4 ms·

Was Hillary Clinton "buying the election" when she outspent Donald Trump roughly 2:1? Or is it only "buying the election" when it's a candidate you dislike? M

Was Hillary Clinton "buying the election" when she outspent Donald Trump roughly 2:1? Or is it only "buying the election" when it's a candidate you dislike? My vote isn't for sale and I assume that's true for other Americans. If I thought otherwise, I'd have a hard time convincing myself that democracies can work.

ehmish 7y ago
I'd say yes to both, but I'm not from the US so I have no horse in this race
6510 7y ago
It doesn't work like that. The big spenders drown out any alternative and they offer only a different interface for pretty much the same back end. Since the US green party had 200-300 views per youtube video for them out of a million voters about 1 or 2 are not fooled. With candidates further "down" the list we all are fooled. I read maybe half the program for 1% of the alt-candidates. Definitely fooled I was.
hcknwscommenter 7y ago
Hillary outspending Trump 2:1 is a ridiculous way to look at it. When you combine the PAC/SuperPAC money spent for Trump with the Kremlin GRU efforts, it seems to me that Trump (including 3rd party efforts to help Trump and/or reduce Dem turnout) outspent Hillary roughly 100:1.
- leftyted 7y ago
  > Or is it only "buying the election" when it's a candidate you dislike? You could have just said "yes".
- rudedogg 7y ago
  Can you back this up with... anything? I'm not denying the Russian interference, but the numbers include PACs: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/ https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...
  - hcknwscommenter 7y ago
    From your link you are presumably comparing $1,190.7M to $646.8M correct? Those values don't reflect the 66M of Trumps own money, don't reflect Russian interference (which has been going on since approximately the Magnitksy act), and don't reflect the in-kind gifts Trump gave by using his own private jet and numerous Trump properties for rallies. Maybe (and I truly mean maybe), the 100:1 remark was hyperbole on my part, but I personally don't doubt that the GRU spent billions.
rtkwe 7y ago
A big difference is Bloomberg currently is 100% self funding his campaign while the '16 Hillary campaign had a lot of money yes but it came from donors supporting her. Bloomberg is self funding and is only where he is because of the massive amount of money he's throwing around from his own pocket. Also it's not about explicitly buying votes but there's a lot of lower information voters out there who currently are principally hearing from Bloomberg because he's spending lots of money in later states where the more traditionally funded campaigns haven't because they're on lower cash reserves.
- leftyted 7y ago
  > A big difference is Bloomberg currently is 100% self funding his campaign while the '16 Hillary campaign had a lot of money yes but it came from donors supporting her. Bloomberg is self funding and is only where he is because of the massive amount of money he's throwing around from his own pocket. It's not clear at all that Bloomberg would have failed had he run a traditional campaign. I'm not bothered by self-funded campaigns because my vote isn't for sale (and I assume the same is true for others). Winning elections is about convincing people, not brainwashing them. Money increases visibility, but it didn't save Hillary Clinton. > Also it's not about explicitly buying votes but there's a lot of lower information voters out there who currently are principally hearing from Bloomberg because he's spending lots of money in later states where the more traditionally funded campaigns haven't because they're on lower cash reserves. "Lower information voters" is just code for "dumb people who disagree with me". Your perspective is that voters are dumb animals who flock to whoever spends the most on ads.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    I'm not saying it's a 1 to 1 correlation between dollars spent and winning just that without being able to spend piles of money a lot of people who've gone from Biden to him wouldn't have heard much about him and that his large spending is artificially increasing his numbers in polls above where'd they be if he didn't have the funds to spam states later in the primary cycle. No 'low information' is just that people who don't, either through apathy, time or lack of interest, seek out or read that much about the various campaigns. Tons of smart people are low information. Also your vote might not literally be for sale but it's definitely influenced by the amount of media and information you see about campaigns which is correlated with money. Consider the degenerate case of a campaign with nearly zero money but a perfect fit with your politics. Can't vote for it if you haven't heard of it.

ehmish 7y ago

I'd say yes to both, but I'm not from the US so I have no horse in this race

6510 7y ago

It doesn't work like that. The big spenders drown out any alternative and they offer only a different interface for pretty much the same back end. Since the US green party had 200-300 views per youtube video for them out of a million voters about 1 or 2 are not fooled. With candidates further "down" the list we all are fooled. I read maybe half the program for 1% of the alt-candidates. Definitely fooled I was.

hcknwscommenter 7y ago

Hillary outspending Trump 2:1 is a ridiculous way to look at it. When you combine the PAC/SuperPAC money spent for Trump with the Kremlin GRU efforts, it seems to me that Trump (including 3rd party efforts to help Trump and/or reduce Dem turnout) outspent Hillary roughly 100:1.

leftyted 7y ago
> Or is it only "buying the election" when it's a candidate you dislike? You could have just said "yes".
rudedogg 7y ago
Can you back this up with... anything? I'm not denying the Russian interference, but the numbers include PACs: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/ https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  From your link you are presumably comparing $1,190.7M to $646.8M correct? Those values don't reflect the 66M of Trumps own money, don't reflect Russian interference (which has been going on since approximately the Magnitksy act), and don't reflect the in-kind gifts Trump gave by using his own private jet and numerous Trump properties for rallies. Maybe (and I truly mean maybe), the 100:1 remark was hyperbole on my part, but I personally don't doubt that the GRU spent billions.

rtkwe 7y ago

A big difference is Bloomberg currently is 100% self funding his campaign while the '16 Hillary campaign had a lot of money yes but it came from donors supporting her. Bloomberg is self funding and is only where he is because of the massive amount of money he's throwing around from his own pocket. Also it's not about explicitly buying votes but there's a lot of lower information voters out there who currently are principally hearing from Bloomberg because he's spending lots of money in later states where the more traditionally funded campaigns haven't because they're on lower cash reserves.

leftyted 7y ago
> A big difference is Bloomberg currently is 100% self funding his campaign while the '16 Hillary campaign had a lot of money yes but it came from donors supporting her. Bloomberg is self funding and is only where he is because of the massive amount of money he's throwing around from his own pocket. It's not clear at all that Bloomberg would have failed had he run a traditional campaign. I'm not bothered by self-funded campaigns because my vote isn't for sale (and I assume the same is true for others). Winning elections is about convincing people, not brainwashing them. Money increases visibility, but it didn't save Hillary Clinton. > Also it's not about explicitly buying votes but there's a lot of lower information voters out there who currently are principally hearing from Bloomberg because he's spending lots of money in later states where the more traditionally funded campaigns haven't because they're on lower cash reserves. "Lower information voters" is just code for "dumb people who disagree with me". Your perspective is that voters are dumb animals who flock to whoever spends the most on ads.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  I'm not saying it's a 1 to 1 correlation between dollars spent and winning just that without being able to spend piles of money a lot of people who've gone from Biden to him wouldn't have heard much about him and that his large spending is artificially increasing his numbers in polls above where'd they be if he didn't have the funds to spam states later in the primary cycle. No 'low information' is just that people who don't, either through apathy, time or lack of interest, seek out or read that much about the various campaigns. Tons of smart people are low information. Also your vote might not literally be for sale but it's definitely influenced by the amount of media and information you see about campaigns which is correlated with money. Consider the degenerate case of a campaign with nearly zero money but a perfect fit with your politics. Can't vote for it if you haven't heard of it.