The candidates’ first-quarter fundraising totals are still coming in, but two have set quite a pace in their parties: Democrat Hillary Clinton drummed up $26 million, and Republican Mitt Romney took in $23 million. Both demolished the old record set by Al Gore in 1999, a mere $8.9 million.
Kansas’ Sam Brownback reported receipts of less than $2 million, including a $575,000 transfer from his Senate campaign account.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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9 Comments
Money is the grease that keeps the wheels of politics turning.
It’s no longer the good of the nation, it’s gathering money for the next election. Maybe it’s time to take another look at term limits and public financing.
Big donors are businessmen. A successful businessmen wouldn’t invest money in a politician unless they expected a healthy return on their investment.
And so we come down to the nasty truth of American politics: We have the best government money can buy.
Listen to big media complaining about a problem that big media created.
Real nice.
How about free political advertising next election cycle, Eagle?
Yup, I didn’t think so . . .
Looks shocked…
Capn, I finally found a post you wrote I can agree with.
Big media did create the atmosphere for this circus of treasures flowing into the pockets of Campaign Finance.
Honest politicians vote their conscience, and honest donors give to them because of shared values.
Dishonest politicians vote for whatever their dishonest donors pay them to vote for.
The trick is knowing the difference. Too bad the Eagle does such a thoroughly crappy job of investigating and publishing the truth about our local crooks.
“Big media” didn’t create this problem. They’re just the messenger – and to a certain extent, the beneficiary.
No, the problem was created by a combination of factors. Part of the problem is “reforms” designed to open the system up – the explosion of primaries. The reformers had the best of intentions, but as is often the case, it is difficult to predict the result of reforms.
We now have primaries in many states, rather than conventions and caucuses. That requires mass-marketing candidates directly to voters, rather than influencing a relatively small the party leadership. That in turn requires large dollars for mass media. Reforms also have had the effect of separating candidates from their parties (they all are required to have their own committees), making party machinary less important, and reinforcing the requirement that candidates raise and spend their own money. More and more states are front-loading their primaries so as to be “influential,” which in turn requires candidates to raise enormous dollars NOW, in advance of any voting, in order to be competitive early.
The explosion of news, with 24 hour news channels and now internet, means that the media has to fill those hours with something. The media has always covered elections more as a “horserace” rather than focusing on issues, and it’s important to be seen in that media as a front-runner. Candidates who appear to be front-runners can attract financial backers, but it takes financial backers to go into campaign mode early and be seen as a front-runner . . . etc. And the cycle feeds itself.
There’s a lot of reasons for the money explosion. I’m sure there’s even more than noted above. And no, it’s not good.
And yes, have no illusions that those dollars come without strings. And candidates from both parties are playing the game; they have to. It is the game we have.
Money has always been the mother’s milk of politics. As long as gov’t has benefits to distribute to favored businesses/industries/interests, and gov’t regulations determine to a significant extent the profitability of business/industries/interests, those interests will pour dollars into campaigns and lobbying to influence the gov’t policies that benefit (or potentially harm) them. It’s another symptom of a large, entangling regulatory state.
I’m contributing to Hillary’s campaign. Many of us together speak volumes.
Mitt Romney is bashing “McCain Feingold” all the time.It is funny.He is hurting both a bad policy and a bad candidate!