Wealth Primary

In watching the way that the pre-election rhetoric of the 2008 election has been going, I reflect on the fact that money is really the determining factor in elections. Without money (and lots of it), one cannot get elected. This article from the National Voting Rights Institute contains alot of information about this phenomenon, with some amazing statistics: In 2000, winners of seats in the U.S. House out-raised and out-spent their opponents by almost 3-to-1, as winners raised an average of $916,629 and losers on average raised $309,213. In the Senate, winners raised $7,307,402 while losers raised $3,594,447. Candidates who raised the most money won 93 percent of the seats up for election in Congress in 2000. (USPIRG Report 1/3/01) More money = more seats... take a look at the Open Secret website, and you find this chart, showing the contributions given to each 2008 presidential hopeful. Is it unreasonable to assume that the people at the top of the money list have the best chance of winning? Looking at the Democrats, Clinton and Obama have each raised about $25M in individual contributions, but Clinton also has $10M in "other" contributions, putting her far into the lead money-wise. "Other" is defined as: All other revenues collected by the campaign, such as interest from the campaign's bank accounts and loans from outside sources. This figure is calculated by subtracting PAC, individual and candidate money from total revenues received. Negative numbers generally indicate an accounting error by the campaign. Hmm.... This chart shows something about the number and type of donors that a re giving money to campaigns. A monstrous 50% of Clinton's supporters give more than $4600 - not exactly the type of people the Democrats purport to represent. Here is a regional analysis by state. We should also look at the links between candidates and donors, which yields some interesting results as well. Money controls our government - as do those who have the money. Take a look at the top 20 contributors to Barack Obama's campaign (2001 - 2006). Recall this is a Democrat: How many of these look to be grassroots interests? If elected, who do you think Obama will represent most aggressively? There has been some amount of litigation, detailed here, to try to rectify this problem. Unfortunately, it has been mostly unsuccessful in addressing the root of the problem. This is just a small glimpse into the twisted world of political allegiance, but it is a frightening one.