Money and Politics

Well fine then we can just make it illegal to spend any money on campaigns then, correct? I mean it is such a trivial thing that it has gone all the way to the Supreme Court as freedom of speech.
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I can, after all, run against Whitman with my one dollar, correct? Can you loan me the filing fee?

You’re assuming that the “average voter” gets his political news by carefully studying the issues, the candidates’ positions & their backgrounds & fitness for office, then weighs considerations like the make-up of the Senate & House, before pulling the level.

In Florida the only TV ads I’ve seen (admittedly, I don’t watch a lot of TV) for governor were Rick Scott ads, one outlining what a complete incompetent his opponent Alex Sink is & the other a soft-&-fuzzy about what a stellar human being he is. If, like many voters, that’s how I got my news, I’d be voting for Mr. Deeppockets. I think political ads — & the $60 million of Scott’s own & his family’s money Scott has sunk into them, according to the Tampa Trib — do make a difference. But I hope not.

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

You could run against Whitman with a crushed pelvis, encephalitis, and a bad cold…

Sometimes it is just not about all the money. Sometimes it is just about what is simply, right or wrong, Joe Klein.
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“Three van loads of Hughes High students were taken last week – during school hours – to vote and given sample ballots only for Democratic candidates and then taken for ice cream, a Monday lawsuit alleges.”

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http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20101018/NEWS010702/10190308/

It’s funny but I think I remember reading here at Time that Obama and Axelrod had “thin evidence” for their claim, even though we know that the Chamber has members from outside of the U.S. and that money is ultimately fungible.

The complaint was made by Thomas Brinkman Jr., a Republican candidate for Hamilton County auditor, and the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending & Taxes against Cincinnati Public Schools.

Still worried as to how your hard earned tax dollars are being spent by the self-admitted TAX AND SPEND Democrats?
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National Debt Up $3 Trillion on Obama’s Watch

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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20019931-503544.html
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“New numbers posted today on the Treasury Department website show the National Debt has increased by more than $3 trillion since President Obama took office.
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The National Debt stood at $10.626 trillion the day Mr. Obama was inaugurated. The Bureau of Public Debt reported today that the National Debt had hit an all time high of $13.665 trillion.
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The Debt increased $4.9 trillion during President Bush’s two terms. The Administration has projected the National Debt will soar in Mr. Obama’s fourth year in office to nearly $16.5-trillion in 2012. That’s more than 100 percent of the value of the nation’s economy and $5.9-trillion above what it was his first day on the job.”

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Now Ladies and Gentlemen, what does Joe Klein write about? Oh, possibly a few thousand dollars that POTENTIALLY foreign donors contribute to our election campaigns. A few thousand as opposed to the TRILLIONS being spent by this Administration as a “REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH” to Obama’s Fat Cat Friends in Big Labor, Community Organizing Groups like ACORN.
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Unreal.

How come there is so much money to spend on the campaign and so little to spend on jobs? Could it be that if the election is bought the moneyed interests will be better off?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-10-15-money15_ST_N.htm

Or handcuffing a journalist by rent-a-cops in a public venue.
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What’s worse? Fake votes and ice cream, especially since by the time these kids can vote they probably won’t be in high school anymore and probably not all vote for democrats, or be for the constitution but use hired muscles to remove someone elses rights?
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But whatever…the whole people who can’t vote but get exposed to horrible democrats and ice cream just sounds worse.

“…saying that political ads aren’t very effective anyway provides no excuse for the loathsome secret funds being raised by groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove.”
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It’s also an obvious lie. Unless Brooks is saying that all those donating CEOs are too stupid to be trusted to run their corporations.

Joe:
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I’m not going to dispute the American Crossroads foreign donor question, but in a debate with a fellow Swampie the other day (sorry, I forgot who it was that I was debating), I realized that there was debatably legitimate reasons for the Chamber of Commerce to be taking money from foreign donors: specifically, foreign run corporations with legitimate business interests (AKA: does business within the US – particularly those that have offices and hire workers within the US) would, in my mind, have legitimate reasons for lobbying the US government and the Chamber of Commerce, as a pro-business group, would be an obvious vector for lobbying. While I agree that the Chamber of Commerce shouldn’t turn around and, instead of using that money to lobby, use the money to influence elections, my personal feeling is that (particularly considering the likely scale of donations from foreign entities compared to domestic ones) the foreign funds issue is a non-issue for the Chamber. Yes, there’s an issue of secrecy, but I feel that’s a separate problem.
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However, all of that is predicated on the idea that foreign owned businesses with legitimate business interests in the US would legitimately have a reason to petition the government. Similarly, this doesn’t account for the instances where a foreign entity explicitly donated money to a group for the express purpose of that money being spent on ads (or “allowing the CC to spend more money on ads”) but I honestly don’t think a full disclosure of foreign donors fixes that because you don’t get a list of reasons for why they donated the money.
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Would you dispute this line of thought?

“the more disgusted with politicians that people become, the less likely they are to vote.”
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\This brilliant observation run counter to the “we hate Bush” meme that was pushed during the 2008 campaign. If folks were truly disgusted with Bush and Repubs the turnout should have fit in a phone booth.
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” Rove and the Chamber have the burden of proof here”
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Ah comrade JK, I still believe innocent until proven guilty is the law of the land. Burden of proof is on the holier than thou who have done it and now want to smear somebody else with baseless accusations. That is called sleaze bag politics which you seem to promote here.

We can see Interference of vote-seeking politicians which bring s economic mayhem. Let’s face it, these big corporations controls the government while YOU are still in deep hole trying to make your way out.

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Here’s the problem – the CoC ads have been remarkably, shall we say, charitable in their interpretations of what constitutes reality. Some of them have been downright racist (there’s one in WV slamming a Dem Congressman for chairing Arab-Americans for Obama.) But since they all go through campaign groups that are in reality, simply PO boxes, no-one takes the hit. The smear is out there, the smearee remains anonymous. This is not free speech.

That is a point rarely mentioned in all the fluff about the money. The substance is terrible and unquestioned by the press.

There’s a difference between disgust with politicians on both sides and disgust at particular individuals. Take Nevada this round which has been called the race of who people dislike less with Sharon Angle and Harry Reid. One is a loon, the other has something like a 30% approval rating. Neither are seen by most as fit to represent Nevadans, but voters find themselves stuck between picking one of them. The more they feel they have to hold their nose, the less likely they are to vote.
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In ’04, ’06 and ’08, there was a significant anti-Bush movement just as it was the anti-Obama movement this year. They were disgusted not with a party or politics in general but a single individual and thus the movement voted for who they felt was very much did not represent that individual Major psychological difference

I would guess that voter turnout for the Repub/Tea Party candidates will be higher than normal while those fo rthe Demos will be lower so I am unsure how the disgust/lesser of 2 evils work. It has less to do with individuals than a bankrupt liberal philosophy and government reach. That is demonstrated by the race in DE. If Obamas and the Demos haven’t staged such extreme positions, O’Donnell would be sitting on the beach with about 2% of the voters

I’ll agree with you on the expected turnout of both of those groups and their equivalent reasonings (though I think you take a bit heavier tone to it than I would but that’s relatively immaterial). Joe is referring more to the turnout of the independents, the ones who don’t hold allegiance to either party and may swap their votes to the person that interests them the most. Hence, if you depress voter turnout amongst the independents sufficiently, the only people left are the bases of the two parties, thus Joe’s line “our base can beat your base” – which would then entirely be based upon how riled up you can get your base.
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The Dems need the independents to vote in large enough numbers that the independents can still swing the election – for better or for worse. On the advantage for Democrats is that while there is frustration, a recent poll said that 80+% agreed with that Republican Congress members and Bush (asked separately) were at least partially responsible for the current economic status but only 50% would agree with a similar statement about Obama or Democrat Congress. On the negative side is the fact that this means that probably at least 30% (probably closer to 40%) think that all 4 groups are at least partially responsible for the economic mess.
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If Democrats can get Independents to vote, yes, there will be a number of elections that they will get creamed worse than Republicans. But there might be a few elections where they can convince the independents that Republicans are worse and the independents swing the election their way. If you can convince the independents to vote, then you have to convince them that your way is better. With the Republicans generally going right with the Tea Party candidates and a shift towards favoring their policies, Dems probably think this offsets the fact that they’re, well, a Democrat including both the stimulus and ACA – at least sufficiently that the race is competitive.
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Whether this is effective or not, I’m not sure. But considering the enthusiasm gap, I would bet the Dems could probably benefit more from the independent vote than if it stayed home.

Well Greg Sargent has been doing Yeoman’s work on the issue

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/

But unfortunatley this all gets cancelled out by uber-hacks like Mark ‘OMG Sarah Palin just Tweeted Something’ Halperin, who put on his vewy cwoss face for The Page when Mr. Obama was so mean to those innocent corporations…

Joe, why do corporations waste their money on advertisements in Time magazine? Why do they waste money on television product advertising? Why do they waste money on product placement in movies? Why do they waste their money on any promotion if it has little effect on consumers?
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Come on. Joe, you and Brooks consider yourself journalists right? Then show me some stats about the ineffectiveness of political advertising. Why do political operatives develop whole careers bringing in the money and seeing it spent to support their candidates via advertising?
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Next you and Brooks will tell us money has no impact on politics in general. Joe, are you so ignorant of Bobo’s tactics. He only plays a moderate Republican for the people in the Village.

new,

Thanks for attaching a link or source. From the cited article:

“But the school district’s lawyer denies any school connection.
“No CPS personnel engaged in the promotion of candidates or any political party,” CPS attorney Mark Stepaniak noted in a written release.
CPS spokeswoman Janet Walsh said taking students on school time to vote has been done before. “It has to be scrupulously nonpartisan,” Walsh said.”

Now let him prove what he charges.

forgotten,

foreign (business?) donors “have legitimate reasons for lobbying the US government and the Chamber of Commerce, as a pro-business group, would be an obvious vector for lobbying.”

Foreign and domestic lobbyists are supposed to be registered to lobby their interests with the US government so we could, supposedly, keep an eye on what they do with their money.
As far as I know, there is no such reporting requirement for foreign “businesses” that shovel money to the US Chamber of Commerce as “lobbying” funds, so there is no mechanism for monitoring what the CofC does with any foreign-originated “lobbying” money.

Trumping everything else is my need to know which individuals/businesses/groups/foreign entities and-or-powers are contributing $millions to influence US elections – perhaps to the detriment of my country or me.

9.1 – forgotten,

“Take Nevada this round which has been called the race of who people dislike less with Sharon Angle and Harry Reid. One is a loon, the other has something like a 30% approval rating. Neither are seen by most as fit to represent Nevadans, but voters find themselves stuck between picking one of them. The more they feel they have to hold their nose, the less likely they are to vote.”

Actually, Nevadans have an additional choice in this election. Besides the two major party candidates, and the minor party ones, Nevada voters can choose “__ None Of The Above”.

Many of them might make this ballot choice out of disgust with all the candidates. What they might not realize, however, is that Nevada election law says that the “None Of” votes don’t count: whichever named candidate gets the most votes is the winner of the election.

Senator Reid knows he is unpopular, so he is doing his best to convince voters that Angle is so weird that, even if they can’t vote for him that they should vote for “NoneOf”; he figures that he’ll get more named votes than Angle and win the election.

Sounds like a plan.

I mean – who wants a Senator who intends to abolish/privatize/personalize Social Security, abolish the Dept. of Education and the Dept. of Energy, privatize the Veterans Administration and its healthcare services, and remove all regulation of health care insurance companies?

Again, I don’t dispute the need to remove secrecy, but again, this is far from an abnormal scenario. While Lobby’s are registered entities, they are not required to disclose a list of their donors. To the best of my knowledge, the CofC is a lobby. Again, the issue I have a problem with is the accusation of foreign entities trying to steal American democracy because the CofC has accepted money from foreign donors and that somehow being a reason that donor disclosure should be revealed. That isn’t a reason. Foreign entities can have legitimate reasons for donating to the CofC – so the revealing of the donor rolls only determines who donated, not who “is stealing American democracy”.
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Donor rolls should be revealed because everyone should understand who these lobbies answer to and who they represent. Since lobbies are trying to represent the position and concerns of those they represent, they should have no reason to want to hide that unless they are misrepresenting what it is they represent. If their donors do not want it known that they are asking to be represented by these lobbies, questions should be asked as to why these donors want their identity hidden. Every single one of these arguments is a good argument for releasing the donor rolls and you can make that argument without a hyperbolic argument such as “foreign entities are stealing our democracy” – which, as I said, cannot be proven even with the full release of the donor rolls.

So I’m wrong because they can vote for “None of the Above” but that’ll just have the same effect as if they don’t vote at all thus vindicating my point that Joe’s point that it becomes “our base can be your base” if the independents can’t stomach either is valid which means I’m right. What’s your point?
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On a different note, I had considered mentioning that Angle, O’Donnell, Paul and Miller are gravy for the Democrats because, lacking inspiration in this election, their most effective tactic (and, for that matter, the same is true for Republicans) for getting the independent vote out is to make the independents so bat**** scared of the other side that they have to vote for the Democrats or risk losing their country to the extremists. But then I remembered I was debating with freeper who would’ve made a big stink about that and I really didn’t want to be debating about whether those 4 are American heroes or wingnuts when it honestly is a difference in fundamental belief coupled with a demi-troll….it really wasn’t worth the effort when I could just whip him at the core of his original argument.

I guess we’re both right.