Is our vote for sale?

Rick Morain

Election analyst Nate Silver says the outlook for the Nov. 3 general election strongly favors Democratic candidates. But he adds that Republicans have one major advantage: money.

Will that be enough to prevent big gains for Democratic candidates? In other words, will the fact that Republican money can out-bombard Democratic ads make a difference in Iowa and elsewhere?

CNBC and Newsmax totaled up national political resources as of the start of September. The swag totals are mind-boggling.

The Republicans have three national party committees that held, taken together, about $230 million on Sept. 1. Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super-PAC held another $415 million.

The analysts’ study reported that the national GOP and its allied donor groups planned to spend about $890 million in advertising through Election Day.

Democratic congressional candidates as individuals generally outraised their Republican opponents, the study found. But that was the only category where they led the GOP.

Democratic national party committees had about $130 million available on Sept. 1, and Democrats and allied groups planned to spend about $670 million on advertising through Election Day. Both categories fall short of what Republicans can spend.

Last week I reported that the Iowa U.S. Senate race to date had cost around $60 million on advertising. A good friend who knows politics inside and out, much better than I do, informed me that Iowa’s U.S. Senate race is likely to cost at least $100 million. My estimate was way low.

And that’s just one race in a relatively small state. Spending in the Texas U.S. Senate race is going to cost way more, and other states will also see spending levels on a similarly high level relative to their voting populations and the closeness of their election races.

Spending at such astronomical levels: does it or can it make a difference in the election results? Candidates, their parties and their donors apparently think the answer is yes. They’re betting that hundreds of millions of dollars will do the trick, and conversely, if a party neglects to spend at such magnitudes, that voters will desert its candidates.

Can that really be true? Are American voters so fickle that they determine their voting choices according to the number of minutes they see a candidate in TV ads, and the negative messages they receive about specific candidates? Do Americans make their selections the same way they decide what breakfast cereal, or automobile, or pizza to buy? Or who has the cutest ads?

It shouldn’t work that way. For democracy to function as it’s intended, voters should become reasonably familiar with a candidate’s character, biography, beliefs, proposals, etc., and pay little attention to falsehoods that bombard them through paid ads. Some dredged-up, offhand statement a candidate made 20 years ago should not outweigh what he or she has said and done in the past decade or so.

Few of us have the time to closely analyze a candidate’s history, like how he or she has voted on hundreds of specific bills, for instance. But it can be informative to note how much a candidate sticks to the party line, and how often he or she departs from party loyalty on important issues, and for what reasons.

It’s not hard to simply get in line and vote how party leadership tells you; anyone could do that. The hard part is deciding when to vote your conscience, or that of your constituents, instead of just being a spear-carrier for your party.

Candidates owe it to the voters to explain the reasons for their independence when they go their own way on a particular issue. Voters deserve to know those details, regardless of what the negative ads might say. What it comes down to is this: are we willing to make a reasonable effort to learn about the candidates on the ballot? Or does the big money spent on TV ads make those decisions for us?

Bottom line: Is our vote for sale?

Rick Morain is a reporter and columnist with the Jefferson Herald.