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> 3. If you're a billionaire, why would you even care that much? The Koch Brothers' political network supposedly budgeted $889M for 2016 campaigns [0]. Clearly

by tbyehl 7y ago

> 3. If you're a billionaire, why would you even care that much? The Koch Brothers' political network supposedly budgeted $889M for 2016 campaigns [0]. Clearly, some billionaires care quite a bit. Whether they're zealots or expected a positive ROI for their businesses, who knows. Clinton + Super PACs spent $1,184,100,000 on the 2016 campaign [1]. Divided by 77,747 = $15,230.16 per person. All other problems aside, it seems within the realm of possibility that a PAC of Billionaires could raise enough money to move enough people to sway an election. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/politics/kochs-plan-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-campaign.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/politics/kochs-plan-to... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/ https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...

rtpg 7y ago
$15k to move to a different state (especially given job prospects are not great in places where that can go far) are not so great. Inversely that could pay for a couple of months of a staffer on the ground going around and trying to convince locals to change their vote. That feels like it could go a bit further than the 1 vote the $15k buys.
- tbyehl 7y ago
  Plenty of struggling people out there might be pretty happy to go struggle somewhere else with $15K in their pocket. And if a group of Mega Billionaires expecting a positive ROI believed they could lock up an election by convincing ~77,747 sympathetic voters to move, how much more money do you imagine they'd be willing to deploy? A better exercise would be to look at this map [0] and figure out how many people need to be moved to traditional swing states to assure a win for either side. [0] https://www.270towin.com/maps/same-since-2000 https://www.270towin.com/maps/same-since-2000
pgodzin 7y ago
The $15k per person ignores the number of votes spending that original billion influenced.
- beerandt 7y ago
  The other major oversight is: it's almost just as easy to pay voters to leave a given state. You don't have their idealogical sympathies to exploit, but I bet $15k no-questions-asked offer to move out of ie Florida is going to get some takers.

by tbyehl 7y ago

rtpg 7y ago

$15k to move to a different state (especially given job prospects are not great in places where that can go far) are not so great. Inversely that could pay for a couple of months of a staffer on the ground going around and trying to convince locals to change their vote. That feels like it could go a bit further than the 1 vote the $15k buys.

tbyehl 7y ago
Plenty of struggling people out there might be pretty happy to go struggle somewhere else with $15K in their pocket. And if a group of Mega Billionaires expecting a positive ROI believed they could lock up an election by convincing ~77,747 sympathetic voters to move, how much more money do you imagine they'd be willing to deploy? A better exercise would be to look at this map [0] and figure out how many people need to be moved to traditional swing states to assure a win for either side. [0] https://www.270towin.com/maps/same-since-2000 https://www.270towin.com/maps/same-since-2000

pgodzin 7y ago

The $15k per person ignores the number of votes spending that original billion influenced.

beerandt 7y ago
The other major oversight is: it's almost just as easy to pay voters to leave a given state. You don't have their idealogical sympathies to exploit, but I bet $15k no-questions-asked offer to move out of ie Florida is going to get some takers.