How the 2016 Candidates Are Getting Their Money
npr.org
npr.org
I find it a tad ironic that, in terms of the paper trail, Donald Trump is one of the most authentic candidates right now. Obviously he doesn't need the money from huge donors, but still ... it's interesting at least.
This time around it's a bit different, he seems to actually be campaigning, participating in debates, filing the paperwork. But even now I still don't think he's serious about running. I mean the way he talks about policies is just a joke. 'I'm gonna make America so great, I'm gonna make you soooo proud, you're going to become the happiest people', I mean it's just laughable. Anyway my point is that he doesn't have any real policy plans. He's like some of the Dutch politicians we have over here that make policy promises that they can't keep because they break Dutch, international and European laws and agreements that the Netherlands has signed. Everyone who knows anything about how the world works laughs at this, but people eat it up. So I'm still not convinced he's actually interested to run for the office all the way, (although I'm less sure about it than ever) and if that's true he's not going to be serious about raising millions from big donors, so Trump's paper trail isn't surprising in the least. Here you can see how little he raised as of earlier this month [0] That type of money can't sustain popularity in the real elections when people spend $300m on attacking every single thing you do from every single angle all over TV, Radio, print and the internet, which is why people are skeptical combined with Trump's lack of policy plans, lack of solid political team who's working on real policy plans and disingenuous campaigns in the best (I wanna be president cause Obama is from Kenya).
Beyond that, it's early days. The last presidential elections all had $1b dollar budgets for both candidates of the ruling parties for example, and both parties spent about $1b each. (Obama, Romney, McCain), and both candidates had 2/3rd or more of their money coming from large donors. Lastly, it's an interesting note to make that Obama spent 2x as much per vote than McCain in 2008, and about 40% more than Romney per vote. I don't think it'll be much different for anyone who wants to win this day and age, Clinton, Bush, Trump or Bernie.
Also if you look at fundraising, nearly half of it goes through parties rather than individuals, and those parties then put their weight behind the nominee. That fundraising isn't covered in this article, and it's exactly that fundraising which is most lopsided towards large contributors. So really I think it's much too soon to make any sweeping conclusions. After all, a guy like Bernie earlier this month had raised just $15m. That's top 6 by the way, not a small amount, but given the winner of the election is likely to spend more than $1 billion, the distribution of 1% of the early funding days probably isn't very significant.
[0] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/electio...
When the history books get written, I can't imagine anything worthwhile being written about any of them.
As the tech industry grows in power and influence, and government inefficiencies stand in the way of progress, it's a safe bet politicians will feel the pressure to change.
This cycle has already played out many times over with Wall Street, Defense, Energy, Pharma etc getting involved in politics. The same incentives that made the Rockefellers, Bushes, Cheneys and Trumps to get involved will see future Gates, Zucks and Musks stepping up too.
The difference between the tech sector and other sectors however, unseen before historically, is the speed and scale at which they are able to turn what was previously considered impossible to possible.
The first serious govt vs tech industry conflicts are just beginning to emerge whether in energy, telecom, privacy, security, payments etc. Government and traditional politics doesn't stand a chance. They will be subverted.