>

Money in politics isnt new nor entirely exclusive ie the us government is the largest international weapons dealer, to maintain some version of a status quo or quality of life depending on who you are or are willing to pay for said goods and services can be questionable, voting is a popularity contest played by citizens to govern where said resources are spent and lessons in peril prevent most bad ideas from winning votes, when said votes cant be pursuaded by logical rational argument then you can use emotional and emotive arguments for some cause or reason, when one side has enough logical reason to do something it happens to some degree and when one side cant win with logic alone they have to find a way to emote support, at some point people are willing to emote and act for support in extreme cases immolation, however i fear today money has propped up support for emotions that we deem addictive and delusional such as anger is addictive because it counters sadness, a very overly simple example of emotions, science has proven there is a anger reward depression cycle in every human and it is being exploited by people who want society to emote for their causes in very extreme ways and factors into extremism of society at large to some degree lets say 1/4 who believe emotional arguments, 1/4 who could believe some reasoning, 1/4 who dont believe, and another 1/4 who dont entirely know enough to believe, so when those who are willing to pay others to invoke emotion in the populace can sway 1/4 of votes then you have roughly 1/2 of society addicted or swayed by emotion directed by others who were paid for their services, roughly you end up with the minority spiking the support for issues when anything proposed can now be heard around the world in less than 10 seconds with emotional arguments and sometimes logical arguments which can be paid for and provided
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I’ve spent some time working in political campaigns, and I think most voters would be surprised to learn just how slapdash most political organizations are. A lot of the time, when people hold views like the one you’re sharing here, I get the impression they imagine political machines as powerful, robust, and precise—but the reality is a lot more chaotic. There are people running around like headless chickens trying to figure out what the hell the voters want, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell these days because polling is so much less reliable than it used to be. 
But anyway, when it comes to your view, I think you’re right up to a point. Money has too much influence, and far too large a percentage of our political class is concerned with money above all else. That’s bad. 
But, the truth is that the voters always get final say, and I’ve personally witnessed several races where the side with the most money didn’t win. Increasingly, I see the problem of cynicism as being worse than corruption, as cynicism can create self-fulfilling prophecies. Politicians know what gets them elected—that’s what they’re good at—and if their voters are deeply cynical and apathetic and hard to reach, that ironically makes big donors and lobbyists more powerful. 
Anyway, the overall point is that we as voters have a lot of power over what elected officials do; the fact that we fail to wield it well explains a lot of what’s going on now. >

The cynicism comes from feeling that rich and powerful people are controlling the system, not the people. >

Dude is just lobbying to keep his job >

By “working” maybe I should have said “volunteering.” I’ve never been paid to work on a campaign, but I’ve logged lots of hours block walking, passing out flyers, trying to register voters, etc. >

I admire you. >

It's really not hard! If you've got an extra hour a week to spend on something, you could start showing up for local political stuff. You quickly figure out who the good and people are in that space. >

If you think money grants so much control over elections, why is so little of it spent on elections?  
The total amount spent on all House and Senate elections in 2022 was 9 billion, or less than 5% of the money that Elon Musk lost this year. Or 1 weeks worth of revenue for Amazon or Saudi Aramco.  Why spend 44 billion on twitter if you could buy every seat in congress for 20% of that price?
The average house of representatives member spends 2 million dollars on their election, this  is chump change.  If you could buy control of congress for so little money, why didn't a rich democrat donor do it this midterm? If congress seats are up for sale shouldn't there at least be a bidding war to drive up that price?
Why did Michael Bloomberg, by far the richest person in the 2020 Democratic primary get destroyed?  Shouldn't he have just been able to sway the primary with his money?
If corporations could easily spend money to change policy, why do regulations like Dodd-Frank get passed?  It costs banks more than 50 billion dollars per year, shouldn't they have just spent a few billion to buy off congress to not pass it, or spend a few billion now to get it repealed? Why do the EPA, SEC, or FDA exist, and cost hundreds of billions of dollars for corporations every year?  Shouldn't it be easy for corporations to just buy the influence they need to get rid of those costs?
Charities like United Way or Habitat for Humanity raise billions of dollars every year, why don't they just pay off the government to get the changes they want enacted?
The truth is that money just doesn't have that big of an impact, and that belief doesn't align at all with reality when you examine the actual amounts that get spent. >

I read a George Will column long ago where he noted that spending on a presidential election (both sides) was substantially less than Americans spend on Halloween candy in a given year. Now, in recent elections, I think that has flipped, but presidential election spending is still on the same order of magnitude as Americans spend on Halloween candy. >

I assume you're referring mainly to national elections. Consider local ones. Local politicians are certainly not immune to bribery but there is a LOT on the ballot at the local level that shouldn't be overlooked.
I live in California. The ballot proposition system here alone is evidence of the kind of power — too much power, IMO — that voters have. Essentially, anyone can get any item on the statewide ballot if they collect enough signatures. In the 1970s we passed Proposition 13, which capped the amount that property taxes could increase every year that you owned a home. It completely reshaped our housing system, determined who stayed in their homes and for how long, determined who is now able to buy a house where, determined school funding. Money swayed this fight in a big way (as it does with many of the propositions year after year) but votes allowed it to happen. So even if this doesn't counter your argument about voting not being enough to push toward real problem solving (especially since I think the ballot proposition system has basically been commandeered by special interests with deep pockets), i think it does show that voting (or not voting) makes a huge impact. 
There's a ton of other seats we vote on at the local level that make huge differences on a daily basis. We vote for school board members. Judges. District attorneys. The candidates who run for these seats can be radically different from each other, and voter turnout for local elections is often painfully low even though these offices affect our everyday lives much more directly than those at the national level. 
And if you're still disheartened by the fact that money has a big influence over votes, I think there are a lot of local examples that have shown that money alone isn't everything. Los Angeles had a billionaire run for mayor who spent literally $100+ million on his campaign and lost. We also saw established, well connected political candidates lose to first timers who spent half as much on their campaigns. It happens, and it does make a difference. >

So first of all, I think it's worth recognizing that campaign finance and lobbying are two different things. Lobbying is just advocacy. There are lobbyists for good causes and lobbyists for bad causes. And if legislators are crafting some big complex piece of legislation, I actually think it's good to have all the stakeholders at the table. That doesn't mean they should get their way. But they should at least get heard. So lobbying is not legalized bribery. In fact, no money changes hands at all. But of course, powerful interests probably have an easier time getting heard. 
I think we do absolutely need campaign finance reform. Lawmakers have to spend an absurd amount of their time raising money. And then you have a few billionaires who can shift races by dumping in millions of dollars of "independent" expenditures. So I think that's much more corrupt than lobbying.
But I actually don't even think that campaign finance is at the real root of our political dysfunction. I think the biggest problem is that we are just extremely divided. For example, the NRA is a powerful lobbying organization. And it has a political action committee that spends money. But the real source of the NRA's power is: lots of Americans love guns. So it's not lobbying or corrupt campaign donations that kill even modest gun legislation. It's the fact that lots of voters love guns. And those voters vote for lawmakers who block gun bills (and environmental bills, antitrust bills, etc.). 
So powerful interests can influence legislation through lobbying. And the campaign finance system is pretty absurd. But voters have much more power than they realize. Lawmakers in DC are much more scared of voters than they are of big corporations. >


And then you have a few billionaires who can shift races by dumping in millions of dollars of "independent" expenditures. So I think that's much more corrupt than lobbying.

This is a common thought, but 538 examined exactly this and finds that no such shifting occurs. >

So first of all, that sort of supports my overall point, which is that voters have more power than they realize. Voters decide elections, not just big corporate interests. 
But also, I don't think that 538 article is saying money doesn't matter at all. It probably matters the least in high profile Senate or presidential elections where both sides are pouring in tons of money. In those races, the voters know who the candidates are, and one more attack ad isn't really going to make a difference. But what about in low profile House races or races for state offices? Or what about in a primary? In those races, I think money can matter. And even if money only matters a bit on the margins, it can still have a corrupting influence. Lawmakers spend a crazy portion of their time on the phone groveling for money. 
So I'm actually less alarmist about money in politics than a lot of people. I don't agree with OP's claim that money controls everything. But I still think it is a problem! I think some sensible campaign finance reform would be a step in the right direction. >


But also, I don't think that 538 article is saying money doesn't matter at all.

If you click through the sources, that's the conclusion.  There is no race that they've been able to say "Money won this election".  There are ones where they can point to it and say "This might have swayed a few votes, but not enough to change the outcome".

But what about in low profile House races or races for state offices? Or what about in a primary?

How to tell me that you didn't read the article.  They talked about that specifically, in which those were the only races where they could find any meaningful swing, and even those weren't enough to change the outcomes or show any substantial change. >

Uh, did you read the article?
Where does it say the political science research has proven that money truly doesn't matter at all under any circumstances?

That’s not to say money is irrelevant to winning, said Adam Bonica, a professor of political science at Stanford who also manages the Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections. But decades of research suggest that money probably isn’t the deciding factor in who wins a general election, and especially not for incumbents. Most of the research on this was done in the last century, Bonica told me, and it generally found that spending didn’t affect wins for incumbents and that the impact for challengers was unclear. Even the studies that showed spending having the biggest effect, like one that found a more than 6 percent increase in vote share for incumbents, didn’t demonstrate that money causes wins. In fact, Bonica said, those gains from spending likely translate to less of an advantage today, in a time period where voters are more stridently partisan.

[...]

" Money matters a great deal in elections,” Bonica said. It’s just that, he believes, when scientists go looking for its impacts, they tend to look in the wrong places. If you focus on general elections, he said, your view is going to be obscured by the fact that 80 to 90 percent of congressional races have outcomes that are effectively predetermined by the district’s partisan makeup — and the people that win those elections are still given (and then must spend) ridiculous sums of money because, again, big donors like to curry favor with candidates they know are a sure thing.

[...]

But in 2017, Bonica published a study that found, unlike in the general election, early fundraising strongly predicted who would win primary races. That matches up with other research suggesting that advertising can have a serious effect on how people vote if the candidate buying the ads is not already well-known and if the election at hand is less predetermined along partisan lines.

[...]

Another example of where money might matter: Determining who is capable of running for elected office to begin with.

Doesn't that line up with my previous comment? If you're claiming that money doesn't matter at all in politics, then you're just totally simplifying and misrepresenting the political science research. >


Where does it say the political science research has proven that money truly doesn't matter at all under any circumstances?

If you want to change what I said to fit your narrative, then there isn't a discussion to have here.  Read what I said, not what you want me to have written. >

I said: "I don't think that 538 article is saying money doesn't matter at all."
And you said: "that's the conclusion" and that I didn't read the article. But you're clearly wrong. In fact, a political scientist is quoted in the article as saying "Money matters a great deal in elections." >

You made (the invorrect claim) that I said "political science research has proven that money truly doesn't matter at all under any circumstances"
Which I did not.  I went out of my way in fact to point out the one section, the only one, that you quoted, where it said it had a minor impact.  Click through to the study rather than reading talking points.  You misrepresented me, and what I said, and continue to do so.  So while you read the studies, I'll exit this "discussion" since all you seem capable of doing is strawman arguing. >

Let's look at what I actually said. I said: "I don't think that 538 article is saying money doesn't matter at all."
You said that was wrong. But it wasn't wrong, was it? The "conclusion" of the article is not that "money doesn't matter at all." Right? So why were you trying to correct me?
Sure, in recapping my statement, I added the words "truly" and "under any circumstances" for emphasis. But how is that even changing the meaning at all? I wasn't misrepresenting you. I was just repeating what I said. And now you're backtracking.
You also accused me of not reading the article because I said: "But what about in low profile House races or races for state offices? Or what about in a primary? In those races, I think money can matter. And even if money only matters a bit on the margins, it can still have a corrupting influence."
Again, that's what the article says. Right?
The 538 article cites a study which found "unlike in the general election, early fundraising strongly predicted who would win primary races." And here's that study.
You seem insistent on being insufferably pedantic here. But then you're the one that keeps misrepresenting what I'm writing. Did I say there's research that proves money changed the outcome in specific races? No. I said: "In those races, I think money can matter."
There are way too many variables in elections to be able to conclusively state that money was the reason a specific candidate won. But if money can create a "meaningful swing" (your words), then it's reasonable to infer that money could change the outcome in close elections, right? If the margin of victory is less than a "meaningful swing," then a "meaningful swing" could change the outcome.
So I'm not even sure we disagree that much. You're right that in general, the research suggests money doesn't matter as much as people often think it does. This could have been a much more friendly discussion if you weren't just looking to start an argument and try to correct me. >


legal bribery (e.g. lobbying)

As someone else mentioned, lobbying isn't legal bribery. Lobbying does lead to bad outcomes, but the reason this is the case is much more mundane. Voters simply let lobbyists write their legislation. Ever wonder how legislators spend 90% of their effort maintaining their public figure yet read and write thousands of pages of legislation? The simple answer is that they don't.
Say you're a Senator and your voters want you to expand healthcare, but you know very little about healthcare. Meanwhile, a team of friendly lobbyists representing insurance companies tell exactly what type of bill to write that would accomplish this. Obviously, this will be heavily biased towards the insurance company, but it would require a lot of effort to collect information from less biased sources and revise the the lobbyists' suggestions and very few will recognize these efforts. That effort would be much better spent rehearsing an angry rant about why the opposing party is being bought out by lobbyists.
Until people stop treating politics as entertainment rather than a technical duty, this will continue to happen. >

I think a big issue in the US specifically is the frequency of elections: every 2 years. Basically, you're planning the next one before the previous one is done. If it were 5 years you'd have 3 extra years to do actual work.
And ideally it should be the civil service that's writing the legislation, with perhaps some direction from ministers. The idea that members of parliament/congress write all the legislation themselves is ridiculous. It's become far too complicated for non-specialised people to do.
(Incidentally, one side-effect of PR elections is that only the party as a whole needs financing for election, not individual members. Which makes elections much cheaper.). >

All the campaign spending in the world does nothing if it doesn't sway votes. Campaign money is only valuable to the extent it secures votes. The votes are the thing of value to put a politician in a seat. Money is only a means to those votes. >

I don’t think campaign money is meant to influence the voters, but rather the elected officials who are voted in who draft and vote in the legislation. The votes don’t matter so much as who is elected and what parties can offer to push their agenda. >

Campaign money is used largely to run ads. Those ads are meant to sway voters, not politicians. If voting is not important, why do people fight so much to restrict or expand voting rights? If voting didn’t matter, why was MLK killed? Why did MLK fight so hard to expand voting rights? 
You’re right that money matters, but it only matters because it can be used to sway votes. And all of the time the corporate interest loses and fails to sway public interest/politicians. In the US, the elites kept their carried interest loophole, but got stuck with a minimum tax rate. I’m sure they didn’t want their taxes to increase. If money was all that mattered, the West would look more like Russia then it does now. >


If voting didn’t matter, why was MLK killed? Why did MLK fight so hard to expand voting rights? 

Did you just, without directly saying it, call out the FBI for assassinating MLK because they knew voting rights were powerful?
Not saying I disagree, but like, what a statement! >

While the candidate with more money almost always wins (over 90% of the time) this doesn't mean money causes their victory. the candidate who was going to win anyway is more likely to attract small donations due to being more popular, and big donors will donate to whoever they think will win to get on their good side early. tldr winning causes money, not the other way around
source >

Bloomberg spent over a BILLION dollars on his political campaign - more than biden, in much shorter at time frame - and completely and embarassingly lost. It's not just about the money. >

Michael Bloomberg should be all the example we need to confirm this isn't true.
Money does have a big influence in politics but as Michael Bloomberg shows, you can out spendeveryone else combined and still do poorly.
Candidate quality matter more than money.  
Look how many seats the Republicans lost this past election due to running candidates that even Republicans couldn't vote for, Hershair walker would be the prime example.  
Look at Trump last election,, there were alot of prominent republicans that said they wouldn't vote for him even though he outspent the democrats by a fair bit. >


I don’t think any amount of voting is going to help us move the dial  

By voting we can hold bad politicians accountable, basically getting them fired and elect those that have a better track record.  
The real problem is that people elect faces, so anyone who spends enough in being a familiar face and saying what masses want to hear they are pretty much guaranteed to get the job, and only lose if they get caught in a scandal.  
Unfortunately people get the politicians they deserve, and as the US people worship money, your view is true, but only because of how people vote. >

What is a single policy that the majority of the voting public wants that isn’t passed because of  the influence of money? >

On most issues that voters are most motivated about, there are organizations lobbying on both sides of the issue.
If politicians can choose either side of the issue and still get their campaign funded, then the people with the money don't have control of them. >

!delta I like how you explained the broadcasting effect and the relationship between money and time. I think people are more reserved nowadays to answer to door knocking from volunteers in person for an array of reasons (working, fear of talking to strangers, online channels to consume media, etc.). I think this is where money is starting to have more of a stranglehold on controlling the political message and advocating who and what to vote for through ads, digital and physical. >

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Troyd (1∆).
^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >

It’s all about the money 
And who spends the most to bribe the people who are elected. >

Your vote doesn’t matter. You are literally wasting time lining up and checking a box for either candidate that really work for the same people. You don’t have a choice. >

And how, exactly, does money do the things you claim it does? Because most of my complaints about money in politics comes from how much money can influence votes, not how much money can override votes. >

To use a football analogy money spent is like yardage gained, votes is what's the actual score is, is there a correlation absolutely, but there are plenty examples of spending the most without getting the most votes such as the last democrat primary in America where the guy who joined half way through spent the most but had to drop out pretty quickly still >

Look at how many times campaign spending has not correlated with the vote. Romney and McCain spent way more than Obama, for example. >

Statements like this can usually be disproven simply just because of the wording. The control is subjective. You could say “food drives politics more than education “ and I mean you wouldn’t be wrong because without food we couldn’t be alive to be educated. It’s just a classic case of the world revolves around money and it’s ridiculously hard to obtain power without it >

Technically speaking, votes are the only thing that decide who gets elected. Money plays no role.... technically... at least not directly.
Instead, money is what influences people to decide how to use their vote. A highly-informed, well-educated, and intelligent electorate can make sound voting decisions regardless of how much money is spent campaigning.
Unfortunately, we do not have a highly-informed, well-educated, and intelligent electorate. A lot of voting comes down to name recognition and tribalism. The fact is, the more often a candidate's name is mentioned, the more likely people are to vote for them. And the way to get their name mentioned is by spending money on advertising.

I don’t think any amount of voting is going to help us move the dial and progress as a society when companies/individuals with large swathes of cash will make every attempt to keep everything either quid pro quo or worse update a public policy to favour their agenda.

I agree things are unlikely to change, but I wouldn't say that any amount of voting won't help. People need to be convinced that their vote matters. This is unlikely to happen without large financial campaigns, but it is at least possible.

Hoping to get some counter points and examples where voting actually trumped money.

My 30 seconds of googling failed to tell me how much money Bill Clinton's campaign spent compared to Ross Perot's, but that might be a case where more money did not mean more votes. >

I thought I was the only one that thought that way >

Hold up. Based on the post above in thinking you're an American. 
Most of the rest of western world has much stronger restrictions on money in politics. Just look north of you, corporate donations are banned, maximum donation is like $1300/year which costs less than one months rent. Germany has a similar system but wirh public financing v 
Additionally the two party system - despite what Duveriger says - is uniquely an American phenomenon. Canada has 5 parties in the House of Commons and many more at the provincial level. Nationally only the Liberals and Conservatives form government but provincially there have been several NDP governments. The UK has several parties in it's House of Commons, Germany has 6, France has many as well. >

I am of the opinion that campaign financing and citizens united are 2 of the worst things in American politics. They give to much power to those with money as you have pointed out.
But I also think at the end of the day the citizens theoretically still old the vast amount of power to make politicians do what they want via voting. It is just that getting large groups of people to agree on anything that does not get them 100% of what they all want and to care about anything outside of what directly impacts them is really really hard.
I think this comes back to the heavy focus that America has on being individualistic. My impression of society in a lot of other countries is that they tend to be more collectivist and less individualistic in their thinking at the macro level. So getting people to organize around something that is not 100% in their favor or does not impact them currently, but is over all good for the collective voting block, probably tends to be received better.
The real evil in my opinion is the free range lying, deception, and bad faith talking points that is allowed to permeate American politics and American news cycles. It takes advantage of that individualistic slant American society has to get people to support things against their interests and those of their neighbors. If the likes of opinion articles and flat out lies told by talking heads to get views was curtailed I think the citizens would be less likely to tolerate that money in politics. >

Well, you don’t get money from bribes if you aren’t a politician who can use those bribes to garner support for laws against the best interests of the people, so technically approval ratings are fairly important. Sure the boomer’s bipartisanship is by far the best scam in the US since there’s “no chance that an entire district would ever swap parties” but still. Politicians need to keep the people merely disgruntled rather than enraged. >

To the extent that something like this can be tested, it has, and it’s untrue. 
Michael Bloomberg had been an extraordinarily successful businessman, and then a reasonably successful mayor of his nation’s largest city. In 2020 he ran for president. He spent $676 million of his personal fortune on the primary campaign. 
There was nothing wrong with Bloomberg. He was a moderate politically and his resume was far better than any of his opponents. If money could make the difference, he would be a shoo-in. 
He managed to win American Samoa, a tiny territory in the Pacific, with fewer than 50,000 people. The other 330 million Americans remained serenely indifferent. 
No, campaign spending is a symptom of popularity, not a cause. >

I'll refer this video that demonstrate your idea, one that I agree that shows how the legislative branch of American policy is greatly affected by the idea that money equals speech >

In the vast majority of liberal democracies, there are very strict limits on the amount of money an individual can donate to a particular party, and even stricter rules and limits on donations from businesses or unions. 
For example, in Canada’s federal politics there are individual donor limits of $3300 - $1650 to a party and $1650 to a particular riding association (like the local organization for a party). The Liberal Party -which is sort of “middle of the road” in fundraising- raised $42 million in 2019. So, if you donated the absolute maximum, you’d be providing ~0.008% of that party’s total fundraising. You’re just one of tens of thousands of donors - certainly appreciated, but probably no more influential than an especially dedicated volunteer or local community leader whose endorsement can maybe help sway a couple dozen voters. 
This might be a bit different in the United States, where there aren’t anywhere near as strict donor limits - but they are the outlier among western countries. 
Even then, there’s been some research indicating that donations don’t have as significant an impact on electoral success as people suggest, and that -rather- electoral success has just as strong an impact on donations. People donate to the person they feel is likely to win. That doesn’t mean their politics is influenced by those donations. Nonetheless, the massive industrial complex that politics has become in the US probably influences public policy (and public discourse) quite a bit more. That’s simply not the case in most other countries though. >

No one can deny that money has some control. However, the will of the people will be heard one way or another. Money can only influence things so much. >

Absolute fact >

Definitely. It’s 2023, so hopefully the majority of people are aware of this by now. Then again, I was thinking the same thing back in 2014 >

In a democratic system, voting is the primary way that citizens can have a say in the decisions that affect their lives and their communities. When individuals cast their ballots, they are able to express their preferences and opinions about the candidates and policies that are being put forward.
On the other hand, money can play a significant role in democratic elections and public policy, but it does not have the same level of control as voting. While it is true that campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and other forms of financial support can influence the outcomes of elections and the development of public policies, they do not determine the final results.
Ultimately, it is the votes of the citizens that determine the winners of elections and the direction of public policy. While money may be able to sway some individuals, it cannot replace the power of the vote in a democratic system. >

Awww, this post is so cute. You think either one matters, that's so Ozzy and Harriett of you, it makes me miss the days. Unfortunately, when there is a 175 Trillion dollar prize at the end of the rope how much a candidate spends or what they stand for or how many people cast their fake ballots matter not a whit...other than to say lots of votes makes what's happening more obvious, because it's more difficult to cover up. It's funny how people know that a criminal will find a way to hack a system to steal 50 grand, but are complacent in believing no one is messing with their 175Trillion per year economy. For a list of the perps, spend the next two years reading last weeks Omnibus Spend...holy frigging obvious reality. >

This isn’t a “change my view” type of discussion. Your original view is truthfully accurate. 
I forget where, but there is a graph on exactly this. Public policy vs lobbying. If policy makers vowed to the public, then the chance of a bill passing would be based on how much the public supports it. 
It was found, instead, that policy makers made laws based on what the lobbyists wanted. Period.