Monday, September 10, 2012

Money, Money, Money.

Like all right-thinking Democrats, I have been alarmed about the fact that the Romney campaign is raising more money than the President’s. There is the concern that a lot of money in the hands of people who don’t give a fig for the truth is a recipe for mass misinformation. This is of particular concern in this election cycle because, as I have noted elsewhere, Mitt Romney is the biggest liar in the history of presidential campaigns. And Ryan is going for the record in the category of vice-presidential candidates. (Note: Tricky Dick was in five campaigns either as vice-president or president. That should give you an idea of the enormity of Romney’s and Ryan’s freedom from facts.)

There’s another issue which is closely related. Specifically, it is that whoever has the most money wins the election. Given Romney’s history of carpet-bombing in the primaries, and the huge amounts of money involved in this cycle, it’s a real concern.

However, Dubner and Leavett, the authors of Feakonomics, have pointed out, “winning an election and raising money do go together, bit it doesn’t seem as though money actually causes the winning. It’s just that the kind of candidate who’s attractive to voters also ends up, along the way, attracting a lot of money and the losing candidate, nobody wants to give money to that guy.”

That’s why I was so heartened to learn today from the Huffingtonpost that “The reelection campaign of Barack Obama is back in the lead on the fundraising front after raising $114 million in August. The total, which is a combination of funds raised by the campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Obama's victory committee, exceeds the $111.6 million the Romney campaign said that they raised in combination with the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Romney Victory for the same time period. This marks the first time since the Romney campaign and the RNC started raising money together that the Obama team has beaten them in monthly fundraising.”

Not to over-generalize, people who can write big checks don’t like to throw good money after bad. And it looks like people are deciding that it is not worth wasting money on a loser like Romney.

Hey! I got an idea! Why not donate some money to President Obama

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

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