The Billionaire Myth

I watched the Democratic debate the other night.  Whether one takes money from billionaires, or is a billionaire themselves, is in vogue for at least some of the Democratic candidates.  In a way, I understand.  It's seems unfair that a billionaire can spend his or her own money instead of getting donations from other citizens, or other billionaires for that matter.  There's a huge assumption that goes along with this, and that is that money actually buys votes.  Now, I'm not naive. Name recognition is one of the most important things for a political candidate.  Using money to advertise is certainly one way to achieve name recognition.  There's no question but that money is important to a political candidate. How one get that money is part of what's bubbled to the top of the Democratic debate state.  Do you raise the money from the average voter, in increments of $5, $10, $20?  Do you raise the money from wealthy people who maximize their donation at $2,800 or donate unlimited amounts to political action committees?  Do you get billionaires to call their friends and have them donate?  In the end it's still probably some type of a game.  Whatever approach that you take, you have to figure out how to make it work.  That's where the gamesmanship comes into play.  Because, in order to compete on a national level, you must have money, and lots of it.  But what about places like Iowa, where candidates meet with individuals in their homes and press the flesh with actual people?  Did money help?  Joe Biden had lots of money and got just under 16% of the vote.  Bernie Sanders gets most of his money from small donations, and he got ~25% of the vote.  Elizabeth Warren has sworn off billionaires (now, at least, but not in the past) and got 18% of the vote.  Mike Bloomberg decided not to even engage in Iowa.  Hmmm.  If buying votes is so easy, why didn't he just buy Iowa?

Can Mike Bloomberg buy an election?  Is it ok for him to try?  How stupid are the American people? Maybe I shouldn't ask that question.  If Bloomberg buys lots of air time, it's still incumbent upon him to put up good ads.  Lousy ads will not help him buy votes.  Tom Steyer has spent tons of money in the last few years for airtime that was incredibly boring.  I have only been impressed with him lately on the debate stage, but never from his expensive ads in the past.  I like Bloombergs ads, but all they've done is encouraged me to look at his record.

Can Mike Bloomberg buy an election?  Can he actually buy votes?  Of course not.  He can buy airtime.  He can put money into  building an effective campaign infrastructure.  Hmmm. The other candidates have had lots of money to spend on infrastructure.  What did that buy Biden in Iowas? No one's talking about how Bernie Sanders only got 25% of the Iowa vote, half of what he got four years ago.  Why did half of his supporters decide to choose other candidates in the intervening four years?

Whether you think that American voters are stupid or not, one thing is for certain, the American people have the freedom to vote for the candidate of their choice.  Does it really matter how that candidate gets on the ballot?  Name recognition? Lots of advertising dollars? A good debate performance?  Great ads?  Excellent campaign infrastructure?  If it was so easy for billionaires to becomes president, trump wouldn't have been the first.  Besides, he didn't overwhelm the political system with his money.  In fact, he pulled off an incredible scam.  He got people to give him money!

Mike Bloomberg will not be beholding to any special interest, because he takes no money from anyone.  At least that's what he says.  I'm inclined to believe him.  Of course, one could say that means he's only beholding to himself.  Well, if that's the case, we'll all have to judge what that means.  We can start by looking at his record as mayor of NYC.  We can look at the causes he's bankrolled.  We can look where he stands on the issues.  And then we can vote.  Billionaires or not, when it comes time to check off a name on the ballot, we, the American people. have the last word.