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Kasz216 on 04 December 2012
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Mr Khan said:
amp316 said:
badgenome said:
No one with half a brain thought otherwise. If it were possible to buy elections in that manner, all the bazillionaires who spend millions and millions of their own fortunes would win and we'd have Governor Meg Whitman and Senators Linda McMahon and John Raese. Elections are bought with public money, not with private money.

Yep, we would have had President Ross Perot for eight years.

Steve Forbes in the 90s probably could've beaten Perot, and he did try in 96, but couldn't even beat Bob Dole in the primaries.


Hopefully the failure of super-mega-PACs like Crossroads GPS convinces people to not spend so much money on so much ad space in the future. This election was just oversaturated, by all sides.

Yeah.  When it comes to money really... if the third negative advertismenet about a candidate didn't change your mind... then the 50th won't either.

The Ross Perot analaogy is actually a pretty good one actually.  Ross Perot at first refused to do ANY campaign spending, thinking it was stupid when he could go on daytime talk shows for free.    When he started to lose popularity due to leaving the race... that's when he did start funding his campaign like crazy... and nothing really heappened.

Herman Cain, basically broke until he became popular, then as his cash rose, his popularity plummetted.

 

It's all about having just enough money to get your message out to the people, once you do, it's all up to the candidate. 

 

I think the only reason candidates keep fundraising later on in a campaign is because the media makes a huge story about how money should make a big difference and how a drop in donations must me "Such and such is in trouble!"

In otherwords, money becomes somewhat important... only because the media manufacturers a false narrative if the money drops.

 

Really political money would probably better be spent running trial programs of policies in swing states.  Set up your own privately funded version of Healthcare vouchers or "public option" healthcare in Ohio.  Then if it works, boast about how it shows that your idea works.

 

 

Granted you could argue such tactics could be used as "buying a vote", though really that's pretty much what democracy is.   Buying peoples votes.