WAS What Adults are Saying about Campaigns and Money

The Presidential Election has jumped the money shark

The following is a discussion among adults in American homes tonight:

You’ll see we have a lot of your friends sitting here because something ultra-serious is happening and it’s bad. When you changed your diet to invite a diabetic coma we were all worried but mostly, quiet. When you decided that little device in your hand would get your full attention at our expense, we just sighed and thought “you can’t stop progress”. Even when you took the kids’ college money to start America’s professional dart league we got pissed, but stayed silent because after all, you were “investing.”

But this is different. Your day has come buster. We are tired and now showing you today, your rock bottom. You know we all love you. Your staff says you’re the greatest boss they’ve ever seen and your pals over here are so tight they passed on Knicks tickets to be here. That’s because it’s now or never. You need help. You see, just like America you have become addicted to moneyed elections and it’s killing all of us.

By the time we (thankfully) get to the morning of November 6th America will have spent nearly three billion dollars on a campaign to elect the nation’s 47th Executive leader This from a country of some 330 million citizens and about half that number of voters. You do the math! No? That’s about $9 per capita—double for the number of voters.

Of course the Electoral College being what it is, most vote casting for the country’s President has nominal influence on who wins. This year with seven swing states where polling estimates remain close it is estimated no more than a half-million voters—tops—will really determine our 47th President! Campaign expenditures work out to nearly $6000 per voter in this critical sliver.

What do the candidate’s exactly get for all that money? Well for one a cadre of “strategists” representing whatever candidate(s), position, foreign operative or who knows what that endlessly shill on every possible type of news program and then some. Always entrepreneurial at “shilling”, these folks make sure they have titles to fully cross-sell their own consultancy, employer or podcast. Viewers and listeners can then hear them shill more—as though it is the gateway to wise decision-making.

There is endless visual advertising on all platforms you can imagine including terrestrial television. The volume of it is stupendous and messaging most frequently is so coarse, divisive and malicious that one wonders if the ad is a mini SNL skit. Negative claims outnumber the affirming by a good six-to-one. At the end of a long sports weekend one is so worn from it all as to half expect a candidate simply say “vote for me—I haven’t killed anyone.” Enduring all of this leaves a thick, yucky aftertaste—kinda like post milkshake and a double (processed) cheeseburger.

Mind you little of this is known to really have impact. Those who benefit—the campaigns, broadcasters, consultants, public affairs firms and production houses—will understandably tell you the critical importance of all this communication. But these same groups struggle to explain if a mere 500,000 people are going to determine the outcome why do campaigns fall over themselves to reach them through mass media?

If that wasn’t enough, should any of this move you to show the slightest digital interest in a candidate then a whole other barrage starts. Endless text or e-mail solicitations for more money follow—presumably so that the newly raised cash can sit fortress like around the old. The solicitations plead with the same urgency as a medical telethon with about one-tenth the sincerity or good will. No matter how the campaigns “trend” all candidates claim to be losing and badly needing your money to derail evil opponents.

This entire process leaves us tired, dismayed, distrusting of our own good judgment and instincts and ultimately, makes us all small. Americans have never been confused with the brightest people on earth but nor are we the dumbest. For clear-eyed citizens percolating in excitement about their civic duty Presidential campaigns have become Darwinian—with plenty who are well intended but simply can’t emotionally survive all the negativity.

Ultimately any sane person asks what is the cost of all this money?” What is promised to the big donors giving millions? What quid pro quo are special interest PACS expecting with the largesse they offer? What subterranean chicanery dressed in “dark money” is buried in this dreck? Who is getting the vigorish? Most importantly, what lies or never to be fulfilled promises must candidates make to keep the money machine grinding? Beyond those receiving direct payment or the levers of power, who benefits from all of this? The voters? Not hardly.