Campaign Funds

My inbox is full of them these days, coming from both Democrats and Republicans, along with many other specific interest groups with whom I have indicated support in the past, not to mention others, of which I have never heard and wonder how they got my name.  Between Facebook and email, I probably get 40 a day, thanks to big data tracking and targeted messages.

They all have one thing in common:  they want money.  Frequently, they want money, and it’s an emergency!

That got me thinking, how much money have they taken in, say, for the 2016 election cycle?  I found a website that produced a scary number, at https://www.opensecrets.org/parties/  Check it out.  I’ll give you a preview:  The Democrats raised a total of $2,045,690,893 in all their respective committees.  The Republicans raised $1,621,175,431 over the same time period.  Yeah, that’s in billions of dollars.  And that’s only the two main parties, and does not include all the so-called Independent Super-PACs and anyone else who felt like they needed to throw money at the problem.

I checked those totals out against other sites, like the Washington Post, and found similar results.  The Democrats, who have long railed against the Citizens United decision and how it allowed “big money” to take over out political discourse, are shown to be liars and con artists, since they raised more than the Republicans did, although from a larger number of people in smaller individual donations.  It becomes obvious that the Democratic-led campaign to reverse the Citizens United decision is a smoke screen to hide the fact that they are worse offenders than the Republicans, and a strategic attempt to limit the Republican access to funds, while leaving them even more in the lead.  What did Elridge Cleaver say about “if you’re not part of the solution”?

Ok, next question:  Where did they spend the money?

Here, for example is a report from NBC on how much out-of-state money was spent in Georgia this year in the 6^th District Congressional Race:  http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/out-state-interests-spent-26-2-million-georgia-special-election-n774366

That’s 26.2 million dollars, mostly from out-of state (all but $100,000 came from outside Georgia).  In the article, it mentions specifically that the money was spent on TV advertising, online ads, text messages.  Beyond that, you have to really dig to find out any useful information.  The first link gives expenditure totals, but does not show who got the money.

As for the big numbers, and the names of the companies who get that money, and what they do to earn it, that information has been swallowed by a black hole.  Feel free to dig as deep as you like, and see if you come up with any more results than I did.

I’ll give you a couple of leads:  Google “campaign services”, and see what comes up.

My contention is that both major political parties in this country have fallen under the influence of professionals:  Fund Raisers, Lawyers, Advisors, Analysts, Researchers, Printers, PR types, Mud-slingers and overseers of all kinds.  The one thing they all have in common is that they are making a good living off the turmoil and the bullshit, and the more it continues the more they have a personal stake in keeping the ball rolling.  It has become an ongoing industry that starts working on the next campaigns right after the end of the last ones.

There is no evidence that any of these professional types give one withered rat’s ass about the best public policy for the American People.  They don’t work for us, even if our donations are paying their wages.  And the so-called representatives, with few exceptions, are more interested in staying in power than they are in doing the right thing for us, which helps explain why nothing seems to get ever actually done in those halls of power.

It would not surprise me to find out that in many cases, the professional companies are working for both sides at the same time.

Information like this is what is causing me to reject making donations to any campaign that does not apply to the locality in which I live.  It boils down to one slogan:

No Out-Of-State Contributions should be allowed for any statewide race!

Not only is it an affront to the residents of any given state, who are tasked with the decision of who shall represent them, and are the only ones allowed to vote, when a bunch of out-of-state interests are allowed to flood them with bullshit to support one side or the other, but it also has had an extremely negative effect on our Congress, where House members and Senators must spend incredible amounts of time raising funds for their next campaign, rather than doing the business that we elected them to do.

How do we fix this?  Start with your own pocketbook.  Feel free to donate money to the national campaign of your choice, be it Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, or the Daughters of the Confederacy.  As far as political campaigns go, it seems legitimate to donate directly to the Presidential Candidate of your choice.  Keep your money out of the neighboring states, and even the legislative districts within your own state.  No matter how much you think that so-and-so in the next district over is a wart on the ass of progress, and needs to be ousted, it’s really none of your business.  It’s for the voters of that district to decide, and they don’t need you shouting in their ear on their way to the voting booth, or paying someone else to do it for you.  And not one nickel to the national parties, unless they can promise and prove that money we donate will only be spent in our local races.

Imagine how elections would go if there were no money to run attack ads, or spew fake news all over Facebook.  Imagine all the sycophants and toadies standing at the exits to the parking lots all over D.C. and our State Capitols bearing signs that say:  “Will bullshit for food”.  :-{)}