In case you wonder why I worry that my Democratic leadership can’t manage to get in gear with the public…
But the FEC data suggest plenty of wealthy donors continued to support Democrats with their checkbooks, at least through December.
The Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee together took in more than $37.3 million from donors who gave $10,000 or more during the year, the FEC data show. On the GOP side, donors at the same level gave less than $15.6 million to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee combined, the data show.
The overall money race is much closer, with Democratic committees raising $141 million and the GOP close behind at $137.6 million. The Democratic committees, in other words, got more than twice as much of their individual contributions from big donors as Republicans did.
The contrast was particularly sharp between the DNC, which received 60 percent of its money from donations of less than $200, and the RNC, which took in nearly 80 percent of its receipts from the smallest donors. The RNC still edged out the DNC by $4 million in total money raised from individuals.
Large donors, in my view, tend to be ‘investors’ in government more than simply fans…what will it take to grow a Democratic Party that is connected to the $200 donors??
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Total destruction. The Democratic Party has been the party of the rich and privileged for some time. I think it really turned in that direction with the rise to power of the new left, a movement whose most radical members were urban, privileged, and hopelessly parochial. They may not have known much, but they knew where the money was.
Mind, there are still ordinary folks out in the sticks of Kansas and Oklahoma who haven’t gotten the message about the new fangled Democrats, but they are a dying breed.
The Dems haven’t been the party of the “little guy” for a long time. The closest they come are government unions, who, after all, represent what new left types see as the “working class”, with the twist that they work for the Greater Good ™.
Years ago the philosopher Robert Nozick asked: why don’t unions start their own factories, set their wages as high as they want and their hours as short as they want, and pile on all the benefits they want?
Well, it just took them a while to figure out how to do it.
What will it take? The effective destruction of the “media-industrial complex.” At present, the Democratic party collects money from parties of influence (industry, unions, government stakeholders) and uses it to buy votes from the press. As long as that works, it has no incentive to actually _work_ for those citizens – buying their votes is so much more convenient.
If you want your party (it is, still, just barely, _your_ party, right?) to care about the $200 donors, help destroy the influence of the industrial media over those very same donors. And recognize that this will effectively destroy your party’s day-to-day influence for quite a while – though it might give actual Liberals a crack at gaining influence in it.
Cheers
— perry
Honestly, I think both parties are beholden to special interests… which is why they’re so excited about the supreme court ruling. The know that they’re corporate benefactors can now act on their behalf without any donation at all.
I still think the best way to eliminate these groups it to hand out a government mandated budget to all candidates and have no donors above 200 at all.
_”I still think the best way to eliminate these groups it to hand out a government mandated budget to all candidates and have no donors above 200 at all.”_
Where do I sign up? I want my check for the Buehner Party so i can hit the Red Lobster.
Money will always buy speech. As with much of life, when the govment tries to curtail a reality, they tend to make things worse.
Let anybody and everybody spend as much as they want, just make them disclose it. Money isn’t evil, speech isn’t evil. Shady politicians that cut deals is evil- and WE’RE the one’s that keep sending them back to rob us.
In other words, people are the problem.
I will say both Republicans and Democrats have done a terrific job of tribalizing the electorate.
For the record, im _furious_ right now at the Republicans for the current healthcare disaster hovering over us. Their corruption, pork waddling, and abandonment of conservative principles handed this overwhelming majority to the Dems. If they hadn’t been the pigs that they are we wouldn’t be in this mess about to see gasoline tossed on the kindling of our fiscal house. The Republicans supplied plenty of that kindling. Small re-compensation that they’re outraged over the gasoline at this late date.
If there’s a sure-fire way to see the downfall of a civilization, it’s when a majority of its elites do more rent-seeking than adding value. Any large society will have some level of rent-seeking, but a common theme from everyone from ancient Rome to Chinese dynasties after the first couple of emperors to, sadly, us is the growth of elites that seek to game the system to get free and undeserved money and power over actually working and adding value to maintain and improve their situation.
My dissertation research was on the 1996 House elections. That was the year after the big debacle, and Republicans were raising more money than Democrats but not getting quite as much “bang for the buck.” I tried to use several other “populist” variables that identified whether the sources of contributions were from within or outside the district, whether they came from PACs, etc. but none were significant. At that time it seemed that money was only important if ideology and incumbency weren’t. If both parties raise about the same amount this time around it might be useful to use your “small contributor” variable in the model, but back then it was very deceptive because of bundling and other strategies for getting around contribution limits. I don’t know what that dataset looks like now, but my guess is that it might still be deceptive.
I was saying in my imaginary/non-existent system a certain amount of money is doled out by the government, and people can still donate, just no more than $200 dollars.
The simplest solution is to make government not worth bribing. When the government is powerful it will always be corrupt, because power attracts corrupt men who wish to use it to advance their own interests. So it has been, so it is, and so it will be.
Perry, you’re correct, AND, unfortunately, the problem is not confined to Democrats. Lessig is right about the self-perpetuating ecosystem at work, and so is Kaiser’s “So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government”:http://www.amazon.com/Damn-Much-Money-Corrosion-Government/dp/0307266540
Is the Democratic Party worse? I’d say so, both in absolute terms, and also in betraying their core principles to do it. But until there are some changes in GOP leadership as well, the differences will be a lot smaller than I’d like.
Alchemist is right. Corporations should be prohibited from engaging in political speech unless they employ Jon Stewart. Because he’s nonpartisan.