I just love it when all the media political pundits and talk show hosts ( News Talk?) throw out that word Democracy. You don’t have to go to a ranch to find more bull excrement than that. Folks, this is not a democracy and probably never was one… all the way back to our founding. Why? MONEY MONEY MONEY is the answer. As long as the masters of our republic keep allowing private money into electoral politics you will continue to smell that bull excrement… period!
The Open Secrets site follows the flow of money in political campaigns. After reading the enclosed data you may see why so many of our fellow citizens do not even bother to vote. Not good to do, but here is why, according to 2022 figures:
The average House of Representatives winner spent upwards close to $ 3 million. The loser spent on average around $800k.
The average Senate winner spent over $26 million. The loser spent around 1/2 of that ($13 million)
In my state of Florida DeSantis spent around $200 million. Democrat Charlie Crist spent $31 million…and people wonder why there was such a LANDSLIDE.
In 2022 384 incumbents ran for re-election in the House …359 won!!
In 2022 28 incumbents ran for re-election in the Senate…28 won!
If Claude Rains from the film Casablanca was monitoring things for our elections he would have said ” I am shocked! There is massive spending going on here!!”
Statewide and local citywide races are not really different. If someone wishes to run for just about any elected office, where they allow party affiliations, if you are not from one of the Two Party/One Party gangs… forget it buster! Oh yes, the only exclusion is for someone to be super duper wealthy enough to spend his or her own money to equal that of the other two gangsters. Or have some very very rich friends. If you cannot get your name and ideas out to the general public with an equally massive staff and volunteers… No way Jose! Money talks and everyone else walks! Is that what we want, super rich people being the only ones outside of the Two Party/One Party scam to win office?
In 1997 this writer was living in Indianapolis, Indiana. I was active in street protests against the empire, on both foreign and domestic issues. I was also a writer for a progressive weekly and was lucky to interview attorney Ed Garvey from Wisconsin. He was travelling the nation promoting the just passed Maine Clean Election Laws. In Maine they actually were able to legislate some form of public funding of statewide elections. Candidates could decide to forego accepting private donations and rely on the small amounts of public funding for their campaigns. Obviously their Republican and Democrat competitors would still outspend them considerably, but… The voters would know. Well, in the first such taste of the new law, almost 1/3 of the winners were Clean Election Candidates. Not bad, but only a small victory. It is almost virtually impossible to outlaw private campaign donations, the way our system of government is set up.
There is a compromise that can be reached however. Imagine if on both a federal and statewide level laws were passed limiting campaign donations to $100 per citizen, with NO corporations , PACs or other committees allowed to give anything. Thus, corporations and lobbyists and other groups would be committing a crime of bribery if they gave money to a candidate. As The Donald likes to say ‘ Lock em up!’
Philip A Farruggio is regular columnist on itstheempirestupid website. He is also frequently posted on Nation of Change and Countercurrents.. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 500 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid ‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].
