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>Restricting how money is spent in political races only protects incumbents and their party. This is false. http://www.businessinsider.com/congress-election-m

by chez17 13y ago

>Restricting how money is spent in political races only protects incumbents and their party. This is false. http://www.businessinsider.com/congress-election-money-2012-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/congress-election-money-2012-... People who spend more money win. So the rich and powerful can completely override the majority of people. People with no connection to a race can invest large amounts of money to secure a win. In fact, if you look around the world, the only way to make sure incumbents aren't over-protected is to restrict money. Looking at the American system, I don't see how anyone could utter the above line seriously. How has more money not protected incumbents?

ctdonath 13y ago
How has more money not protected incumbents? Plenty often, when enough people speak up (or contribute to others' costs of speaking up). Of late, numerous anti-gun incumbents are being recalled and replaced for enacting right-transgressing legislation.
CWuestefeld 13y ago
People who spend more money win. This is intuitive, and almost universally believed. But all actual data I'm aware of doesn't support this. for example [1] conventional wisdom, especially among progressives, is that money can buy elections. The Citizens United case was supposed to be the end of democracy since it meant unlimited corporate spending on elections. If money really did buy office, 2012 should have been great evidence for the hypothesis. Instead 2012 looks like a case study in the powerlessness of money, in the triumph of the autonomous voter. For instance, the Sunlight Foundation reports that 2/3 of outside cash was spent on losers. [1] http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/11/money_has_littl.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/11/money_has_littl....
- mhurron 13y ago
  2012 didn't necessarily prove that money has little effect on elections, it proved that money doesn't completely cover-up being a total jackass. The best funded campaign still convinced ~47% of voters to vote for a candidate that stated he didn't care about 47% of the country. That should be downright scary.
  - tolmasky 13y ago
    Really. Really? Are you honestly proposing that campaign finance was responsible for a Republican presidential candidate getting roughly half the vote, just like in every other election in recent history? Come on. Do you remember George W Bush's campaign in 2000? That was before Super PACs and after the most prosperous 8 years in American history. There are valid arguments for campaign finance reform, "the guy I don't like didn't lose by a wide enough margin" is not one of them.
    - mhurron 13y ago
      Unlike "every other election in recent history" 2012 had a candidate that openly stated that he did not care about roughly half the country. A rational voting base would not be expected to throw a lot of support behind someone taking that position, but they did. So what I am suggesting is that throwing a shit-ton of money promoting a horrible person worked, it brought a person who said "veterans, disabled people, seniors, you know what guys, fuck you" on even standing with someone who didn't. It just didn't convince enough people.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - tolmasky 13y ago
        So for starters, just mathematically, your arguments don't necessarily hold up, or rather aren't mutually exclusive. "This person said he didn't support roughly half the people in this country, yet he got roughly half the vote". OK, so maybe the other half voted for him... There's nothing fundamentally "irrational" about the results per se. Also, it almost sounds like you're too young to have lived through other elections. This event clearly stands out in your mind as the political faux pas of the century or something, but I can assure you in every election most candidates say or do stupid things of this caliber and its par for the course for people to forgive them (What else are you going to do? Sacrifice your personal identity and vote for the other guy???). Other things you're forgetting: 1. Only 62.3% of eligible voters even voted. So its not like half the country sided with him, its more like half of half (.47 * .623 = 29%). This also ignores all the people that disagreed with him that weren't eligible to vote, which is likely a LOT since it includes the undocumented and youth -- which theoretically fall into the category he doesn't care about. Right there alone you have a better explanation than "money". 2. Most people probably never even found out about Romney's comment, because they never find out about anything. You seem to be politically motivated and informed, you're making the mistake of assuming most other people are too. 3. You ignore that many people have deal-breaker issues and will give their guy a pass on literally everything else, ON BOTH SIDES. If I could somehow scientifically prove that a candidate would completely eliminate unemployment and poverty, he'd probably still lose a significant portion of the vote if he was overly pro-choice or pro-gay marriage. Same goes if he was pro-life or anti-gay marriage. 4. Both sides basically have half the media working for them spinning regardless of how much money they have. So in an environment where the media is constantly blowing out of proportion what "the other guy said" and going to absurd lengths to rationalize what "our guy said", it is not unexpected that the voting population becomes exhausted and skeptical about these events (this is a rational response btw). 5. People have their personal identities tied up in their political positions. Its not just this Romney comment, most times people prefer to defend their wrong positions than deal with the existential crisis that they were "wrong". This has way more to do with politics being treated as a team than as something external to yourself. You speak of a rational voting base? A rational voting base would have no party affiliation whatsoever, it makes no sense. You should be voting each time based on what is offered to you. Instead they see their party as their family. In the same way that if your dad said something unkosher you would take pains to understand what he "meant" while others would not, so too do people of a party try to rationalize what their candidate said vs what the other candidate said. And so on. I'll reiterate that I'm making no comment on whether campaign finance is good or bad, just suggesting that Romney losing by "not enough" is just not a solid argument.
briandh 13y ago
That is some seriously sloppy "evidence" to be citing. It makes no reference to any accounting for the popularity of the candidates before and after ad campaigns, the competitiveness of their districts (for House campaigns), incumbent status, and so on. It also says > Also interesting is that this doesn't even include outside independent spending, like money from Super PACs. as if to imply outside spending (a) is totally proportional to direct campaign spending and (b) has the same effects, to the same degrees, as direct campaign spending, neither of which is necessarily true. > People who spend more money win. The shoddy evidence you cited directly contradicts your absolute. EDIT: toned down wording of the last sentence

by chez17 13y ago

ctdonath 13y ago

How has more money not protected incumbents? Plenty often, when enough people speak up (or contribute to others' costs of speaking up). Of late, numerous anti-gun incumbents are being recalled and replaced for enacting right-transgressing legislation.

CWuestefeld 13y ago

People who spend more money win. This is intuitive, and almost universally believed. But all actual data I'm aware of doesn't support this. for example [1] conventional wisdom, especially among progressives, is that money can buy elections. The Citizens United case was supposed to be the end of democracy since it meant unlimited corporate spending on elections. If money really did buy office, 2012 should have been great evidence for the hypothesis. Instead 2012 looks like a case study in the powerlessness of money, in the triumph of the autonomous voter. For instance, the Sunlight Foundation reports that 2/3 of outside cash was spent on losers. [1] http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/11/money_has_littl.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/11/money_has_littl....

mhurron 13y ago
2012 didn't necessarily prove that money has little effect on elections, it proved that money doesn't completely cover-up being a total jackass. The best funded campaign still convinced ~47% of voters to vote for a candidate that stated he didn't care about 47% of the country. That should be downright scary.
- tolmasky 13y ago
  Really. Really? Are you honestly proposing that campaign finance was responsible for a Republican presidential candidate getting roughly half the vote, just like in every other election in recent history? Come on. Do you remember George W Bush's campaign in 2000? That was before Super PACs and after the most prosperous 8 years in American history. There are valid arguments for campaign finance reform, "the guy I don't like didn't lose by a wide enough margin" is not one of them.
  - mhurron 13y ago
    Unlike "every other election in recent history" 2012 had a candidate that openly stated that he did not care about roughly half the country. A rational voting base would not be expected to throw a lot of support behind someone taking that position, but they did. So what I am suggesting is that throwing a shit-ton of money promoting a horrible person worked, it brought a person who said "veterans, disabled people, seniors, you know what guys, fuck you" on even standing with someone who didn't. It just didn't convince enough people.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - tolmasky 13y ago
      So for starters, just mathematically, your arguments don't necessarily hold up, or rather aren't mutually exclusive. "This person said he didn't support roughly half the people in this country, yet he got roughly half the vote". OK, so maybe the other half voted for him... There's nothing fundamentally "irrational" about the results per se. Also, it almost sounds like you're too young to have lived through other elections. This event clearly stands out in your mind as the political faux pas of the century or something, but I can assure you in every election most candidates say or do stupid things of this caliber and its par for the course for people to forgive them (What else are you going to do? Sacrifice your personal identity and vote for the other guy???). Other things you're forgetting: 1. Only 62.3% of eligible voters even voted. So its not like half the country sided with him, its more like half of half (.47 * .623 = 29%). This also ignores all the people that disagreed with him that weren't eligible to vote, which is likely a LOT since it includes the undocumented and youth -- which theoretically fall into the category he doesn't care about. Right there alone you have a better explanation than "money". 2. Most people probably never even found out about Romney's comment, because they never find out about anything. You seem to be politically motivated and informed, you're making the mistake of assuming most other people are too. 3. You ignore that many people have deal-breaker issues and will give their guy a pass on literally everything else, ON BOTH SIDES. If I could somehow scientifically prove that a candidate would completely eliminate unemployment and poverty, he'd probably still lose a significant portion of the vote if he was overly pro-choice or pro-gay marriage. Same goes if he was pro-life or anti-gay marriage. 4. Both sides basically have half the media working for them spinning regardless of how much money they have. So in an environment where the media is constantly blowing out of proportion what "the other guy said" and going to absurd lengths to rationalize what "our guy said", it is not unexpected that the voting population becomes exhausted and skeptical about these events (this is a rational response btw). 5. People have their personal identities tied up in their political positions. Its not just this Romney comment, most times people prefer to defend their wrong positions than deal with the existential crisis that they were "wrong". This has way more to do with politics being treated as a team than as something external to yourself. You speak of a rational voting base? A rational voting base would have no party affiliation whatsoever, it makes no sense. You should be voting each time based on what is offered to you. Instead they see their party as their family. In the same way that if your dad said something unkosher you would take pains to understand what he "meant" while others would not, so too do people of a party try to rationalize what their candidate said vs what the other candidate said. And so on. I'll reiterate that I'm making no comment on whether campaign finance is good or bad, just suggesting that Romney losing by "not enough" is just not a solid argument.

briandh 13y ago

That is some seriously sloppy "evidence" to be citing. It makes no reference to any accounting for the popularity of the candidates before and after ad campaigns, the competitiveness of their districts (for House campaigns), incumbent status, and so on. It also says > Also interesting is that this doesn't even include outside independent spending, like money from Super PACs. as if to imply outside spending (a) is totally proportional to direct campaign spending and (b) has the same effects, to the same degrees, as direct campaign spending, neither of which is necessarily true. > People who spend more money win. The shoddy evidence you cited directly contradicts your absolute. EDIT: toned down wording of the last sentence