My American government students can testify to my use of opensecrets.org. The website provides a deep database of political fundraising intel including amounts raised, donors, and policy issues attracting $$$. The site also covers lobbying activity and money.
Students remain consistently shocked by the amount of money politics generates just from the donor crowd comprised of high rollers and everyday folks with a stake. My favorite parlor trick is to unveil how much money the recent presidential campaigns spent. The Bush-Cheney campaign put up the first crazy number raising nearly $400 million in 2004.
Well, the Biden-Harris ticket essentially topped that number. In August.
Blowing past $300 million in one month!?! And this is just the campaign under (Citizens United driven) rules that encourage donors to not only create their own SuperPacs but produce their own marketing messages. Is the "Dump Trump" movement that powerful as Biden argues? Time will tell.
It is unfathomable how much money goes into politics, especially during troubling times you would think it would be directed elsewhere to more organizations and communities in need. I may not understand how each dollar contributes to a campaign or government body, but it seems larger than necessary. It leaves people to pose questions: does everything truly revolve around money? If money wasn't such a contributing factor to the success of a campaign what other elected officials would be in office? Would presumed to be elected on a lower budget completely change the direction the economy and politics are heading towards?
Money is placed with such a high value that it is important that as a nation, politics and the…
It is so bizarre for me to think this much money gets spent in politics, I wonder why do they require so much and in what do the people who receive it waste it on? What do you even do with so much money? I personally believe it is a bit too much and that the money can go to "better" causes, however I do understand that some people are just so passionate about politics that they would spend that much in order to "be in".
"It is all about the money". That small statement is unfortunately the cornerstone for much of the political activity that happens in America. Although there are many politicians who strive for change and focus their lives on making America better, there are many who fulfill their role for the sole purpose of filling their wallets. Large sums of money are not a necessity to run for the presidency, although it is recommended to fund a campaign, it should not be about how much the campaign makes, rather what the message is that is being said. I personally feel that much of the money that comes in from politicians is all for the sake of agenda.
In the corrupted wo…
It truly is shocking just how wealthy the political landscape is. In modern day democratic countries around the world, I think many of us have fooled ourselves into believing that the days of the wealthy ruling class are long gone. This is so far from the truth though. Though you don't NEED to have great amounts of wealth in order to run for office, it is all but impossible to do if you have no one giving you huge loads of money. A political career is possibly the truest form of business and salesmanship. Success is entirely based on selling a product. This is usually your ideas and ideologies, but it nearly every case it's impossible to succeed without first…
I find it crazy to believe how much money is spent to campaign. We could use that money to do other things for our country than spend it on who we like better and prefer in the election. For the amount of money spent, they could use it for more important things. It's important to reach the people but that's a lot of money for an event that will be over once our President is elected.