Surely the Democrats don’t need zillions of dollars from zillionaires to stay in politics. If a group of voters prefers the Democratic Party’s positions over the other parties, those voters will vote Democrats, regardless of whether or not the party purchases 583,420,716,934,792 television commercials. It can’t possibly be the case that Democratic voters only vote for Democrats because of advertising.
Why do people advertise, if it’s so completely ineffective? Are they all simply stupid and wasteful with their money?
Everyone who wants to promote something advertises, but not all advertising is effective. After most campaigns, it’s pretty well understood which were the most effective ads, and often the ads that laid the biggest eggs(such as Alison Lundergan Grimes shooting things and saying she’s not Barack Obama). Not surprisingly, most of the effective ads are the ads by candidates, not by third parties. This makes sense, because those ads are put together by political pros, whereas third party ads are usually not.
When I say “buying elections” I mean what I say. In most elections, the guy with the most money behind him wins. The presidency may be another story, even Bill Gates doesn’t have enough money to make Romney likeable. But for your local elections, the guy who can put the most ads on the radio and TV is going to win. No, money can’t buy a Republican that would knock off Nancy Pelosi for her seat just like money isn’t going to buy a Democrat a seat in rural Alabama. But if the district is at all competitive, money talks and bullshit walks. Citizens United just legitimizes the sale of state legislatures and the Congress.
I haven’t seen any Democrats arguing that the same rules would not apply to George Soros as would apply to the Kochs.
Disparaging terms may not help an argument, but they are fun.
Surely they do, because all candidates run as individual candidates, and see post #84.
Thank you, that helps explain why “buying an election” isn’t a good term. So why do people use it when they really mean “influence a politician”?
Yes. But are any “speech” resources so limited that their price is too high? I could be persuaded that “speech” subsidies are needed to provide access to those who are priced out of the “speech” market. Is anyone? I’m not seeing it today, where the cost to publish something on YouTube or FaceBook is extremely low.
So you want to criminalize my “Vote Obama” poster propped up in my lawn that I paid for myself?
(Please note that correlation is not causation. It’s quite possible that the winning candidate raises more money because contributors correctly prognosticate who will win the election. But for the sake of argument let’s assume causation goes from money to winning instead of the reverse.)
So you do mean “using money to advocate political opinions”. Well, that’s a necessary part of a liberal society. People have the right to advocate their politics. That takes time and resources, for which money is a proxy.
Not quite, I would require every network/station to provide each candidate in a given election with a specified and equal amount of free airtime; that’s how it works in France.
Not if it’s free. The problem here is not the advertising as such, it is the cost of advertising.
Because it comes down to the same thing. You spend the money to help the pol win, and the pol knows who he owes, and that if he does not show his gratitude, that money won’t be there next election.
Some corporations, I’ve read, sometimes contribute to both campaigns, just to make sure the winner owes them – that does not buy an election as such, but it does buy a pol.
Apparently. The most important, influential and expensive form is television advertising.
No, I just want to make it unnecessary for candidates to fundraise – and impossible for anyone to influence the outcome of an election by spending money on it. Your poster is too trivial to matter, there.
See above. I’m mainly concerned here with money spent on electoral campaigns, not on advertising to advocate a general political point of view, that’s another discussion.
Money isn’t a proxy for resources, money is resources. In America, money isn’t a proxy for power, money is power. And with great power comes great irresponsibility.
Can a man of great wealth be a responsible and worthy citizen? Yes, it would appear to be so, Bill Gates is an example. After he got married. (Behold! the healing power of nookie, thanks be to the Goddess…)
Are the Koch Brothers responsible citizens? No, they are not, they promote the dirty energy that feed their greed. The Titanic Earth is taking on water, and they run about drilling holes in the lifeboats. In the name of principle, mind you, protecting the all important rights of private property and free speech. But free speech is not the right to shout “Theater!” in a crowded fire.
Maybe no reasonable compromise is possible, but I doubt it, and we simply must try to find one. Because how long can you tread water?
But what about everyone else who has something to say about the election? Must the broadcaster provide them airtime as well? Or must they buy time? Or are they forbidden to express their views in that medium?
Hmm, maybe a lottery to determine who gets airtime?
The problem with that argument is it completely removes agency from the voters. Despite the caricature of average citizens as sheep, I don’t really believe it. People are making a choice, no matter how badly they choose.
Or, to put it another way, I think politicians are influenced by how people vote, rather than the money itself.
I’m happy with the former, but steadfast against the latter. The point of political speech is to influence others. And political speech without the means to pursue it is useless.
I understand your desire to prevent elected politicians from being influenced by money. That is a worthy goal. But politicians should be influenced by the voters. And voters should be influenced by political speech. And political speech needs to be able to come from anyone. But political speech, like everything, requires resources. Since political speech should not be restricted by the government, neither should it restrict the use of resources for political speech.
I want to live in a liberal society where I can spend mine own resources (time, money, etc) to advocate my political beliefs. Yeah, it’s piddly squat compared to wealthier and better connected people. But infringing their right to spend their resources on their political beliefs infringes on my right too!
Maybe instead of looking for ways to suppress the speech of those with a lot of resources, the left should be looking for ways to magnify the speech of those with few resources.
Those are not separable. One of the best ways to advocate a political point of view is to support a candidate with that view.
Somehow there’s still conservatives who don’t get it.
You know why nobody seems to care about Soros? Because this topic isn’t about that. By all means bring up your concerns in the Simpsons tapped out thread, or the dating advice thread, or the anti-vax thread. You’ll find that somehow, Simpsons fans, people who date, and people who believe and don’t believe in vaccinations strangely, somehow, also don’t care about George Soros. Or the Koch brothers for that matter.
Anyways, why even bother to defend them? The GOP want the election to be bought, they don’t care about fairness or they wouldn’t be pushing Voter ID laws or gerrymandering or trying to contract voting hours or the voting population. They see that they’ve lost some big battles because they are crazy and instead of becoming sane, they change the rules to push through the crazy. I’m confused why some of you conservatives don’t just come out an embrace the inequality because its so obvious that’s what you want, you can’t even have a civil discussion without attacking the other person
And money influences how people vote. If you can convince people to change their mind with something as concrete as which soft drink they think tastes better, based on an athletes smiling face, than you can certainly influence a voters opinion on something as nebulous as which economic policy is most likely to bring them prosperity. If a person sees 100 ads showing people who claim they can’t afford their health insurance due to Obamacare, and 10 ads showing people who now can afford health insurance due to Obamacare, that person will naturally think that Obamcare caused 10 times as many people to lose health care as gain it, even if the opposite was true. As others have said if money didn’t work people wouldn’t spend it.
However I am less concerned with elections being swayed by money than I am with politicians. If all politicians were concerned about was catering to the voters, and the money just influenced which politicians got into office that would be one thing. The problem is that with money having a real influence, the politicians also have to cater to the money, that is where serious corruption occurs, while quid pro quo bribery is illegal, it is incredibly easy to get around it.
Mr. Money bags: I like your agenda and would like to see it pursued, so I started a $100 million PAC to insinuate that you opponent would sell the state of Alaska back to the communists. But don’t tell anyone that I’m involved as it might make my company seem slimy.
Sen. Spineless: Why thank you Mr. Moneybags, I’m glad you support the ideas that I think best serve my constituency. Also don’t worry my lips are sealed after all its an independent PAC of which I have no knowledge. Which is a good thing too as I would never say such a horrible lie about my opponent.
(one year later)
Lobbyist for Mr Moneybags: Just so you know, the sort of agenda Mr. Moneybags likes is one that includes selling mining rights to his company for 5 cents an acre.
Sen. Spineless: What a coincidence that is just the sort of agenda that I think will best serve my constituency.
*
(one year later)*
Mr. Money bags: I like your agenda and would like to see it pursued, so I started a $100 million PAC to insinuate that you opponent would outlaw parents reading bible stories to their children. But don’t tell anyone that I’m involved as it might make my company seem slimy.
(repeat)
OK, but the winner has to be stoned to death on-camera.
Can’t be done. Eventually, you just get to a point where…oh, wait. You mean, like, with rocks?
(post shortened)
And yet, the Democrats have recently spent hundreds of millions of dollars and still managed to lose enough seats in the House and Senate to lose control of both chambers. Life’s a beach.
I believe your confusion might stem from your assumption that everyone should think as you do. FYI - Ain’t gonna happen.
Many people are still concerned about King George Soros’s repeated attempts to influence elections. Maybe not in your circle of politics, but there are other circles. And they vote.
Sure. But people using speech to influence other people is a good thing, right?
I am concerned about politicians being swayed by money, too. But I can’t accept “let’s restrict the speech of people” as an acceptable way to prevent it.
Just like spying on people is not an acceptable way of preventing terrorists from killing us.
Not so much if the only speech anyone hears comes from a very small section of the population with a particular background. While it is true that there are million dollar donors who come from the left and from the right, there aren’t any million dollar donors who come from the not rich.
I think this is more like restricting passengers freedom to carry high explosives on commercial flights as a way of preventing terrorists from killing us. While there may be the occasional person who wants to put several sticks of dynamite in their carry-on for innocent reasons, removing that rule makes it trivial for someone with nefarious goals to carry them out.
It’s not as if I am suggesting that the rich should be silenced, just that they should have the same voice as any other citizen. Can anyone truly say that under reasonable campaign finance reforms, the wealthy would have too little influence to insure a robust democracy?
(Underlining added.) We’re not talking about campaign finance (at least I’m not). The topic in this thread is about advocacy groups paying for political “speech”. I see no problems with restricting money given to or coordination with campaigns. I do have a problem with restrictions preventing me from using my resources to express my political opinions.
That’s more like restrictions about shouting fire in a crowded theater. Unless someone’s political speech is actively creating conditions that are likely to cause imminent harm to others, it’s not right to restrict it.
That’s an unfortunate side effect of our wealth distribution compared to the cost to communicate. Let’s reduce inequality and/or make it cheaper, rather than restrict our speech.
Hey, congratulations for proving my point about your inability to maintain a non-frothing face when debating the issue. I ask why you don’t just show everyone who you truly are and instead of making a point about how money is speech or something, you throw out an attack on an unrelated issue to remind Democrats that they lost 2014. So hats off to you for being exactly who I thought you were. What do you think of the Simpsons game? Let’s get more non-sequitors out there!