Originally posted by: Farang
How do you explain Romney's failure to buy the election? Other big-money candidates have similarly failed in the past and will continue to fail in the future. He has about the amount he should for a candidate with his party's mainstream views but who is largely seen as a phony.
Romney doesn't have far more money than his competitors; he simply has a far greater proportion of his money coming from his own pockets, not from others.
In fact, his being one of the two leading Republican candidates as a self-funded candidate is proof of the excessive influence of money, rather than the opposite.
Schwarzenegger won because of name recognition, something you're never going to get rid of in voting. His fund raising support came from the fact that his recognition put him on television and as a leading candidate. I'd also imagine he has a large network of business and Hollywood connections that other candidates didn't have (which is perfectly fair, a governor should have deep roots in his state).
You're missing the larger point in my post, how the election Schwarzeneggar was in shows how the system is not any real rational comparison between the candidates.
In normal elections, that's easier to hide - it's easy to assume Edwards is just somehow not as good a candidate as Hillary, rather than to look at the money gap.
But that other election was nicely illustrative about how little chance the candidates have based on 'substance', how other factors are the main influencers.
You're completely wrong about why the Naders, the Pauls, and the Kucinichs lose. They are not outside the "moneyed interests," they are outside the mainstream of American politics and what Americans want in their political system.
No, you're just parroting the mythology. Was FDR in the same 'mainstream' of American politics despite having radically different politics than Herbert Hoover? Was Gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan in the same mainstream of California politics as his predecessor and successor, Pat Brown and Jerry Brown? No, it wasn't about the 'mainstream' issue. Rather, you simply appear not to be open to understanding the role money has.
Al Gore is a great example. Here is a guy that got laughed off as a loon in the 1980s for his global warming rhetoric, but now is being given Oscars, Nobel prizes, and having heaps of praise thrown upon him. If you get a chance read about his struggle to get global warming in the public eye. At first he tried the approach of simply speaking "the truth" and expecting people to wake up and realize the problem. Then he realized nobody was willing to accept it, and began a slow campaign that took decades for it simply not to be laughed off the stage. Once it wasn't laughed off the stage, he pushed it a bit further, a bit further, and further, until he was able to give a PowerPoint presentation that people would accept as fact.
I'm not clear what your point is, but I'd note that the money issue had a man who had virtually no achievment but being the son of a defeated president who had himself ridden the coattails of Reagan into office, a long-time alcholic, drug-using kid who had run companies obtained through his father's power into the ground, been arrested for drunk driving and covered it up, used his father's clout to get the spot someone else deserved to avoid serving in a war he supported others dying in, who had apparently never been out of the country but for Mexican border towns IIRC, who had only 'telling jokes' at Harkin board meetings before committing insider trading crimes, and being the PR guy for the Texas Rangers - that guy was made into a serious competitor for the same Al Gore you talk about, the eight-year vice-president of an administration that had turned around 12 years of skyrocketing Republican debt into a balanced budget, a man who had led the government funding fight for the development for the greatest modern innovation, the internet.
I think any talk of Al Gore has to recognize the way that money turned the joke of George Bush into a 'serious' candidate - even for re-election after his policies were doing badly.
For a libertarian candidate, for example, to be viable, he would have to be masked as a Republican. Paul has got that right. But a libertarian trend would have to be started in the party before this was to happen--Libertarians would have to usurp legislative seats, executive positions, and media time in order to promote first just a few pillars of their ideology. Act as Republicans calling for ridiculously low taxes and you may just get it done. Then move towards withdrawing troops from a couple areas in the world without being an outright isolationist, under the guise of saving money ('Troops out of Japan and we save billions!' might eventually get traction). Slowly the nation trends more libertarian, more isolationist, and you have your opening to elect a libertarian such as Paul. But the groundwork hasn't been laid and that is why he isn't viable.
There's some truth to that, too. But it doesn't change the excessive, influence of money, which means the excessive influence of a select group of powerful people.
And as far as money goes, Paul isn't doing too bad.
You're right that it takes more for a third party to become viable; if Ron Paul were a mainstream Republican, his money would go further than with him further from the 'center'.
Self-funded candidates have the same issue; established politicians start ahead in the race with an advantage the self-funded candidate has to spend a fortune to match.
When you have candidates who win the debates but poll low, you should ask some questions why, about the gap between the 'substance' and the marketing effects.
The effect of the money isn't completely deciding the elections; there are other factors, too. But the effect it does have is huge in keeping a candidate who lacks it from winning.
The simple fact, in my view, is that our principles of democracy are violated in great part by the role money plays, in being needed, and in the things candidates have to do to get it.
Don't oversimplify the point. You aren't going to elect a democrat in a heavily Republican district by simply spending a few more dollars on his campaign. What you will do is to see the Republican who takes the larger donations be far more likely to win the primary than the candidate who does not.
I think our democracy would be more democratic if Arnold had had to compete on a more equal footing with other candidates, if voters had had more information about the alternatives to weigh them more equally, instead of the celebrity coverage that replaced informative political coverage. But what we have instead is a game where the big-money interests play the game to get their policies passed, while paying lip service to the myth of democracy so that the average voter, like you, thinks there's no problem.
How is it, then, that again and again, the US government does things the voters don't want, like the huge deficits and corrupt hundreds of billions in corporate subsidies?
When even the most liberal president in a quarter century backs 'the end of welfare', NAFTA, and corporate-corrupted laws such as the Telecommunications Act of 1996?
You also need to account for how the money is not just about candidates, but affects the political culture itself, that creates the views of who is 'mainstream'. It could easily be shown that many of yesterday's presidents' policies would be considered 'not in the mainstream' by today's standards. Why is a Dennis Kucinich 'not in the mainstream'? How is the public influenced in its idea about 'the mainstream'? If we just put George Bush's policies on paper and asked people if they're 'mainstream', would they be? I don't think so.
Money, and the organization you alluded to, go a long way to influencing the definition of 'mainstream'.
For one more example on how it's more about the marketing than the public's principles, just compare 'unelectable crazy Reagan 1976' with 'great president Reagan 1980'.
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