Do Democrats believe that money does not influence politics?

This year it appears to be, mostly, “Please donate to my party, because we’re not that guy.”

Democrats, as a group, recognize the problem of political money. Yet they also realize the only way to get elected is to have it. So it is, to them, a matter of being in bed with the “right” person.

@zen has a very honest answer there.

I am a lot more cynical about this issue. The Dem’s in the last mid-term cried bloody murder with all the Koch money floating many Republican Candidates….yet only 2 years prior during the 2012 cheered when big corporate money helped get Obama re-elected.

Citizens United opened the flood gates that allow for all sorts of undue influence to emerge and infect our recent politics. At least before CU…it still happened but not so obviously and if we repeal CU….we can go back to more peaceful election cycles without all the gross PAC attack ads. Trump has proven you don’t need to spend hundreds of millions almost a billion dollars to compete in a presidential election. So lets get rid of CU now and forever.

I would vote for Trump if he championed for campaign and election reform as then we won’t have to listen to candidates whining like big babies over the caucuses and delegates.

Sanders is the only one out there who walks the walk.

Possibly some, but surely not all.

@stanleybmanly Bernie is walking the same walk all other previous candidates have. Point made by the fact that 11 of the top 20 donors are unions who have thrown gobs of cash at him. He is raking in the big money just like Hillary and Cruz did. Plus a stark contrast to the paltry amounts Trump is taking in.

@Cruiser: “He is raking in the big money just like Hillary and Cruz did.”

Citation please.

@DoNotKnowMuch Since you asked nicely

^ 2016 presidential campaign or career? You also compared his contributions to Cruz and Clinton. This is what I asked for. I’m well aware of opensecrets.org. But I’d like to see the numbers or specifics that justified your claim.

@DoNotKnowMuch I do not have the time to do it all over. Just browse open secrets for each candidate you have interest in and compare notes. BTW IMO the career numbers are most important as it highlights who these candidates are really deeply invested with.

Wait…what? How can anyone say that money does not influence politics at this point in time? A lot of people don’t want so much money in politics. A lot of democrats want some sort of reform. Some republicans do too.

@Cruiser – I’m very familiar with those numbers, and they don’t support your claim.

Let’s put your assertion on hold until you provide the data.

@DoNotKnowMuch Be glad to put it on hold until you actually look at the numbers because if and when you do you will see very similar amounts of institutional money going into their accounts.

If this election cycle has proven one thing it’s that money doesn’t necessarily buy elections afterall. Jeb Bush conducted the most expensive campaign in history and never really got out of the gate. Meanwhile the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has spent next to nothing.

Don’t get me wrong, I personally think Citizens United ought to be overturned, and I feel there ought to be campaign finance reform, but it’s not quite the death of democracy.

@Cruiser: “Be glad to put it on hold until you actually look at the numbers because if and when you do you will see very similar amounts of institutional money going into their accounts.”

I’m supposed to do the work to look into your claim? Ok. Let’s start with this. Maybe I’m missing something. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

According to opensecrets.org, these donor lists are comprised of:

“This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2016 cycle. The money came from the organizations’ PACs; their individual members, employees or owners; and those individuals’ immediate families. At the federal level, the organizations themselves did not donate, as they are prohibited by law from doing so. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.”

So, if we first look at the 2016 election cycle:

Clinton

Sanders

Cruz

If we take a look at the top 5 of each candidate, this amounts to roughly:

Clinton: $25.5 million

Sanders: $900 thousand

Cruz: $51 million

Hmm…are these numbers comparable?

But even if we look at career numbers, Bernie and Clinton are not really comparable – are they?...

Clinton

Sanders

And if we are back to looking at this election cycle, we have Clinton claiming that being paid $225,000 for speeches to Goldman Sachs and other banks will mysteriously have no influence on her. Here is a list of some of her speeches. What she said in those speeches is quite relevant to her candidacy, yet she has yet to release them.

And I do think that the candidates’ net worth is relevant here. Sanders is worth anywhere from $330k to $528k. Clinton is worth around $31.2 million, or $111 million between the two Clintons.

So, let’s get back to the claim that “Bernie is walking the same walk all other previous candidates have”. Maybe you could elaborate. Thanks.

@Cruiser Your link doesn’t support your assertion. Sanders’ biggest donors are absolutely dwarfed by Hillary’s.

Sanders’ largerst contributor wouldn’t even make the top 20 list for Hillary.

And so what that unions are supporting Sanders? (With not especially huge donations) Trade unions comprise of ordinary working people and are far more representative of most ordinary people than any corporation or business elite could ever be.

@Kropotkin…Sanders campaign was all about how he eschewed corporate donations and his assertion is borderline hypocritical given the numbers at open secrets. What you and @DoNotKnowMuch are failing to acknowledge are the Bernie PACs that spend copious amount money to support Bernie and attack Hillary and what is even more overlooked are the Trump PAC’s that are simultaneously attacking Hillary which directly benefits Bernie. Without either Bernie would be burnt toast by now.

This slight of hand may fool you but it doesn’t fool me….but hey….it’s all politics and what the rules allow a candidate to do. It is then up to the candidate to acknowledge or deny that is how they are playing the game and I cry foul. Bernie is a fraud so is Hillary so is Trump….so now what?

^ ?

@Cruiser Hold on a second. The chart from your link states in bright red letters that the organizations themselves did not donate money to Bernie. Did you notice that one of the “donors” on that list is the U S NAVY?

The only way to get money out of politics is to reform the whole system. Stop having all these rallies. Have them do town hall meetings instead and broadcast them. Only one town hall per candidate per state where actual people get to actually ask them questions that people want to know. And have them all go cross country on a bus. Stay at an inexpensive hotel. And they can only spend money like our military guys have to spend when they have travel orders. No cheating. Everyone has to spend and account for the same amount of money. All donations just go to the party and they let DOD partial it out and give them their refunds.
Have public access channels dedicate some time for Candidates to appeal to voters and get their message across.

@Cruiser Sanders has no affiliated Super PACs.

It’s the affiliated Super PACs which are the sly way of contravening campaign donation limits. Super PACs are technically “independent” and must not co-ordinate with the official campaign—except that they’re nearly always founded and headed by political allies who are pretty much well acquainted with the candidate they’re supporting

And let’s compare the numbers. Hillary’s Super PACs have raised $76 million. Over $67 million of that from her main affiliated Super PAC, Priorities USA Action.

Sanders Super PACs aren’t in the same ball park, and they’re not corporate funded—but by low and middle income workers, and usually through trade unions..

And then there’s the individual campaign contributions, where Bernie has raised $157 million out of $180 million from contributions of $200 or less.

Hillary’s mains contributors are mostly from $2,000 and larger band. (The limit being $2700).

So, no—Sanders is not a “hypocrite”. The numbers on Open Secrets don’t support anything you’ve claimed. Bernie’s PACs are a relatively very small amount compared to Hillary’s, and not “copious”. Trump also has practically no Super PACs, and his attacks on Hillary have nothing to do with Sanders.

“This slight of hand may fool you but it doesn’t fool me”

Apart from your complete misreading of the numbers, and apparent acceptance of anti-Sanders propaganda.

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy” (Georgetown University Professor Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 1966.)

@Cruiser – Just checking in. Did you have a chance to come up with data that supports your assertions yet, or can we shelve them indefinitely – and _ acknowledge it?

@DoNotKnowMuch I told you where to go look….Google is a beautiful thing.

@Kropotkin You are partially correct in that Sanders is not directly connected to a Super Pac but whether he endorsed it or not the __National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the U.S. was a group of nurses whose “super PAC” has doled out close to $1 million on ads and other kinds of campaign support for Sanders.’ and Sanders got to drive in a shiny new Nurses bus when he campaigned across Iowa__

Plus he is indirectly benefiting from Republican super pack attack ads on Hillary.
__“in just one recent ad from the influential Republican super PAC American Crossroads, the uber-conservative group spent a substantial amount of its and the Kochs’ $4.3 million against Clinton parroting a constant Sanders’ attack against Clinton for earning Wall Street speaking fees.” __

@Cruiser: “I told you where to go look….Google is a beautiful thing.”

1. You made an assertion.
2. You wouldn’t provide data to support your assertion.
3. I did the work for you using the source you provided and I linked to it above.
4. Since the data didn’t support your assertion, you were asked to provide a source.
5. Rather than provide data, you doubled down on your assertion and claimed that there was additional “slight of hand” going on, that only you were not fooled by. Again, no data.
6. @Kropotkin provided another explanation of why the data in no way supports your assertion(s).
7. I check in to see what the delay is, hoping that you’ve been doing some homework.
8. You respond with “I told you where to go look…Google is a beautiful thing.”

Well, that about covers it. You were wrong, were unable to provide data to back it up, and again just want us to go out and try to prove your argument for you despite the evidence.

For the record – you can just say, “I don’t like Sanders or his positions”. That’s legit. You don’t have to make stuff up or pretend that if we all just did enough googling, your incorrect assertions would be supported.

@DoNotKnowMuch

Pretty hefty sums if you ask me…The money came from the organizations’ PACs; their individual members, employees or owners; and those individuals’ immediate families.

And again!

@Cruiser, you do realize that those are the numbers (without the breakdown) that I provided links to above, right? Your work is to tie those numbers to the claims you have made. It’s not enough to now say that these numbers are “pretty hefty sums if you ask me”. You’re playing cute. Go back to your claims.

And as for those “pretty hefty numbers”. They sure are. These are my people. Note here that most of these are individual contributions from people who work at Google (aka Alphabet) if I am reading this right. When I contribute to Sanders, my employer is noted. It’s not Google, but I’m in software.

Now that we have established again that you have not provided any data that supported your assertions, are you just going to provide my link again or are you going to do any work to make your case?

@Cruiser

”. . . the organizations themselves did not donate, as they are prohibited by law from doing so.”

$150 million out of the $182 million raised by Sanders have come from donations of under $200.

Large donations of over $2700, and the sort of sums that can be donated by corporations, millionaires, billionaires—these can only go to Super PACs.

Bernie doesn’t control Super PACs. He has no affiliated Super PAC run by some close ally like Hillary has (which has raised $67 million).

The Super PACs favouring Bernie amount to a tiny fraction of his total campaign funds—and are pretty much run and funded by ordinary people, like (gasp) nurses! Unless you mean to tell me that there’s no qualitative differences between lots and lots of nurses, and a corporation, or a billionaire or two.

@DoNotKnowMuch Your choice to ignore the elephant in the room…__“The money came from the organizations’ PACs“__ Plus the data source clearly says __Election cycles covered: 2016__ and __”This page shows contributions grouped by contributor to the candidate’s campaign committee plus any super PACs or hybrid PACs working on his or her behalf.“__

If it is spelled like PAC, sounds like a PAC when you say it, contributes money like a PAC the it IS a PAC! sheesh!

@Cruiser: “Bernie is walking the same walk all other previous candidates have. Point made by the fact that 11 of the top 20 donors are unions who have thrown gobs of cash at him. He is raking in the big money just like Hillary and Cruz did.”

If you’re unwilling to do the work, there is no use continuing here. Well, at least now you know….I hope.

@Cruiser Just to reiterate. Sanders cannot stop Super PACs raising money and campaigning on his behalf. He can’t stop the Nurses Union campaigning for him (though there’s no reason why he would stop them.)

He’s asked corporations not to support him. And since the largest outside pro-Sanders group is the National Nurses Union (You understand that nurses are not millionaires, right?) It should be pretty simple to infer that corporations are not making any significant contribution to the Sanders’ campaign—if at all.

And if you really want to see what a corporate and millionaire backed affiliated (one run by a known politically ally) Super PAC actually looks like, then take a look at Priorities USA Action

George Soros alone donated $6 million to Hillary’s Super PAC. That’s one man donating many times more than the thousands of nurses managed to raise campaigning for Sanders.

Do you see the difference?

And for the page to which you keep referring.

The money came from the organizations’ PACs; their individual members, employees or owners; and those individuals’ immediate families. At the federal level, the organizations themselves did not donate, as they are prohibited by law from doing so.

The only way Microsoft (for example) could donate $136,000 to the Sanders campaign, would be through a Super PAC, which Bernie would not be able to control. But that doesn’t matter—we know they’re not doing that, because Bernie’s Super PACs are comprised overwhelmingly of ordinary workers, raising modest sums of money—you know, like those nurses. And by inference, the $136,000 number by Microsoft (and most or all the other listed organisations) comprise of contributions by their employees.