Comment by merpnderp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by merpnderp | Hacker News Reader

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It's a real problem, but not as bad as people think. The current US presidential election has seen several massively financed candidates get nearly nothing for their money. Trump and Cruz spent relatively nothing in the early parts of the election compared to Jeb Bush who spent 10's of millions.

Hillary dwarfs Bernie's fundraising, yet is remaining highly competitive. About as competitive as one would believe if they had the same finances.

People don't like to admit it, but representatives are usually pretty popular locally even if highly detested elsewhere. The US Congress's ~10% approval rating is only possible because local representatives maintain ~>50% approval ratings.

I believe the real problem is that people don't actually know what their representatives are doing. If people understood the level to which health care insurance companies were allowed to influence the ACA, I doubt a single supporter would survive reelection. Health insurance companies writing health care reform bills is pretty much the definition of evil in the US.

It has a more significant effect on the smaller elections. When people are distracted by the presidential contests they forget that Joe Shmo stands no chance against the guy with all the rich friends. He can't buy local ads or get his name on all the billboards.

That and once the tentacles are very cheaply put in on a tiny local race, then a city council seat, then state legislature, then....

Smaller sums of money go a long way in smaller races but you can spread your bets widely enough and buy quite a bit of loyalty in the process.

I always hear this goal-post moving argument when people point out that Presidential candidates who received large sums of money have since dropped out of the race, but never is any evidence to support that claim provided. Can you provide a few reputable, non-bias sources that prove this cause-and-effect you're claiming exists?

I don't think it's so much goal post moving as a lot of us never claimed it buys elections. My assertion has always been that generally speaking if you want to be competitive politically you need to scratch the backs of elites to get the proper funding to be relevant in elections. It's not an absolute, rather that there is excessive corporate influence that undermines the political process

A couple of studies from Princeton https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi... https://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/idr.pdf

A biased write up on some of the findings, along with references to other sources at the end

https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/

I'm pretty sure everyone who wants campaign finance reform claims that money buys elections, unless a situation doesn't fit that narrative in which case the goal posts are shifted or moved. I'll check out your links though, thanks very much for those.

Do they really maintain ~>50% approval ratings? Or is it just the case that people are basically forced to choose between candidates that have <~10% individual approval rating? Given voter turnout for congressional races I tend towards the latter.

That's an extremely good point. I imagine they usually they usually keep good approval ratings for people who vote. Recently the incumbent senator from my state, who was wildly popular, retired. His replacement was hard core conservative and the election turned into a 3 way to see who could out conservative each other. I wasn't happy, but I think most of the electorate got exactly what they wanted.

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