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A little thought on the American election

The big money candidate lost, didn’t she?

Will this mean people continue to campaign to get big money out of American elections?

15 thoughts on “A little thought on the American election”

  1. A lot of the money is basically just bribes. So long as the donors think they are buying something worthwhile, they will pay.

  2. And the bulk of super-PAC funded films (which Hillary pledged to ban by reversing Citizens United) attacked Trump.

  3. So Much For Subtlety

    Hillary will, no doubt, continue to campaign to make criticism of her good self illegal.

    That was what Citizens United was about.

  4. What would the economic affect be?

    All that money transfers from the very rich to provide interesting and well-paid work for the middle-class running campaigns.

    And they don’t produce nothing: politics sells on TV and radio. Maybe they should end the ban on foreign money.

  5. One of yesterday’s glories – beyond watching the big lefty meltdown – was thinking about how much money Wall Street and various Middle East scumbags lost donating to the Clinton Foundation.

  6. If one were to assess the value of all the pro-Hillary spin and propaganda delivered for free by our “professional” media, it would absolutely dwarf whatever was officially donated her campaign or spent on pro-Hillary Super-PAC operations.

  7. Mark Steyn was brilliant on this:

    Trump is the first non-“public servant” to shatter the glass ceiling. He’s proved you can win the presidency without being a Bush or a Clinton or a lifetime member of the political class. He’s proved you can shatter the glass ceiling and win without the consultant class, without donors, without focus groups, without a gazillion-dollar ad budget, without your own party’s office-holders and intellectuals, and without a “ground game” – without turnout models, without field offices, without three lame-o cardboard mailers poking out of your post-office box every day. In dispensing with all the rubbish that makes American politics as remote and ritual-bound as Chinese opera, he has performed a signal service to this republic.

  8. Take a look at the senate and the house. Trump had enough money to hit the diminishing returns level – somewhere around $200m for a presidential these days. Last major party presidential to be a bit short on cash was Dukakis, and he’s the last one to lose an election by a lot.

    The further down ballot you go, the more the money decides. The more it comes down to a Koch or a Soros casting the only vote that counts.

  9. > The further down ballot you go, the more the money decides.

    Really?

    Mick Mulvaney:

    First some perspective: in 2012 I ran against a very nice woman named Joyce Knott. I don’t remember how much money she raised, but it was probably under $10,000. We ran a really solid campaign, and managed to win that race by 11 points.

    This year, my opponent raised and spent right at three quarters of a million dollars. He had the sitting vice-president working for him not only on fundraising but on grassroots efforts. The Democratic National Committee put all of their efforts behind my opponent. He even had President Obama do a robo-call message telling people how important it was to him to vote for my opponent.

    And against all that money and star power and national effort… we won last night by just over 21 points.

    So turns out not so much.

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