Buying
Elections.
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By
Mindy
Fischer
So
many Republicans are now saying that they no longer should be considered the
party of big money. They are saying that the Dems have not only caught up and
have just as many big money donors as the GOP, but that the Democrats are
actually spending more. This would be interesting if it were true. But of
course it’s not.
One
reason that they are able to say this and get away with it is because our
current political system makes it very hard to actually calculate accurately
who spent what or where exactly the money came from. But even with our
post-Citizens United system, we can still look at some basic facts.
The
Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan group who tracks all political
spending. And according to them,
approximately $40 Million more was spent in the 2014 mid-term elections than in
2010. Between the parties, candidates, committees, outside groups, and donors,
at least $3.67 Billion was spent on this election.
The
Center has broken down the spending into “Team Red” and “Team Blue” with the
red team representing all Republican-aligned groups and the blue team
representing all of the Democratic groups.
They found that Team Red spent
approximately $1.75 Billion across the country on these mid-terms, which is
about $110 Million MORE than Team Blue spent. Clearly this is a big difference,
but before you go thinking that the Dems are suffering in the money department,
you should know that they still spent around $1.64 Billion of their own.
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Another
important factor that is not counted in these figures is the amount of “dark
money” that was spent. Dark money means any money spent by groups, who thanks
to Citizens United, do not have to disclose any donor
identity information.
These groups would include labor unions, trade
organizations, and non-profit organizations like Americans for Prosperity which
was founded by the Koch brothers. This untraceable dark money tends to be
preferred by the Conservatives, while the Democrats prefer to use traceable
Super PACs.
According
to the Sunlight Foundation, about $140 Million in dark money
was spent on this election. And because most of the dark money goes to
Republican candidates, it is logical to conclude that the donors are also
Conservatives.
So
what does all of this mean? Well, first of all, while out-raising one’s
opponent does not necessarily mean a guaranteed win, in the Senate races of
this election the candidates who spent more money won over 80% of the time. But
what we can really conclude is that we just spent BILLIONS of dollars to elect
people who have an 8% approval rating. So, go figure.