There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the green peace claim that Hillary has taken almost $5 million from the fossil fuel industry/lobbyists. The DNC under DWS just decided to start accepting lobbyist money again. The standard explanation is “we can’t fight the republicans with one hand behind our back” or “we have to be able to compete to be able to fix the system.”
Really? Does money win elections? Bush and Rubio and their friends outspent their opponents by what, 10:1, and got toasted.
In a paper that tried to isolate the effect of spending in campaigns, here’s what Steve Levitt found:
LEVITT: When a candidate doubled their spending, holding everything else constant, they only got an extra one percent of the popular vote. It’s the same if you cut your spending in half, you only lose one percent of the popular vote. So we’re talking about really large swings in campaign spending with almost trivial changes in the vote.
What Levitt’s study suggests is that money doesn’t necessarily cause a candidate to win — but, rather, that the kind of candidate who’s attractive to voters also ends up attracting a lot of money. So winning an election and raising money do go together, just as rain and umbrellas go together. But umbrellas don’t cause the rain. And it doesn’t seem as if money really causes electoral victories either, at least not nearly to the extent that the conventional wisdom says. For every well-funded candidate who seems to confirm that money buys elections (paging Michael Bloomberg), you can find counterexamples like Meg Whitman, Linda McMahon, Steve Forbes, and Tom Golisano.
Listen to This Podcast by the freakonomics guys. What the data says is that money does not lead to candidates winning but that candidates that attract voters also attract the money. So, if money doesn’t buy elections why do the Koch brothers intend to push nearly a $billion around this election season?
The flat line is the likelihood of legislation passing due to public support. Yellow line likelihood for the wealthy and black is ideal democracy.
Because money does buy legislation. By now most every one here has seen the Video the adjacent chart comes from. It demonstrates clearly how voter preference makes almost no difference in the likelihood of legislation passing unless it is wanted by the top 10% or higher.
So — money doesn’t buy elections but it buys representation no matter who is elected.
So — could it be that our legislators are (ignorantly) afraid that the money will cost them elections so they falsely believe they must play the game and therefore our democracy is broken? Because of a false belief?
I have no other explanation for the reality, do you?
Prove them all wrong Bernie wan
