The Briefing Room
General Category => Elections 2020 => Topic started by: EasyAce on March 11, 2020, 06:19:08 pm
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No amount of money can buy victory for candidates who fail to persuade voters.
By Jacob Sullum
https://reason.com/2020/03/11/the-bloomberg-and-steyer-fiascoes-should-give-pause-to-speech-restrictionists/ (https://reason.com/2020/03/11/the-bloomberg-and-steyer-fiascoes-should-give-pause-to-speech-restrictionists/)
Two and a half weeks after Bernie Sanders slammed (https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dem-candidates-attack-bloomberg-for-trying-to-buy-the-election/) Michael Bloomberg for trying to "buy this election," the former New York City mayor dropped out (https://reason.com/2020/03/04/bloomberg-drops-out-demonstrating-the-limits-of-money-and-the-perils-of-arrogance/) of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, having spent (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2020-daily-trail-markers-where-mike-bloomberg-spent-570-million-during-his-campaign/) $570 million of his own money to win (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/delegate-count-primary-results.html) 61 delegates. Tom Steyer, the other billionaire in the race, did even worse, abandoning (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/tom-steyer-drops-out.html) his campaign after spending (https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate?id=N00044966) more than $250 million and earning zero delegates.
Those spectacular failures should give pause to the politicians and activists who argue (https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/reform-money-politics) that money poses a grave threat to democracy—so grave that the Constitution must be amended to authorize limits on campaign spending. The Bloomberg and Steyer fiascoes show that no amount of money can buy victory for candidates who fail to persuade voters . . .