Kenneth Vogel and Isaac Arnsdorf here write for Politico that the 2016 presidential race, so far, demonstrates that the candidates with the most money don’t always win.
Kenneth Vogel and Isaac Arnsdorf here write for Politico that the 2016 presidential race, so far, demonstrates that the candidates with the most money don’t always win.
And falls from third story windows aren’t always fatal.
Not always, but the ability to flood the airwaves and stuff mailboxes with campaign advertisements tends to help, to the detriment to the candidates that can’t. This is why many voters think there are only two parties in our country, because the sheer volume of D/R advertising makes it seem that way.
Articles such as these implicitly ask us to accept a few faulty premises:
1) Rich people got rich by being stupid and throwing away their money.
2) The sole point of putting money on one candidate is to get that candidate elected. After the election, rich people who bankroll one or another (or more than one) candidate then recede quietly into their big houses, not to be heard from again until the next election cycle. i.e., post election influence is not purchased.
3) Elected officials would never, EVER be influenced by someone who backed their opponent. After all, why would they care whether that backer might do it again in the next cycle? Or whether they might be able to get a little of the honey next time around?
If candidates can win an election on a shoestring budget but with “good ideas” then fine…let’s put them all on a shoestring budget and see whose ideas prevail. Until then, third parties have as much chance succeeding in any significant way (and by that I mean getting enough seats to influence legislation) as I have of getting a seat on the board of Goldman Sachs.