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The Washington Post
reported that “The political network overseen by the
conservative billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch plans to spend close to
$900 million on the 2016 campaign, an unparalleled effort by coordinated
outside groups to shape a presidential election that is already on track to be
the most expensive in history.” Ouch! That’s a chunk of change.
However, if she gets the Democratic nomination Hillary
Clinton’s campaign for the White House too will have lots of dough. She is
expected to spend roughly one billion dollars. Her ultimate GOP opponent will
spend the same amount.
It’s no surprise that “big money” in politics is of concern
to almost anyone watching the 2016 election season roll along. Ever since the
Supreme Court in Citizen’s United case there have been virtually no
restrictions on political spending.
The concern is that money allows billionaires to “buy”
elections and “put future presidents in their pockets.”
Now along comes political commentator, candidate for
governor, university lecturer, radio host at WHNH, and analyst
Arne Arnesen of
Concord, New Hampshire to give a totally different perspective. (Picture in studio by Steffen Schmidt (c)2015)
I was on her show “The Attitude” (
http://www.arniearnesen.org/WP/) in
studio last week. I’m on every Thursday, normally on the phone from Ames, Iowa.
Then I interviewed her for my free Internet Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
on the Iowa caucuses.
Arnie argued that money is only a threat when it’s
asymmetrical. If one party or candidate has oodles of dough and the other sides
do not, money can distort the discussion and outcome of caucuses, primaries,
and the general election. That would undermine the democratic political
process.
But, argued Arnie, what if every candidate has a millionaire
sponsor? Then regardless of how much money is spent the playing field
essentially becomes flat. It’s a draw.
Second, Arnie avers that beyond a certain necessary amount
MORE money really can’t buy you a political advantage. The reason is that TV
time is normally “Sold OUT” so there is no more opportunity for an air war.
Hiring more staff, more pollsters, more “consultants” is probably a waste of
money.
Third, in the 21
st Century “social media” and
“social networking” is becoming more important as a political tool. Twitter,
Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, blogs, FullCircle,
Tumblr, Xanga, and a HUGE
number of other tools (For a list of current active sites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites)
are generally
free. With active
crowd sourcing of supporters and a little bit of what I call
“assignmenting,” asking individuals or teams
to target specific social media, a candidate with lots of dedicated followers
and volunteers can probably compete with the deep pocket contender.
I think Arnie has raised a very compelling and intriguing
hypothesis about money and politics.
We will be testing this with the contest between Hillary
Clinton, who has lots of money, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who does not
accept Super PAC money and is running a grass roots campaign, small
contributions, and lots of passionate followers.
As despair about the unspeakable amount of cash has us all
concerned, money may not, after all, be the insurmountable and unfair force.
With clever use of free media (see Bernie Sanders and his huge rallies) and
social media the billionaire influence could be a lot less than expected.
* Steffen Schmidt is
University
Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University. You can sign up
for his free Internet course that starts Sept 1 @
https://www.iowacaucusesmooc.org/
