Running for Congress:

Here are some fun facts (from Common Cause):

Of the 390 incumbents running in the House of Representatives in 2002, 383 of them--98 percent--were re-elected on November 5. In the Senate, 24 of the 29 incumbents won their re-election bids--a re-election rate of 83 percent.

(These numbers are through Sept. 30--so at the point where the data collection ends there were still 5 + weeks left until election day):

• U.S. House (of representatives) winners had a 4-to-1 advantage in average spending--about a $1 million to $250,000 advantage. That buys a lot more commercials to smear your candidate . . .
• Incumbents: 382 won their congressional races, while 8 lost (there are 435--some were seats where the incumbent was retiring or was unopposed). The incumbent losers outspent their opponents (it's easier to raise money if you're in office) by an average $500,000. So occasionally, winners don't spend the most money--at least 8 out of 390 spent less. This means essentially that in the vast majority of elections, whoever is spending the most wins, though.
• Open seats (seats where the incumbent wasn't running for re-election): winners spent on average $1 million, the losers spent on average $600,000.
• All together, through Sept. 30--again, five weeks before the election--house candidates from two major parties had spent $391.5 million.

In the U.S. Senate:

• Incumbent losers (there were 4 of them) outspent incumbent winners (24 of these) by $8.5 million to $5 million. Why?
• The challengers: There were four winners (that is, they beat the incumbents), and they spent an average of $5.6 million; the losers (24 of the challengers lost) spent an average of $1.8 million.
• Open seats (where incumbent wasn't running): Winners spent on average $6.2 million, losers $5.3 million.
• Through September 30, U.S. Senate candidates from the two major parties had spent a total of $226 million (keep in mind, there were only 34 of them).

What does all this mean? It means that money often wins elections. It also means that incumbents have an easier time raising money. Why? How do politicians get their money? From you and I? Or from large corporations seeking favors from legislators and others? Who was the largest campaign contributor in the 2002 elections? The broadcasting industry. See how much they spent--in total, more than $68 million to lobby Congress in a 4-year period, and over $13 million in campaign contributions. Are politicians buying their way into office, or selling? Does it matter? The media benefit either way, because they air the campaign commercials.

So, corporations do this because of their longstanding commitment to democratic process and principles, right? Because as good corporate citizens, they support an America where even the weakest voices can be heard. Right? Because they can use their wealth and a small portion of their profit to give back to the system that has allowed their executives and stockholders to make tidy fortunes, while still being eligible for social security benefits in retirement. Right?

Or, if you're a cynic, you might think they're investing in the horse they think is going to win, and the donations they make are investments in an administration that might return their generous gifts in the form of less regulation for their industry. Think of the Mad Cow disease and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's reluctance to 'beef up' meat inspection, or the Environmental Protection Agency (created to protect the American Public from environmental risks and unscrupulous polluters) and White House efforts to de-categorize mercury as a highly-regulated toxin, thus relieving coal-fired power plants of the need to regulate mercury emissions, despite their harmful health effects. Corporations also see this as an investment in more tax breaks and tax credits, direct subsidies or gifts from the government, and other forms of giving. (by the way, here's some good use of imagery and propaganda from the left wing side). A couple million invested in an election could save or generate billions later on. The health insurance industry will receive $12 billion (that's 9 zeros ....) to help it develop prescription drug and managed care plans that can compete with Medicare for the elderly, the rationale being that we know that the private sector can provide services much more efficiently (so why do they need the $12 billion to compete??).

Why, do you think? Consider this: How do politicians spend the campaign donations they get? What do they need to get elected? If you guessed commercials, congratulations. Commercials are expensive, especially well-produced ones. The candidates with the most mainstream media coverage have better name recognition, and are better able to frame the election debates. If campaign finance reform passes, then the corporations will have limits put on how much they can contribute. The mass media will also lose (partially) an important source of revenue--commercial advertising during election years. So politicians need money, because recent history suggests that the ones with the most money win. Investigative journalist Greg Palast calls this 'the best democracy money can buy.' The Bush campaign spent over $200 million to put him in the White House in 2000, and that was with the slimmest of margins: 1 vote (that is, he lost the general election by 500,000 votes, and when the Florida vote was disputed, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to stop the Florida recount and declare Bush president).

Corporations provide money, but they expect favors in return. Media companies might expect that the campaign finance reform that gets passed doesn't hurt their revenue streams too much. It turns out to be a pretty good investment in many cases--a few million now and tens or hundreds of millions in tax breaks, merger opportunities, etc., later.

You might want to think through how politicians, corporations and the media all reinforce each others' positions of privilege. Politicians depend on cash. Corporations lobby politicians for favors (and often get their clients to donate to campaigns, as the recent scandal with Jack Abramoff shows in excruciating detail). Politicians spend much of this money paying consultants to figure out how to wage a TV ad campaign, often against their opponents (that is, using negative ads). Thus much of the money goes to the most-watched media outlets--the major networks and cable channels, who are only to happy to receive this money (and in 2000 lobbied hard to limit the reach of campaign finance reform, which in theory could have led to public financing of campaigns, representing a huge loss of income every two years). News media outlets also have great editorial discretion over how to cover political candidates. Corporations of course want to reach media consumers, and use state of the art persuasion/propaganda techniques, developed and refined by the public relations industry, to do it. Media outlets thus have an incentive to increase audience size, or market share, increase their ratings (through Neilsen for television), and subsequently charge more for air time to advertisers, because that air time just became more valuable to them for selling products. In essence, what I'm suggesting, or what Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann, and many others, have asserted, is that commercial media are in the business of selling audiences to advertisers. The advertisers are often big campaign donors, and have an interest in limiting government interference or regulation or taxation, for instance, of/over the private sector. Combine this with the fact that money wins elections, and money well-spent buys TV time often used to smear opponents, and hopefully the whole picture becomes more clear (i.e., a mess ...).

In the 2004 presidential election, over $1 billion was spent, most on the republican side, but the numbers were competitive (although the republican party clearly has a more effective fundraising machine--see Delay and Abramoff). What did we get for it? As Fox News says, you decide.