Quick Takes (v47): Billionaires Buying Elections?

Quick Takes

Catchy headline, right?  Those big bad billionaires and their money making a mess of things?  Well, maybe, and maybe not. Let's take a look.

First, the 'maybe' or, more correctly, the 'actual.' This NY Post article from late December caught my eye, which shouldn't surprise regular readers who know how I feel about political advertising.

The article was about the impact that spending by former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was having on ad rates for all of the candidates, including Bloomberg.

He’s a one-man stimulus package! 

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is spending so much money on television spots across the country that it’s causing ad rates to soar, a new analysis shows. 

That's right - Bloomberg's spending has resulted in a 22% increase in a "typical TV market," the article says, pointing to an analysis by Advertising Analytics. As a for instance, 

Houston was among the markets that responded most actively to the new advertiser, it added. This is partially attributable to Bloomberg’s $1 [million] buy increasing the political spending in the market tenfold. This shock spending increase was matched by a 45% increase in rates, which is among the highest of any market. 

And, the article noted that Bloomberg is "shelling out an average of $25.5 million a week" on ads since he entered the race in November, according to the Post's research. At that pace, Bloomberg will spend over $350M before the New York primary in late April; he could spend over $1B if he gets the nod to take on Trump, according to the experts. And, 

“With no end in sight for his ad blitz, we will continue to collect data on the way Bloomberg’s spending affects rates in markets across the country,” the analysis said.There’s no historical comparison to Bloomberg’s early ad spending, said John Link, Advertising Analytics vice president of sales and marketing. 

So then: it's clear that Bloomberg's spending is having an influence - the question is, does it have the hoped-for influence, the kind that swings voters from the undecided column or from another candidate's column, to Bloomberg's? 

That's where the 'maybe not' part comes in.

According to this end-of-December article from Reason.com, 

Bloomberg, Steyer Showing Money Can't Buy Elections After Failed $200 Million Ad Blitz

The two Democratic billionaires have spent a combined $200 million on campaign ads already. That doesn't mean much to them, but the opportunity costs are staggering.

The article, by Eric Boehm, noted that Bloomberg and fellow billionaire candidate Tom Steyer have "launched themselves all the way to... the middle tier of the Democratic primary field" even though together they've spent some $200M on television ads, most of it by Bloomberg. That vastly overshadows the piddly amounts spent by the other candidates, none of whom has spent more than $18M according to a Politico report Boehm cites in his article.

And Boehm suggests that the polling performance of both Steyer, who's been on the stage in the past few debates and Bloomberg, who doesn't seem to care about the debates at all, may disprove the cry from other candidates that the billionaires are going to buy the election. 

Further, trying to buy  a nomination may not be the best way to go about driving change.

...the two billionaire candidates are providing a real-world lesson about opportunity costs by setting fire to their huge campaign war chests. They've got the means to change the world but getting involved in politics isn't the best way to do it.

It's early yet - the first votes won't happen until early February, and Bloomberg is not even paying attention to the early states, focusing instead on the Super Tuesday states where there are a boatload of delegates up for grabs, but if things hold true, Boehm may be right when he says that

Yes, it's certainly true that money can buy access and influence in the political process. But when it comes to campaigns, money is only as good as the results it can produce...

And if they can't buy the election, couldn't these guys do more by not running for president?

Focusing on comments made by Tom Steyer, Boehm points out that "you don't need to be president to create jobs" but you need capital to do it - which the billionaires have. And he notes that the private sector, not government, will likely be the impetus for the new ideas and products that we'll need to really tackle the climate crisis, which is Steyer's number one priority. And, Steyer's in a position to support the companies that will be on the cutting edge of that innovation - a better way to burn through cash, it seems, than buying political ads.

Similarly, he points to opportunities Bloomberg has to spend his money on things like "a $100 million campaign to inform Americans about health eating" instead of "the Big Gulp ban President Bloomberg would likely try to sign."

Finally, Boehm makes reference to what I think is a primarily a Sanders push to severely restrict how the Democratic National Committee can raise money (with no impact on its GOP counterpart) and implement public funding for federal elections and national conventions, among other things - and the irony of what that would really mean for other billionaire Mikes and billionaire Toms.

It's also worth noting that the post-Citizens United world that Democrats who actually stand a chance of being elected president want to build would be a place where self-funding billionaire candidates would enjoy a relatively easier path to electoral success. By trying to reduce everyone else's ability to speak, Democrats would let the future Bloombergs and Steyers dominate the airwaves even more than they do now. And those guys could use all the help they can get, it seems.

Definitely something to think about.

As an aside, it's also worth remembering that, back in 2008, Barack Obama became the first presidential candidate to refuse federal funding - before the Citizen's United decision truly opened the floodgates. And, he also was the guy who got rid of public financing for national conventions. Why? Because there was so much money in the system already, there were plenty of creative ways to get even more money into it, including campaigns to attract small donors,  and, honestly, because the Dems suck at raising money compared to the Republicans.