Will money control the outcome of the elections? - Granite Grok

Will money control the outcome of the elections?

YES, says Carolyn McKinney, Secretary of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire (RLCNH):

On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 2:10 AM, Carolyn McKinney <carolyn.mckinney@gmail.com> wrote:

"I would have thought that Republicans getting whacked in 2006 and 2008 would preclude people from Charlie Bass from being frontrunners at all, but obviously that’s not the case. Just goes to show that we still have some work to do to clean out the party, or get our act together as conservatives… not sure which. The problem is—and will continue to be—money. Those who control the money are controlling the elections, and they certainly aren’t conservatives. And they certainly don’t have the best interest of New Hampshire in mind. They have the best interest of themselves and their power in Washington in mind. Conservatives have been able to pool together enough resources for some strategic victories (think Rand Paul), but that won’t be enough. Washington is still a den of vipers overflowing with corrupt money to anyone willing to screw the average American."

Mostly true…but NOT SO FAST, responds Tim Condon, Vice-Chairman of the RLCNH:


"I agree with everything that Carolyn says…except for one thing. And that is the notion that ‘those who control the money are controlling the elections…’ Historically, that is largely true. It is also part of the reason why conservatives have done so poorly in the past 78 years against the surging government ruling class. However, thanks to a happy confluence of events, it is not the case today. Consider these points:

1. If the person with all the money wins the election, then Charlie Bass should be the runaway winner in NH’s CD-2 GOP primary. He is absolutelystuffed with corrupt political lobbyist money out of Washington, DC. Yet everyone (including me) is fretting over Jennifer Horn and Bob Giuda splitting the conservative vote, and letting Bass waltz into a victory. The subtext there is that either Giuda or Horn would win in a head-to-head matchup with Bass, but with them both splitting the conservative vote, Bass can win it.
2. If money controlled the elections, multi-millionaire Bill Binnie would be the runaway winner of the GOP senatorial primary in NH. Ain’t gonna happen. If money controlled the elections everywhere, billionaires and multi-millionaires would win every time. They don’t. (In fact, most of the millionaires in Congress get that way after they’re elected…through the traditional means of political corruption. Think poor boy Lyndon Johnson. Think Rep. Charlie Rangel. Think Rep, William Jefferson. Think of Rep. John Murtha, lauded as the "master of pork barrel spending" before he died last year.) Why does an upper middle class doctor like Ron Paul, with all the national-level Republican party hacks and their money arrayed against him…just keep winning his Congressional seat over the years?
3. Happily, the traditional control of politics by money, both domestic and foreign (think of the Clinton campaign being funded by China, for starts), has been badly eroded by technology. Specifically communications technology. More specifically, the rise of talk radio and the Internet…which in turn gave birth to Fox News (Rupert Murdoch has proven for more than 40 years that he knows a niche when he sees one). Money can do nothing but magnify the power of lies, as it did for instance in the media’s smear-campaign against Barry Goldwater in 1964. Only the disaster of Jimmy Carter from 1976 to 1980 allowed a true conservative, Ronald Reagan, to overcome the mainstream media lie-machine win in 1980. The "Carter collapse" is happening again, as the Obama disaster unfolds before our eyes. In addition, widespread, inexpensive, open communication and debate has dissolved the mainstream media’s information monopoly, and wiped out its lie-machine in an acid-bath of truth (think Dan Rather and the other smear campaigns of the mainstream media that used to be effective…but which now are routinely and quickly exposed on talk radio and Internet blogs).
So…I totally support Carolyn, but am happy to report that money (alone) won’t carry the day in New Hampshire in the upcoming elections. 
On the other hand, it should be a crucial reform for every civic-minded voter in New Hampshire to support a change in New Hampshire’s elections law, to correspond with the law in many othe states. That is, when no candidate wins a majority of votes in a  primary election, there should be a second, run-off primary election. This is certainly a New Hampshire reform whose time has come.  —Tim C.

>