Rich Donors Don’t Influence Politics, Silly!

Listen to Marco Rubio lay a giant turd out there with no shame and a completely straight face;

He’s never had a donor come to his office, looking for anything from him. Interesting. Maybe he just doesn’t have big, billionaire donors, so that’s the reason he’s never been asked to do anything special? Did I mention that he said this during the swimsuit competition of the Koch presidential primary beauty pageant?

Who believes this? Is he representing the views of the American people here?

Hardly.

A CBS/ New York Times poll conducted in the beginning of May has 80% of Americans in favor of limiting campaign donations. Only 17% think that our current system of unlimited spending is just swell.

Here’s another poll from October, 2012 where Americans are even more opposed to the massive corporate spending on elections. In this poll;

• Nearly 9 out of 10 Americans think there’s too much corporate money in politics (51% strongly agree).
• 81 percent of Americans agree that companies should only spend money on political campaigns if they disclose their spending immediately. 80 percent agree that companies should only spend money on political campaigns if they get prior shareholder approval.
• Requiring corporations to get shareholder approval before spending money on politics is supported by 73 percent of both Republicans and Democrats, and 71 percent of Independents.
• 84 percent of Americans agree that corporate political spending drowns out the voices of average Americans, and 83 percent believe that corporations and corporate CEOs have too much political power and influence.
• More than 8 in 10 Americans (81%) believe that the secret flow of campaign spending is bad for democracy.
• 87 percent agree that prompt disclosure of political spending would help voters, customers and shareholders hold companies accountable for political behavior.
• 77% of Americans support a requirement that companies publicly disclose their contributions to groups that funnel money into politics.
  • 74% of Americans support a plan allowing candidates to run for Congress without raising large contributions by collecting small contributions and receiving limited public funds.
  • 74% of Americans favor requiring that the name of the company and its CEO appear in ads paid for by corporate political spending.

Here’s a poll from Gallup in 2013 that says that half of all Americans support publicly financed campaigns. Here’s what Americans said about voting on limiting campaign contributions;

I can post a dozen more polls that produce the same results. I can also produce dozens of republicans that agree with Marco Rubio.

Wanna know what I can’t produce? A democrat that thinks corporate money flowing into elections is awesome.

When someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.

You think Hillary is too corporatist, and likely to serve her financial industry donors if elected? I think you’re probably right, but republicans are flat out telling you they will.

At least Hillary is speaking out against Citizen’s United and says she supports a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics. Is she lying? Maybe. Is Marco Rubio lying? Definitely not. Is it possible to want to reform the system while being really effective at working with it? Yes. It’s inconceivable to me that we’re going to ever get a president who isn’t a money raising machine ever again, without reforming campaign finance. The fact that she’s very good at doing what needs to be done in order to become president doesn’t necessarily mean she’s happy about it. It doesn’t. And if you’re positive that it does, you’re either projecting or you need to seek mental help to treat your delusions of clairvoyance.

We know where Bernie stands. We also know that his chances of becoming president are not great. Is it possible? Everything is possible. I’m hanging in with him for as long as he hangs in, but we’ve never seen a candidate with less money win a presidential election. In congress, the odds of winning an election without having the most amount of money is 6%. That’s right, 94% of the time, the candidate with the most money wins. Those are pre-Citizen’s United and McKutcheon statistics. They’re most certainly worse now.

If given the option between someone who tells me they’re definitely not going to be representing me (and they like it that way), and someone who tells me that they would like to make it possible for them to work for me, I’m going to pick the latter. I would be a rube not to.

At least with democrats, there’s a teenie, tiny chance they believe what they say. Unfortunately for America, republicans definitely mean what they say.

Both parties are not the same, and all you have to do to realize that, is to pay attention to what they’re telling you about themselves.