Right-wingers of all varieties have recently had a happy moment or two thanks to Brian Williams and Marla Gay, a young woman who speaks as a member of the New York Times editorial board. A tape, available to anyone who has access to Google, shows the pair discussing Michael Bloomberg’s now dead presidential campaign. They marveled at a tweet originating with a Washington Post writer. It pointed out that Bloomberg’s campaign expenditures would have been enough to give every American a million dollars. They were so impressed with this mathematical insight that they brought the tweet up on screen. They expressed no doubt, no hesitation, in publicizing this figure.
Skeptics with an elementary knowledge of arithmetic point out that Bloomberg’s budget would have allowed his campaign to give every single American $1.53. Rubbing it in, some hostile critics did additional figuring, calculating that Bloomberg would need $327 trillion to give every single American a one million dollars. Rubbing it in a little deeper they point our that this would total 17 times the American GDP.
We right-wingers enjoy the display of ignorance and gullibility from media titans. They displayed the numbers, they marveled at them, they drew lessons from them, and, they shattered their credibility into 327 trillion pieces. We especially like that part.
In fairness, the wider issue that concerned them was the power of money in American politics. In fairness I wish to point out that the Bloomberg example contradicts their fears. The man spent lavishly. There doesn’t seem an exact consensus on how much he spend—$500 million, $600 million, “north of” $500 million. Exactitude is immaterial. He spent plenty, he outspent the competition. His dollars won half the votes of the Democrats voting in the American Samoa caucus. Let’s be precise. He won the votes of half the 351 Democrats, giving him five delegates and the honor of beating out Tulsi Gabbard, a native-born Samoan who gathered a single delegate.
The actual dollar figures for his Samoan budget are not available at this time, but my information is that Mighty Mike installed seven full-time staff members in American Samoa, bought up billboards and ran ads on television, online, in print and on the radio. These included Samoan language ads. His effort was nothing if not thorough. Result? He dropped out of the presidential competition after the national returns came in.
This does not mean that money is inconsequential in our elections. It simply means that its impact is regularly exaggerated. It suits liberal pundits and editorialists to emphasize money. They believe they speak for the People. The People often ignore their preference. Explanation? The People are deceived by the power of advertising; by the money of greedy capitalists like the Koch brothers.
Details of how campaign money is spent are not readily available. I’ve bought three books from well-credentialed political scientists over the last year: “Get Out the Vote,” “Inside Campaigns: Elections through the Eyes of Political Professionals,” and “Victory Lab.” They all have some interesting material, but only “Inside Campaigns” attempts an analysis of how money is spent. The conclusions found on page 74 are worth quoting in full.
“Money is not the primary driver of election outcomes.; money does not buy elections. Money ultimately doesn’t determine which side loses and which sides celebrates. As political scientists have demonstrated, the person with the most money often gets beat, and wealthy candidates using their own money, such as Meg Whitman of California often outspend their opponents by large sums and more often than not they too often lose their elections.”
The three authors don’t argue that money is immaterial, they argue only that it is not decisive all by itself. I think of Shiva Ayyadurai in this connection. Now, alas, forgotten he ran against Professor Warren for that Massachusetts senate seat. His leading advertisement showed his image captioned “Real Indian” beside Elizabeth Warren’s image captioned “Fake Indian.” He sent the fake a DNA kit to help her establish her feathered Indian credentials. She sent it back, but history records she later found experts with other kits, which determined the depth of her fakery.
When asked how the hoped to over come her enormous fund-raising advantage Ayyadurai theorized that most donations end up spent on fees and salaries for “strategists,” consultants, media managers, spin doctors, pollsters and professional hacks.” He hoped that his professional mastery of high tech media would overcome Betsy’s cash advantage. Unfortunately the congenital gullibility of Massachusetts’ liberals carried her back to Washington. Shiva hasn’t been heard of since and we still await a careful study of how much money the “professionals” suck up in campaigns.
Maine’s 2010 and 2014 elections provide additional evidence of the limits of money power in electoral outcomes. News that Democrats regularly raise and spend more money on elections than Republicans never seems to reach that part of the electorate who remain convinced that Republicans are the “Party of the Rich.”
John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070@aol.com.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
