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Frazzled wrote:Fair point Ahtman.

What is this? This is Dakka OT for cripes sake! There can be no rational discourse! Bygones will not be bygones!

I demand more blatant disregard for lawn sovereignty, more shouting, more drama, more spectacle!

It's all about the spectacle.

IcyCool wrote:

Piston Honda wrote:Why earn the presidency when you can just spend hundreds of millions of dollars to torch the out of the opponent.

Then give handies to all your donors.

Um, are you new to U.S. politics? With very few exceptions, the candidate who has the most in campaign funds wins the race. That goes for any elected public position. Anyone who thinks it works differently hasn't been paying attention.

That's because the candidate that is going to win has the most support, and is therefor able to win the race.

Correlation =/= causation and all that.


For a real look at how campaign spending effects elections, look no further than Steven 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.

So, money doesn't really win elections. It can make the difference in a really close race, but it can't just win you an election.

For example, for McCain to beat Obama in 2008, he would have had to take an additional 4% of the vote. That means he would have had to increase his spending 16 times over. That's about $5.2 billion more than the $0.35 billion he spent. For comparison, Obama spent about $0.75 billion, about double McCain's spending, earning him 1% of the vote.

Grakmar wrote:That's because the candidate that is going to win has the most support, and is therefor able to win the race.

Except, of course, that "amount of money raised" doesn't really correspond to "number of supporters".

To use a simplified example, a candidate with two very wealthy donators vs. a candidate with numerous small donators do not have the same voter support.

The fact of the matter remains is that we have turned Politics into one giant fundraising competition.

The fact that you need to raise 1 Million Dollars just to get elected to congress in most states is so absurd it's crazy.

So who would be for state funding for candidates?

dæl wrote:So who would be for state funding for candidates?

France has a 20 million dollar limit on it's presidential campaign, I think a similar system would be better than the one we have now.

It should be about the policy and abilities of someone, not how much money they can throw at it.

Alexzandvar wrote:
It should be about the policy and abilities of someone, not how much money they can throw at it.

Why would you want to make a thing about policy and ability when the arbiter is the general public?

dæl wrote:So who would be for state funding for candidates?

So, you want to do away with free speech? Next thing you know, you'll be installing a King!


Or is it communists?


I forget which free speech is protecting us against...