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If money in politics is so important why wasn't Sanders or Bloomberg able to win the Democratic primaries crying emoji

rayiner 2y ago
And why did Trump beat Clinton, who outspent him 2:1? Why is Trump running even with Biden, despite Biden having a huge fundraising advantage? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/briefing/biden-campaign-money.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/briefing/biden-campaign-m... Most campaign funds are spent on ads, and ads don’t really persuade voters. When was the last time a political ad even registered to you? I think campaigns spend a lot of money for the same reason we spend lots of money on interventions at the end of life. It’s more a psychological thing because the stakes are high than the money actually having a major impact on the outcome.
- falcolas 2y ago
  > When was the last time a political ad even registered to you? They're not targeting you. Or me. Or 99.9% of the folks on this board. They're targeting their efforts at the undecided middle who are not sure who they'll vote for, or even if they'll vote. The ones who hear "Genocide Joe" or "Von Shitsinpants" and don't apply any further critical thinking. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in swing states just doing "grassroots" get-out-and-vote campaigns.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    I'm one of those people, and I don't think advertisements are effective on any of them. I think that's proven true empirically. In 2016, Clinton massively outspent Trump, but Trump broke the "blue wall" by winning over a bunch of Obama 2008 voters. If you look at polling over the last six months, Trump has significantly increased his support among working class Hispanics, and materially increased his support among black people. But Biden has spent two to three times as much as Trump on advertising: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/politics/advertising-election-biden-trump/index.html# https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/politics/advertising-election.... I think what you're really seeing with these voters is that they don't line up ideologically with either party, so their voting is highly context-dependent. They vote based on their perception of what's going on in the country. My wife and I are going to vote Trump in 2024, after voting for Biden in 2020, because of immigration, affirmative action, New York's prosecution of Trump, etc. The salience of these issues changes from election-to-election. In 2020, Biden was the pro-vaccination candidate, and in 2024, he's the pro-immigration candidate, and those two things cuts in different directions for many voters. But I don't think advertisements can change anyone's views on those issues. Obviously, cable news, Tik Tok, Facebook, etc., shape people's views on those issues (or rather, people's perception of the salience of those issues), but the candidates can't control that. I think you're correct that the grassroots get-out-and-vote campaigns have a large impact, but I think that's also very different from money spent on ads. That's about each party turning out its base to actually go vote, not really influencing people through mass media. Is it a bad thing that money is spent doing that?
    - dctoedt 2y ago
      > the prosecution of Trump in New York cemented my vote choice [for Trump] That's a shame. Here's another perspective: Trump has made a career out of, so to speak, defiantly driving as fast as he wants, whenever and wherever he wants. This time, he's gotten a big ticket for going 90 in a 70 mph zone on an interstate highway — sure, it's not a school zone, but it's hard to see the ticket as political persecution. (And let's not forget that the judge in the NY case bent over backwards to be fair to Trump — not to mention that the jurors, each of whom Trump's defense counsel had a chance to strike, were unanimous about all 34 felony counts.)
      - rayiner 2y ago
        > Trump has made a career out of, so to speak, defiantly driving as fast as he wants, whenever and wherever he wants. That’s utterly unsubstantiated. Trump has been a businessman in New York City for decades and was never prosecuted criminally for anything until he entered politics. It’s also irrelevant. Even if it were true that “he’s gotten away with lots of crimes in the past” that doesn’t justify prosecuting him on a creative legal theory. When a gang member is prosecuted for bullshit, defense attorneys fall over themselves saying that each prosecution must be justified on its own, not the defendant’s uncharged and unproven bad acts. > This time, he's gotten a big ticket for going 90 in a 70 mph zone on an interstate highway — sure, it's not a school zone It’s not like that at all. Trump was prosecuted on a creative legal theory—stitching together three different laws which individually couldn’t support a prosecution for either jurisdictional or time-bar reasons—that even CNN’s legal commentator Elie Honig called “unjustified.” https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-legal-guru-says-new-york-trump-prosecutors-contorted-law-case-unjustified-mess https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-legal-guru-says-new-york-t... > it's hard to see the ticket as political persecution. It is not only a political prosecution, but the bar’s deafening silence is profoundly shameful to our whole profession. Attorneys who do extensive pro bono work getting gang members off on technicalities are looking the other way when New York brings a novel prosecution that they would condemn has it been brought against a violent criminal. At some point recently, many attorneys abandoned longstanding principles of the legal profession for liberal moral sensibilities. I remember folks at my wife’s old firm, Arnold & Porter, sniffing about how they would never represent Trump. This is a firm that has made its money for decades (and continues to do so) defending Philip Morris against cancer victims. This was before January 6, back when Trump’s biggest crime was being, in their view, “a racist sexist homophobe.” In the new morality embraced by much of the legal profession, that makes Trump worse than a company that peddled poison and killed millions of people over decades. Big firms should be lining up to work pro bono on Trump’s appeal given the novel legal issues it raises. But they won’t because Trump offends their moral sensibilities in a way that defending gang members somehow does not. It’s sick.

And why did Trump beat Clinton, who outspent him 2:1? Why is Trump running even with Biden, despite Biden having a huge fundraising advantage? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/briefing/biden-campaign-money.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/briefing/biden-campaign-m... Most campaign funds are spent on ads, and ads don’t really persuade voters. When was the last time a political ad even registered to you? I think campaigns spend a lot of money for the same reason we spend lots of money on interventions at the end of life. It’s more a psychological thing because the stakes are high than the money actually having a major impact on the outcome.

falcolas 2y ago
> When was the last time a political ad even registered to you? They're not targeting you. Or me. Or 99.9% of the folks on this board. They're targeting their efforts at the undecided middle who are not sure who they'll vote for, or even if they'll vote. The ones who hear "Genocide Joe" or "Von Shitsinpants" and don't apply any further critical thinking. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in swing states just doing "grassroots" get-out-and-vote campaigns.
- rayiner 2y ago
  I'm one of those people, and I don't think advertisements are effective on any of them. I think that's proven true empirically. In 2016, Clinton massively outspent Trump, but Trump broke the "blue wall" by winning over a bunch of Obama 2008 voters. If you look at polling over the last six months, Trump has significantly increased his support among working class Hispanics, and materially increased his support among black people. But Biden has spent two to three times as much as Trump on advertising: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/politics/advertising-election-biden-trump/index.html# https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/politics/advertising-election.... I think what you're really seeing with these voters is that they don't line up ideologically with either party, so their voting is highly context-dependent. They vote based on their perception of what's going on in the country. My wife and I are going to vote Trump in 2024, after voting for Biden in 2020, because of immigration, affirmative action, New York's prosecution of Trump, etc. The salience of these issues changes from election-to-election. In 2020, Biden was the pro-vaccination candidate, and in 2024, he's the pro-immigration candidate, and those two things cuts in different directions for many voters. But I don't think advertisements can change anyone's views on those issues. Obviously, cable news, Tik Tok, Facebook, etc., shape people's views on those issues (or rather, people's perception of the salience of those issues), but the candidates can't control that. I think you're correct that the grassroots get-out-and-vote campaigns have a large impact, but I think that's also very different from money spent on ads. That's about each party turning out its base to actually go vote, not really influencing people through mass media. Is it a bad thing that money is spent doing that?
  - dctoedt 2y ago
    > the prosecution of Trump in New York cemented my vote choice [for Trump] That's a shame. Here's another perspective: Trump has made a career out of, so to speak, defiantly driving as fast as he wants, whenever and wherever he wants. This time, he's gotten a big ticket for going 90 in a 70 mph zone on an interstate highway — sure, it's not a school zone, but it's hard to see the ticket as political persecution. (And let's not forget that the judge in the NY case bent over backwards to be fair to Trump — not to mention that the jurors, each of whom Trump's defense counsel had a chance to strike, were unanimous about all 34 felony counts.)
    - rayiner 2y ago
      > Trump has made a career out of, so to speak, defiantly driving as fast as he wants, whenever and wherever he wants. That’s utterly unsubstantiated. Trump has been a businessman in New York City for decades and was never prosecuted criminally for anything until he entered politics. It’s also irrelevant. Even if it were true that “he’s gotten away with lots of crimes in the past” that doesn’t justify prosecuting him on a creative legal theory. When a gang member is prosecuted for bullshit, defense attorneys fall over themselves saying that each prosecution must be justified on its own, not the defendant’s uncharged and unproven bad acts. > This time, he's gotten a big ticket for going 90 in a 70 mph zone on an interstate highway — sure, it's not a school zone It’s not like that at all. Trump was prosecuted on a creative legal theory—stitching together three different laws which individually couldn’t support a prosecution for either jurisdictional or time-bar reasons—that even CNN’s legal commentator Elie Honig called “unjustified.” https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-legal-guru-says-new-york-trump-prosecutors-contorted-law-case-unjustified-mess https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-legal-guru-says-new-york-t... > it's hard to see the ticket as political persecution. It is not only a political prosecution, but the bar’s deafening silence is profoundly shameful to our whole profession. Attorneys who do extensive pro bono work getting gang members off on technicalities are looking the other way when New York brings a novel prosecution that they would condemn has it been brought against a violent criminal. At some point recently, many attorneys abandoned longstanding principles of the legal profession for liberal moral sensibilities. I remember folks at my wife’s old firm, Arnold & Porter, sniffing about how they would never represent Trump. This is a firm that has made its money for decades (and continues to do so) defending Philip Morris against cancer victims. This was before January 6, back when Trump’s biggest crime was being, in their view, “a racist sexist homophobe.” In the new morality embraced by much of the legal profession, that makes Trump worse than a company that peddled poison and killed millions of people over decades. Big firms should be lining up to work pro bono on Trump’s appeal given the novel legal issues it raises. But they won’t because Trump offends their moral sensibilities in a way that defending gang members somehow does not. It’s sick.