Official 2020 US Election: Democratic Party Discussion

[Bofferbrauer2]

Jumpin said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

I disagree on the whole thing.

I mean, who would you rather vote for? Somebody who got financed through small donors or somebody who's in the pockets of corporations and their lobbies and thus will do their bidding, good or bad?

I am not even sure how that question is relevant. If you were to ask, would I vote for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, the answer is yes, and it wouldn't be relevant to me how they got their campaign finance dollars. The reason big donation campaign finance is broken is because it gives a lopsided advantage to the wealthy to donate to candidates to serve their interests; but there are a few who WILL donate against their interests because it is the right thing to do. To make a choice to not accept large campaign donations to appease people who are, frankly, uneducated in the political system, I am not in favour of; it puts the candidates I want to win at an even larger disadvantage in the broken system. I think this is probably the most foolish thing Warren and Sanders are doing; it means worker unions can't make big donation to them, but the big corporations can donate to their opponents; the only situation that would be a better case would be if Warren and Sanders decided not to accept ANY donations at all!

Anyway, I think you're conflating two different issues. Receiving a donation from someone doesn't mean you're "In the pockets of corporations and their lobbies and thus do their bidding." since that money doesn't belong to them, it belongs to their campaign. What I think you're mixing up is the revolving door political circuit whereby corporations literally give paycheques to politicians who do their bidding. And I would be highly in favour of any politician who swears an oath to NOT take any corporate job or paycheque after their term.

True. But for a company, a PAC is an investment, and they expect a return of their investment. Mostly in the lines of: I gave you x amount of money that helped you win the election, now can you please do something for me in return? It's a more subtle way of influencing someone or their policies.

Not accepting big dollars means nor risking having to do something for those companies. And in most of the the rest of the world, the money for the campaign is given from the state explicitly to avoid companies and rich individuals to influence or outright buy elections.