Why does it require truckloads of money to win an election? Or does it? Hillary Clinton spend gobs of money, $1.2 billion to be exact (according to Bloomberg News). Hillary Clinton also got “free” campaign money with Obama flying around the country in publicly funded Air Force One to campaign on her behalf and not to mention the free publicity from a media that was very much pro-Hillary. Compared that with Donald Trump who spent a total of $280 million dollars and still winning the presidency. This also seems to be the reason why Democrats can’t believe President Trump could have won without some sort of “interference” from Russia and such. All of that interference nonsense turned out to be nothing but a Hillary funded fantasy while Biden and his son were the ones actually seeking and receiving foreign money (but I digress).
As with anything, when there is steady pool of resources, an ecosystem (e.g. the Swamp) is created around that pool of resources filled with creatures that live off that resource. Politics is a primary example. Somehow, we have now come to a point in our political governance that successful campaigning is measured not by the support of the people or the strength of a candidate’s ideas, but by the amount of “donations” generated for a particular campaign. For the political media, consulting, research, marketing and advertising firms, it is a time of feasting on the pool of political money upon which they eagerly await (every election cycle). In many ways, these media and political corporations need an environment of political strife and they are only too happy to build a narrative of existential threat to both sides in order to sell their services.
The next question I have is how exactly does money win elections? Yard signs everywhere has never swayed my vote one way or another and not even when one candidate’s yard signs solidly outnumber the other candidates. In the modern age, YouTube and Facebook advertising is full of paid political ads and you can’t watch a dog or cat video without being bombarded by political ads before, during and after your cute animal video. I knew where the two candidates stood on the issues before they even had their first debate. You would have to be literally sitting in a cave to not know about the history of both of the candidates and even then I think even the Taliban knows who Donald Trump and Joe Biden are. I don’t know how many people are sitting on the fence at this point, ready to be swayed by an attack ad or yard sign by either side. Everyone has already pretty much made up their minds already.
Personally, I support my candidate but I have not donated any money this time around to the campaign. That doesn’t mean that I am apathetic to the outcome of the 2020 election, quite the opposite. For one, you can be sure I will be at the polling booth to vote this November for the candidate I believe to best support my position on individual liberty and free markets and vote against the one that wants to destroy our historically shared American vision of hard work and freedom. I also manage a libertarian social media group with over 48,000 members that help to support and educate members on the fundamentals of liberty and free markets. My other efforts also includes this media website on which you are reading this article which is dedicated to debunking left-wing media propaganda and lies and to offer sane and factual analysis of topical issues. These efforts I believe are one thousand times more effective than me writing a big check to political campaigns to waste on yard signs, social media videos, memes, and telemarketing calls.
Frankly at the heart of the problem is the money. Without all this strife, political media companies cannot continue to live in an ecosystem that is flooded with money every few years. They must make every election seem like a crisis of survival to either side or else they don’t make as much money. No election may be allowed to be boring, that kills the money flow.
When dealing with vast pools of money and resources, there is corruption. Politicians may not take campaign money and spend it on themselves, that is against the rules. However, they can always spend hundreds of millions on these political media companies and which they will receive kickbacks in the form of cushy million dollar jobs for themselves, their family and political allies from the companies that they spent hundreds of millions of dollars upon. Chelsea Clinton comes to mind where she landed a million dollar salary coming straight out of college. Where did that job come from? A legal firm that received Clinton campaign money from in the past. How did Obama go from a “community organizer” making no money, to President with a $500K annual salary for eight years to buying two multi-million dollar homes in Washington, DC and Martha’s Vineyard? Joe Biden tried to do the same sort of profiteering off his political position in the recent allegations about his son receiving money from Ukrainian oligarchs and giving his dad 1/2 the money (still under investigation). Politics is fraught with such conflicts and interest and profiteering.
The case I am making is that money is a big problem in politics. Contributing money to political campaigns is a waste and only feeds the swamp creatures. People and corporations need to stop sending money to political parties. If people and corporations are really interested in helping those in need, how about taking that $1.2 billion dollars that Hillary spent on advertising and kickbacks and instead give it to the poor? Democrats would have been much happier not having wasted so much of their money on a failed political campaign.
Well stated Mr. Fu!
I’ll remain at least a modest donor to my favorite pols though. I appreciate and agree with your point that message is more important than money. But the current system does favor one method over another, and that is, money talks. It’s the squeaky wheel principle.
I wish we could manage this expensive “eco-system” that surrounds the political swamp. [a great image, btw] The current methods certainly work together to fuel all this excess. As we’ve already seen with attempts to restrict the cash flow, they are subject to the crafty minds of those wanting to create procedural loop holes to maintain the nutrient supply to this swamp’s eco-system.
The bottom line is any correction would have to be comprehensive in order for it to work.
I agree. It will be difficult but not impossible. It has come to the point where the direct debate between the candidates are almost irrelevant. I think the solution is to put ALL candidates on an equal footing through a free debate of ideas sponsored by the government with no one candidate given any advantage over another to make their case. Whatever can be done to make the political spending less important than the actual ideas of the candidates would be a welcomed improvement.