Stop worrying about Big Money in political campaigns . . . David Brooks

We all lament the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision, which unleashed hundreds of millions of dollars in money donated to a certain kind of political action committee that does not have to identify its sources.    The expectation was that it would lead to further corruption of our political system by Big Money and that it would benefit Republicans more than Democrats.

David Brooks wrote about this in a New York Times column on October 9th titled, "Money Matters Less."   He drew several conclusions:

(1)  It may not be true that Republicans benefit more (despite the Koch Brothers).   In 2012, Romney did not outspend Obama.  Again, in 2012, campaigns in 38 states were examined, and "15 top Democratic-aligned committees outraised the 15 top Republican ones by $164 million."

In September 2014, "Democrats have more money than Republicans in most of the tightest Senate races: Colorado, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia;   [and] Democratic candidates have reserved $109 million in television advertising time before Election Day, while Republicans have reserved $85 million."   

However, it is expected that anonymous donors will pour in last minute money into the Republican-alligned 501(c)(4) committees.

(2)   What we do know about Citizens United is that "it has accelerated a pre-existing trend: Each year more money flows into campaigns. Spending this cycle is more than double what it was at this point in 2010 and four times higher than it was in early October 2006."

(3)   "Democrats do have an advantage in the donations made to super PACs, which have to report their donors. But Republicans have an advantage in donations made to 501(c)(4) groups, which can keep the names of donors secret."   This means that Democrats are more open about their giving, while Republicans want to remain anonymous.

But here's the real surprise, although we had begun to suspect it:

(4)  "The final and most important effect of Citizens United: it will reduce the influence of money on electoral outcomes. Yes, that’s right. Reduce.

"Remember, money is quite important in local races, with unknown candidates.  But money is not that important in high-attention federal races. Every year we get more evidence suggesting that campaign spending does not lead to victory. In 2012 the Koch brothers spent huge amounts of money to pathetic effect. Rove’s American Crossroads dumped $117 million into the 2012 election. More than 90 percent of it was spent on candidates who ended up losing.    [Terrific ! ! ! ]

"And money is really not important when both candidates are well-financed. After both candidates have hit a certain spending threshold, the additional TV commercials they might buy are just making the rubble bounce. . . .  If you doubled a candidate’s spending, the candidate would only gain 1 percentage point. In other words, big swings in spending produce only small changes in the vote totals. . . .  

"What matters more is the quality of that message and the national mood. . . .  "

Krugman concludes by saying that we should all just relax about campaign spending and worry more about these rich people who are wasting their money [yeah, right].   "This year, the big spender is a hedge fund manager named Tom Steyer (a Democrat). He could have spent $42.7 million paying for kids to go to college. Instead he has spent that much money this year further enriching the people who own TV stations. What a waste."

Ralph