Belief: Money buys
elections
Observation: At least on
the Republican side there seems to be an inverse relationship between money and
success. Bush has raised the most and Trump the least among leading candidates
and it is not just Trump's wealth that puts him ahead. He is not spending. No
TV and virtually no ground game. On the Democratic side, Clinton has the big
money but Sanders certainly leads in the dollar per polling point gain. Again,
an inverse relationship.
Tentative conclusion: A
strong message is worth an awful lot of money.
Belief: The corporate media
is backing Clinton
Observation: The corporate
media have been handmaidens to the Republican efforts to paint Clinton as
untrustworthy. In particular the bogus reporting on Bengazi and email issues
has been very damaging to Clinton despite the lack of facts. It is certainly
true that she gets more ink than Sanders but that is not necessarily good. A
fair look at political coverage over the past six months would favor Sanders
with a better ratio of positive to negative stories.
Tentative conclusion:
Sanders is actually winning the earned media wars.
Belief: The DNC is stacking
the deck for Clinton
Observation: The Democrats
delegate selection process definitely stacks the deck against "cause
candidates" and tries to ease the way for "mainstream" Democrats.
This is not new and not Wasserman Schultz's doing. It goes back at least
to the Winograd Commission in 1977-78. I know because I was a member of the
Commission.
Conclusion: Sanders can
make some political points by bashing the rules but he knew what they were
going in.
Belief: Restricting the
number and timing of debates was done to favor Clinton.
Observation: Judging from
post-debate polls, Bernie is lucky that there weren't more and more visible
debates. Clinton's numbers go up immediately following the debates and Bernie's
do not rise. The decision to restrict the number of debates was made long ago.
The major rationale (wrong in my estimation) was to insulate the eventual
nominee from embarrassing debate statements such as the ones that every one of
the Republican candidates has made. In this sense, regardless of whether the
nominee is Sanders or Clinton, the decision may be seen as smart.
Tentative conclusion:
Debates will not decide the Democratic race. They change little and generally
favor Clinton.
Belief: Clinton's past
acceptance of Wall Street dollars will be a political killer
Observation: There is
almost no evidence that the voting public makes decisions at the polls about where campaign dollars
come from. The public believes that nearly every contribution is tainted. They
may not like Wall Street but they also don't like progressive groups such as unions or groups
like Planned Parenthood Votes or Sierra Club.
Conclusion: This is a total
non-issue for the average voter and unlikely to determine primary outcomes.
