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And how much collective campaign financing will these angry people provide next election? Zero? Then fuck them.

legutierr 13y ago
Campaign financing only exists to buy propaganda to influence people to vote one way or another (excluding some dirty tricks at the margins). Issue voters are largely outside the reach of this propaganda, which is why they often have so much influence (think NRA and Christian conservatives, who are willing to go against party interests to pursue their issues). If a large enough block of organized, committed issue voters were to emerge from this event (especially a bipartisan block), that would do much to change the political landscape, and could significantly undermine the influence of money in certain elections.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  That's a lot of ifs. All I know is, when I was a kid calling your congressmen works. Now hundreds of people spamming phone calls and emails has no effect at all. Advertising works and the politicians know it. They don't care about fringe voters because it's usually not a big enough group to matter.
  - legutierr 13y ago
    I actually only count one "if" in my comment. Also, you kind of beg the question, don't you, when you say "They don't care about fringe voters because it's usually not a big enough group to matter"? The whole point of my comment was to point out that the people who care about this issue may now be numerous enough to matter.
- graycat 13y ago
  > especially a bipartisan block Yup, that's a biggie. Let's do a little simple arithmetic: Suppose Senator/Representative A is really popular and won by 55-45 at the last election. Now along comes "a bipartisan block" of 10% of the voters all uniformly well up on their hind legs and totally torqued over issue X. So, now at the next election politician A and their opponent politician B get to split the 90%. Assume that this 90% again splits 55-45 for politician A (here we are using the assumption that the block was bipartisan). So now we have 0.55 * 90 = 49.5 0.45 * 90 = 40.5 for politician A versus B. Then, if politician A neglects the block, politician B gets the 10% and the election is a win 50.5-49.5 for politician B. This is simple arithmetic for a simple scenario but illustrates the main point: A politician who fails to take seriously a 10% bipartisan block is well on the way to a new career.

Campaign financing only exists to buy propaganda to influence people to vote one way or another (excluding some dirty tricks at the margins). Issue voters are largely outside the reach of this propaganda, which is why they often have so much influence (think NRA and Christian conservatives, who are willing to go against party interests to pursue their issues). If a large enough block of organized, committed issue voters were to emerge from this event (especially a bipartisan block), that would do much to change the political landscape, and could significantly undermine the influence of money in certain elections.

flyinRyan 13y ago
That's a lot of ifs. All I know is, when I was a kid calling your congressmen works. Now hundreds of people spamming phone calls and emails has no effect at all. Advertising works and the politicians know it. They don't care about fringe voters because it's usually not a big enough group to matter.
- legutierr 13y ago
  I actually only count one "if" in my comment. Also, you kind of beg the question, don't you, when you say "They don't care about fringe voters because it's usually not a big enough group to matter"? The whole point of my comment was to point out that the people who care about this issue may now be numerous enough to matter.
graycat 13y ago
> especially a bipartisan block Yup, that's a biggie. Let's do a little simple arithmetic: Suppose Senator/Representative A is really popular and won by 55-45 at the last election. Now along comes "a bipartisan block" of 10% of the voters all uniformly well up on their hind legs and totally torqued over issue X. So, now at the next election politician A and their opponent politician B get to split the 90%. Assume that this 90% again splits 55-45 for politician A (here we are using the assumption that the block was bipartisan). So now we have 0.55 * 90 = 49.5 0.45 * 90 = 40.5 for politician A versus B. Then, if politician A neglects the block, politician B gets the 10% and the election is a win 50.5-49.5 for politician B. This is simple arithmetic for a simple scenario but illustrates the main point: A politician who fails to take seriously a 10% bipartisan block is well on the way to a new career.