This essay will be a quick look at what I see as the leverage-mechanism that allows a small number of people to have outsized influence on "who will be our kings".
One proposal (not mine) to address the issue is presented at the end of the essay.
***
It costs about $3.0 million to run a viable campaign for US House of Representatives. That is an average of $3.0 million for both sides. In "safe" districts, it will be substantially less. The losing side will establish a presence but aren't going to invest huge amounts on a sinking ship. The dominant party in the "safe" district doesn't need to spend $3.0 million to win.
Contested districts might see twice the average invested.
That money does not come from within the district. It come, mostly, through fund-raising mechanisms that are party specific. That means that if you, as a candidate, want money from WinRed or ActBlue you MUST dance to the tune they call. You must vote straight party lines and not what you perceive is the desire of your constituents nor what your conscience tells you to vote for.
It is just one more example of J.P. Morgan's Golden Rule, "The man with the gold makes the rules."
That leads to the capture of the party platforms/planks by the fanatical, one-issue voters: "I will eat nothing but BarS hotdogs, canned beans and instant rice for the next six months so I can send another $1000 to fund ProLife (or save the whales or advance LGBT rights or...) candidates.
The incredible price of the elections is primarily driven by the cost of media advertising. I suspect that many mainstream media outlets would go bankrupt without the huge influx of advertising dollars from political campaigns.
Viable solutions are tough to come by
One proposal that was offered by people interested in campaign reform is to have the media outlets NOT CHARGE for political advertising. Let's say they have to sacrifice the minutes-per-day that are purchased by the industry that currently buys the largest share of advertising...say Pharma...and they have to give the same number of minutes/day to political candidates in October and early November.
That proposal died before it was born. The media corporations puked all over it. Financially, legacy media is furiously dog-paddling to keep their financial nose above the water due to competition from the internet. Pulling revenue from political advertising would be the equivalent of thumping the dog in the head with an oar.
Another issue involved the constitutionality of not funding minor parties. Would you force every station to host every whacka-doodle party equally?
If you only fund the advertising for some minor parties then you create some very strange dynamics. Suppose you ran a "primary" election for the minor parties at the same time you ran the Big-Two primary and the top one or two minor parties gets free advertising.
Furthermore, let's pretend that the top-two minor parties in Eaton County are the Green-Eggs-and-Ham party and the Whackum-and-Stackum party.
If you gave free advertising to the Green-Eggs-and-Ham party then the Republicans will win because the GE&H party drained the fringe voters who would have normally voted for the Democratic candidate. Similarly, if you funded the W&S party, the Democrats will win because the traditional Republican base was split. That is the opposite of what should have happened if we expect the representatives to be a "representative sample" of their constituency.
You might say "fund both of them", but what if the top two minor parties are Green-Eggs-and-Ham and Juan-for-the-Money parties and both robbed voters from the Democratic party. That would result in the "wrong" major party winning.
Cap spending?
Maybe the answer is to cap spending the way major sports leagues cap payroll. It would force the parties to become much more focused on their messaging and potentially give locals much more leverage since most volunteers for door-to-door work are local.
Cap spending Joe? Support alternative parties? Rational and even noble. Not much currently in politics (looking at Minneapolis and the shutdown of our federal government that is rational nor noble IMHO.
ReplyDeleteSNIP January 30, 2026
‘We wasted a lot of time’: The next shutdown deadline will be here sooner than you think - POLITICO
The next potential government shutdown is expected to occur on January 30, 2026. Lawmakers are working to pass key funding bills by this deadline to avoid a shutdown.
Anybody wants to BET the Democrats WILL use the "insurrection and ICE" issues as levers in a Shutdown?
"A pretty country you have there, pity if something happened to it" Anonymous.
The main problem as I see it is here:
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic,"
Ben Franklin
Too many GIMME DATS who can be roused up to VOTE themselves MONEY and FREE SHIT (sorry for the cursing) by demagogues.
A demagogue (/ˈdɛməˌɡɒɡ/; from Ancient Greek δημαγωγός (dēmagōgós) 'popular leader, mob leader'; from Ancient Greek δῆμος (dêmos) 'people, populace' and ἀγωγός (agōgós) 'leading, guiding'),[1] or rabble-rouser,[2][3] is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity.[4] Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so.
Guess what our Founding Fathers were classically trained, they KNEW ABOUT how Greek Democracy was turned into a tyrant system via the Demagogue and man's base (NOT NOBLE) nature of greed and laziness.
THATS Why they created a REPUBLIC with all those rules hammered out over the MONTHS they worked on the Constitution as so minority Religions and Beliefs that DIDN'T Harm others would be permitted.
THATS Why in the original documents there is NO MENTION of Democracy anywhere (unless the rewriters of Wikipedia did it).
Only PROPERTY OWNERS could vote BECAUSE a Tax they proposed to build roads (etc.) was ON THEMSELVES.
Spare me the histrionics that only White Male Property owners. It's not about if women who owned property it's the fact that there was RESTRAINT in taxes. Unlike the drunken and thieving grifters of today.
If ONLY the folks that PAY more Taxes than they get FROM taxpayers were allowed to vote MOST of the Grifters would be out of the process.
But that too will not work. WHY? Look at Minneapolis and the shutdown of our federal government (around January 30th) too many people got their GRIFT Threatened and violence is on the menu.
Praying for wisdom
Petty sure there is a small, finite amount of blood required by the liberty tree from time to time that would bring perspective to the "representatives" about their responsibility to the "represented".
ReplyDeleteVery, very true.
DeleteThe politicians do not fear the populace. In fact, it is very much been inverted - We The People are afraid to go against the Politicians (e.g. The State).
That WOULD indeed fix the problem.
They don't fear being primaried, as noted by our author, stick to the party lines you'll do fine.
They used to get tarred and feathered when the electorate had enough of their shenanigans. Maybe we should try that again? Seem to recall it used to be quite effective by historical accounts.
Let's think this through in terms of pure "Would you get what you want?"
DeleteIf people started taking random pot-shots at politicians (anybody remember Steve Scalise) then the people's access to their representatives would be through bullet-proof glass. That would have the opposite effect of the representative being "an antenna in the community, collecting concerns and priorities and using that information to create laws".
That said, I think the role of corrupt, incompetent and lazy clerks leaves election integrity in shambles. However, a vigorous application of the laws already on the books would go a long way toward fixing that.
The problem is that nobody (in authority) wants to touch that problem, presumably because too many in the system benefit from it.
a.k.a. term limits by the populace.
ReplyDeleteSince the two anonymous are the same poster on answer suffices:
DeleteEcclesiastes 10:20
Most of the problems people have with the federal government are actually due to the bureaucracy, not the political class. The federal bureaucracy has become culturally divorced from the country at large and no longer identifies with the citizens they dominate.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to break up the concentration of federal employees in the metro Washington, DC area. A very toxic culture has developed there and it has a coercive feedback loop into the American political power structure.
No state should be allowed to have more than 50,000 federal jobs, including the contractor jobs which are really just bureaucrats without portfolio. Washington, DC itself should be limited to 100,000 federal jobs, including contractors. The uniformed military and VHA should be exempt, but the uniformed military does need to be redistributed for strategic defense reasons. Base closures were a terrible mistake.
Sounds reasonable but do you accept that the deep state is another term for your Federal (and some might argue State level also) bureaucracy?
DeleteGiven the resistance at losing their grift and threats of insurrection and such that they will just shrug their shoulders and be broken up to "disperse their toxic powers"?
I recall JFK wanted to break up some 3 letter agency and scatter the bits forever. He had a bad day in Dallis TX a few weeks later if memory serves.
Both very true. My sister lives in No VA. It's like living in a different world, frankly.
Delete"...have the media outlets NOT CHARGE for political advertising..."
ReplyDeleteThat zeroed-out fast, and for good reason - there is a cost for media resources, whatever they might be, and denying media the ability to cover those costs is theft. "Publicly approved" theft, "it's only fair" theft, but theft nonetheless.
It would also result in histrionics over "payment in kind" incidents as Outlet A did "an in-depth study on Candidate X" forcing Outlet B to do it for Candidate Y. Media being what it is, X, Y, Z and A-W would always be the Democrat candidate. Capping the total expenditure would work, but isn't that largely what happens now, based on the amount of campaign donations?
10X25 (above) sees the light but misjudges whether the light is electric, candles, or bioluminescence. Don't think of "total numbers" or "apportionment" for federal government staffing, judge by "what is Constitutionally required" and "maximum efficacy in achieving that goal." The individual states will Do What They Do - which might not be the Right Thing - but at least there would be fifty options to choose from.
Let me hasten to add that I am doing this from memory.
DeleteThe proposal I read discussed that. Their perspective is that legacy broadcasting (and mobile devices) are totally dependent on bands of frequencies that are auctioned off by the FCC, the fact that other broadcasters follow the rules-of-the-road as policed by the FCC.
Since frequency bands are a "public good" and since the FCC administration turns them into a monopolized good, the foundation of the broadcast industry is a cost (loss of the good) born by the public. Consequently, the Federal government would be within their rights to demand that a small amount of that bandwidth be reserved for purposes like PSAs and the proposed election advertising.
I've heard and read lots of opinions and idea's to solve this dilemma, and respectfully, none of them will really do the job? Ultimately people (lawyers and lobbyists) will find a way around the roadblock. The Constitution it very self, was designed to prevent this from happening (no pay for senators, etc.), and yet here we are. Took 'em 250 years tho.
ReplyDeleteThe inherent problem, is the entrenched mechanisms that prevent change. Deep State, Party Politics, it takes many forms and many names, but it's all the same - money and power corrupt, and the people at the top are the most corrupt we've got. That part will not get better by itself, no matter what. There is no moral cause or idea that will cause these individuals/groups to suddenly become God fearing Christians with a conscience. So as long as they are the cream that rises to the top and become the politicians, things will not change.
I know this doesn't solve the problem, but we need another 1776 to rip the whole thing up as it exists now and burn it to the ground, salt the earth, root-and-branch kind of stuff. The infection and rot at this point is so deep and so complete, nothing short of total eradication will get rid of it.
IF we could even accomplish that, the problem then becomes "what now"? And no, I don't have an answer. Frankly I think the founding documents did a pretty good job of trying, but ultimately the crooks worked around it... which is what is likely to happen again. Every effort at reform ultimately gets reversed by the criminals at the top.
SO the problem as I see it, is keeping the types of people in power, out of it. No, I don't have an answer or idea as to what system we can develop to prevent that, I already said I liked the founding documents. Frankly I think the problem is us not holding them accountable (via the press, elections, etc.)
YES, money becomes a scapegoat of that problem, but it isn't inherently the problem - the immoral people that take the money, are the problem. This is exactly the same as gun-control people blaming the gun. Its inanimate, it can't be the problem. The money isn't the problem, it's how its being used, which gets back to the character of the person in question... So long as we allow crooks to be our leaders, we will be led by crooks. I'm sorry I don't have a solution, but I think a lot of our debate about this, that, or the other thing misses the point. They're all band-aids that will be circumvented by the same crooks that caused the need for the band-aid in the first place.
How do we get moral and righteous leaders instead of crooks and whores? Sorry, that's a much more succinct way of saying it.
There was a local candidate here in the last election. No party affiliation but the flyer was tinted blue. I called her on it; asked what her platform was, where could I hear her talk. She couldn't give good answers so I asked her why she was running as a Democrat yet not willing to state that. Her answer was that the DNC was the only group that would fund her campaign. She had no beliefs, she just wanted to get in the game at any cost. She didn't win but this is a deep red region. No reason to assume some R candidates didn't play the same game.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with term limits is it does not address staff control of bill writing. Include staff in term limits.
ReplyDeleteThat was Roger at 10:13 AM
ReplyDelete