IMHO we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to bring more people to the ballot box to give us the same end result percentage-wise when it comes to voting counts. What a waste.
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