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You’re supposed to soundly distance yourself from them in very unequivocally language and NOT TAKE THEIR MONEY. For my consistency, I dislike politicians of any

You’re supposed to soundly distance yourself from them in very unequivocally language and NOT TAKE THEIR MONEY. For my consistency, I dislike politicians of any sort that take corporate donor money. I dislike money being such an important factor in politics these days instead of oh.... how candidates actually vote. I can’t tell what a candidate actually believes when things came down to it versus what their constituents would do. I know that Joe Biden has said before that while he personally doesn’t believe in abortion he believes his constituents want the freedom / choice in their communities. This is tricky. It gets much more clear-cut for me when the only possible motivations are purely based around corporate interests (“jobs” are almost a code word for corporate interests, heck even the GOP pivoted to using “job creator” instead of using corporations around the Romney-Obama election period).

beat 8y ago
Joe Biden's position is a good example of what I'm talking about. He can say "personally opposed", but the pro-choice people believe he's pro-choice anyway, and the pro-life people also believe he's pro-choice anyway. The language isn't fooling anyone.
- jadell 8y ago
  He is pro-choice, and he's not trying to fool anyone. He believe people should have the right to make the decision for themselves whether or not to have an abortion. For himself, he's made the decision he wouldn't want his partner to have one. There's nothing inconsistent or nefarious in that. I find that kind of honesty refreshing in a politician, when they can set aside their own personal beliefs and actually represent the people who elected them.
bobcostas55 8y ago
>I dislike money being such an important factor in politics these days instead of oh.... how candidates actually vote. There's a large empirical literature on the issue and the conclusion is that money is more or less irrelevant in politics. Political campaigns are entirely ineffective. The Minimal Persuasive Effects of Campaign Contact in General Elections: Evidence from 49 Field Experiments [0] "First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact 10-fold. These experiments’ average effect is also zero." Does Money Buy Votes? The Case of Self-Financed Gubernatorial Candidates, 1998–2008 [1] "The apparent effect of spending on votes is severely inflated by omitted variable bias: the best candidates also happen to be the best fundraisers. [...] self-financed spending has no statistical effect on election results" [0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-012-9193-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-012-9193-1
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Surprisingly, neither of those papers appear to have anything to do with your point that "money is more or less irrelevant in politics". The first seems about personal contact, the second whether where the money came from made any difference, not whether they had any.
- ArchTypical 8y ago
  When there's no candidate, it's still money that wins initiatives in the western USA. I don't care what that particular study concluded over 40 races of self-financed Gov candidates because it's not compelling. Existing studies of interest that acknowledge definitive correlation only differ in how to measure the degree and where diminishing returns occur. > There's a large empirical literature on the issue and the conclusion is that money is more or less irrelevant in politics. That's simply nonsense.
- devonkim 8y ago
  Not everything that happens in law is done through voting though and thus the legislation and lobbying done is studied. I remember someone publishing some results showing that for as little as $50k to a politician’s campaign you can get a return on investment many times over depending upon your industry. In fact, I’d argue the most important things that happen in government is what we do not get to vote on, which is part of why voting is so important - the elected officials fill in the differential.
  - bobcostas55 8y ago
    About that.. "We find no evidence that corporations benefit from electing their favored candidate, and we can statistically reject effect sizes greater than 0.4 percent of firm value. Contrary to the concerns of many observers, corporate campaign contributions do not appear to buy significant political favors." http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/spenkuch/research/qpq.pdf http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/spenkuch/researc...
roenxi 8y ago
> and NOT TAKE THEIR MONEY So by logical extension, a highly virtuous person would ... donate money to racist causes? Because that is the exact opposite of taking their donations. There is always going to be one politician who has policies that are more racist-friendly than the other. Targeting specific groups for exclusion from the political process, even at the social level, is a recipe for disaster. We want less of that, not more. At most, ask for transparency about where the donations are sourced from so the polity can talk about it.
- Erem 8y ago
  I think devonkim meant that politicians DO in fact have control over which deplorable supporters they get associated with in the public eye -- the politicians who accept donations from racist organizations are the racist politicians.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    Firstly, that is not what devonkim said, so he probably doesn't mean that. Secondly, that is also wrong. Trump is a good example of this sort of thing - a reporter just has to look at him sideways to get told that black unemployment is at a record low, and over the last 2 years he's pulled a couple of pro-black political stunts. About half the media will still call him a racist, because he has _no_ control over who he gets associated with. I expect this point would come up in a debate so I'll address it - a 'Muslim travel ban' is only racist to someone who is very confused about what 'race' means. Given the pain Bush & Obama have delivered to the Middle East in particular, and the Muslim world in general, this is a distasteful but certainly not inconsistent choice for US foreign policy. > politicians who accept donations from racist organizations are the racist politicians. Maybe in the abstract, but who are there "racist organizations" that are making political donations to influence politicans? Assuming we are still talking US politics, the last scandal [0] involving the KKK (only racist organisation I know of) was in 1991! Everything since is literally throwaway one-line comments of no real significance. I don't think racist organisations are active in politics, they'd make candidates unelectable. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_United_States_politics#1970s%E2%80%93present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_United_States_politi...

beat 8y ago

Joe Biden's position is a good example of what I'm talking about. He can say "personally opposed", but the pro-choice people believe he's pro-choice anyway, and the pro-life people also believe he's pro-choice anyway. The language isn't fooling anyone.

jadell 8y ago
He is pro-choice, and he's not trying to fool anyone. He believe people should have the right to make the decision for themselves whether or not to have an abortion. For himself, he's made the decision he wouldn't want his partner to have one. There's nothing inconsistent or nefarious in that. I find that kind of honesty refreshing in a politician, when they can set aside their own personal beliefs and actually represent the people who elected them.

bobcostas55 8y ago

>I dislike money being such an important factor in politics these days instead of oh.... how candidates actually vote. There's a large empirical literature on the issue and the conclusion is that money is more or less irrelevant in politics. Political campaigns are entirely ineffective. The Minimal Persuasive Effects of Campaign Contact in General Elections: Evidence from 49 Field Experiments [0] "First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact 10-fold. These experiments’ average effect is also zero." Does Money Buy Votes? The Case of Self-Financed Gubernatorial Candidates, 1998–2008 [1] "The apparent effect of spending on votes is severely inflated by omitted variable bias: the best candidates also happen to be the best fundraisers. [...] self-financed spending has no statistical effect on election results" [0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867 [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-012-9193-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-012-9193-1

yesenadam 8y ago
Surprisingly, neither of those papers appear to have anything to do with your point that "money is more or less irrelevant in politics". The first seems about personal contact, the second whether where the money came from made any difference, not whether they had any.
ArchTypical 8y ago
When there's no candidate, it's still money that wins initiatives in the western USA. I don't care what that particular study concluded over 40 races of self-financed Gov candidates because it's not compelling. Existing studies of interest that acknowledge definitive correlation only differ in how to measure the degree and where diminishing returns occur. > There's a large empirical literature on the issue and the conclusion is that money is more or less irrelevant in politics. That's simply nonsense.
devonkim 8y ago
Not everything that happens in law is done through voting though and thus the legislation and lobbying done is studied. I remember someone publishing some results showing that for as little as $50k to a politician’s campaign you can get a return on investment many times over depending upon your industry. In fact, I’d argue the most important things that happen in government is what we do not get to vote on, which is part of why voting is so important - the elected officials fill in the differential.
- bobcostas55 8y ago
  About that.. "We find no evidence that corporations benefit from electing their favored candidate, and we can statistically reject effect sizes greater than 0.4 percent of firm value. Contrary to the concerns of many observers, corporate campaign contributions do not appear to buy significant political favors." http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/spenkuch/research/qpq.pdf http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/spenkuch/researc...

roenxi 8y ago

> and NOT TAKE THEIR MONEY So by logical extension, a highly virtuous person would ... donate money to racist causes? Because that is the exact opposite of taking their donations. There is always going to be one politician who has policies that are more racist-friendly than the other. Targeting specific groups for exclusion from the political process, even at the social level, is a recipe for disaster. We want less of that, not more. At most, ask for transparency about where the donations are sourced from so the polity can talk about it.

Erem 8y ago
I think devonkim meant that politicians DO in fact have control over which deplorable supporters they get associated with in the public eye -- the politicians who accept donations from racist organizations are the racist politicians.
- roenxi 8y ago
  Firstly, that is not what devonkim said, so he probably doesn't mean that. Secondly, that is also wrong. Trump is a good example of this sort of thing - a reporter just has to look at him sideways to get told that black unemployment is at a record low, and over the last 2 years he's pulled a couple of pro-black political stunts. About half the media will still call him a racist, because he has _no_ control over who he gets associated with. I expect this point would come up in a debate so I'll address it - a 'Muslim travel ban' is only racist to someone who is very confused about what 'race' means. Given the pain Bush & Obama have delivered to the Middle East in particular, and the Muslim world in general, this is a distasteful but certainly not inconsistent choice for US foreign policy. > politicians who accept donations from racist organizations are the racist politicians. Maybe in the abstract, but who are there "racist organizations" that are making political donations to influence politicans? Assuming we are still talking US politics, the last scandal [0] involving the KKK (only racist organisation I know of) was in 1991! Everything since is literally throwaway one-line comments of no real significance. I don't think racist organisations are active in politics, they'd make candidates unelectable. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_United_States_politics#1970s%E2%80%93present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_United_States_politi...