Tag: campaign finance
Big Donors are Not Getting What They Want for Their Money
First, small donors appear to be more polarized than the CEOs and the top .01 percent. All those donors are relatively polarized, with donors clustered around the party medians, but the wealthier folks are somewhat less so. Second, the 30 wealthiest donors in the country are actually pretty moderate, at least judging from this measure. Apart from some extremists like George Soros and the Koch brothers, most exist between the party medians. … This presents an interesting conundrum. We know Congress has grown more polarized over the past three decades. And we know that the very wealthy are donating more and more each year. But the very wealthy aren’t necessarily that polarized. If they were buying the government they wanted, they’d be getting a more moderate one than we currently have.
— Seth Masket, on the mischiefsoffaction.com blog.
Super Donor Avoids Meeting ‘Disappointing’ Candidates and Politicians
I go out of my way to avoid meeting candidates and politicians. All too often, these people are so disappointing that it’s depressing. Most of these people you meet, they’re unemployable…. It’s just easier not to know.
— GOP super donor John Jordan, quoted by National Journal.
Senate Campaigns Dominated by Ads from Outside Groups
59%
Of the television ads in Senate campaigns this year were paid for by outside groups, a Wesleyan Media Project analysis found. Key finding: 67% of ads favoring Republican Senate candidates were aired by outside groups, compared to 49% of the ads favoring Democratic Senate candidates.
Christie Favors Abolishing Campaign-Donation Limits
The idea you’re going to take money out of politics is just not going to happen. None of these laws change that. So let’s just have transparency to it.
— New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), voicing support “for an end to campaign-finance limits, which he said have led to a system that has obscured the sources — but not stemmed the rise — of money in politics,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Hark, Money Speaks!
And we thought the Citizens United ruling was a curse!
Thanks to SCOTUS, campaign funding’s gone from bad to worse,
Now the justices preach
That money equals speech,
But it’s the politicians who must pander to the power of the purse.
