The news item:
The Democratic primary for the vacant congressional seat in Illinois this week was won in a landslide by former state rep. Robin Kelly.
Her main competitor was former Congressperson Debbie Halvanow (sp?), who was favored to win the election early on, with the greatest name recognition and ahead in the polls.
However, in a victory for gun regulation advocates, Michael Bloomberg funded a massive ad campaign - the only aired ads in the election - on the gun issue.
So, people who support gun regulations are cheering how the gun issue turned into a negative for a candidate, and cost them the election, when for so long the NRA has been a powerful force in our elections keeping legislators from supporting virtually any regulations, and even pushing positions by making issues such as demanding the criminal impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder scored on their 'report card'.
Most stories end there, but I have another view.
Consider what we just said: the people in the Illinois district wanted one representative; but one billionare pours millions into ads and his hand-picked candidate wins big instead.
What does that say about our democracy? A couple things.
One is the fickleness of voters - how thin the 'voter stamp of approval' really is generally. If Halvanow had one, her anti-gun regulation position was 'the will of the voters'.
It shows how effective mass marketing is in our politics. The district is already pro-gun control - but before the massive ad campaign, that didn't change their vote.
For every benevolent billionare buying an election 'for reasons meant for the good of the people' as he sees them, there can be a thousand bought for bad reasons of greed.
What we're cheering here is the idea of one billionare buying an election in our democracy - something which the vast majority of time does not serve 'the public interest'.
I watched an interview with Bloomberg's deputy who said they watched from out of state as the front runner was an NRA supporter, and Bloomberg said, 'that's not acceptable' and decided to get involved with his money to change that. Translation: out of state rich man decided who should be elected to represent Illinois district. Good news!
I don't think even those who are happy about the outcome of the election should support how this happened. It's a great danger to our democracy.
The Democratic primary for the vacant congressional seat in Illinois this week was won in a landslide by former state rep. Robin Kelly.
Her main competitor was former Congressperson Debbie Halvanow (sp?), who was favored to win the election early on, with the greatest name recognition and ahead in the polls.
However, in a victory for gun regulation advocates, Michael Bloomberg funded a massive ad campaign - the only aired ads in the election - on the gun issue.
So, people who support gun regulations are cheering how the gun issue turned into a negative for a candidate, and cost them the election, when for so long the NRA has been a powerful force in our elections keeping legislators from supporting virtually any regulations, and even pushing positions by making issues such as demanding the criminal impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder scored on their 'report card'.
Most stories end there, but I have another view.
Consider what we just said: the people in the Illinois district wanted one representative; but one billionare pours millions into ads and his hand-picked candidate wins big instead.
What does that say about our democracy? A couple things.
One is the fickleness of voters - how thin the 'voter stamp of approval' really is generally. If Halvanow had one, her anti-gun regulation position was 'the will of the voters'.
It shows how effective mass marketing is in our politics. The district is already pro-gun control - but before the massive ad campaign, that didn't change their vote.
For every benevolent billionare buying an election 'for reasons meant for the good of the people' as he sees them, there can be a thousand bought for bad reasons of greed.
What we're cheering here is the idea of one billionare buying an election in our democracy - something which the vast majority of time does not serve 'the public interest'.
I watched an interview with Bloomberg's deputy who said they watched from out of state as the front runner was an NRA supporter, and Bloomberg said, 'that's not acceptable' and decided to get involved with his money to change that. Translation: out of state rich man decided who should be elected to represent Illinois district. Good news!
I don't think even those who are happy about the outcome of the election should support how this happened. It's a great danger to our democracy.