Buying the Farm
Pete Buttigieg made the comment in the Las Vegas debates. After “Super Tuesday,” he said, Democrats may be faced with a choice between Mike who wants to “buy the party,” and Bernie that wants to “burn it down”. Mike Bloomberg has spent close to half a billion dollars to win the Democratic nomination. That’s more than all the other candidates, Democratic or Republican, have spent in this election cycle.
No one will “buy” Mike Bloomberg with campaign contributions. He’s bought himself, and he’s trying to buy the rest of us.
The rest of the Democratic candidates depend on others to raise the funds to finance their campaigns. Some, like Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, claim that they only take individual small contributions. They try to hammer other candidates, notably Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, for taking donations from “billionaires,” particularly billionaires in “wine caves”. But no “billionaire” is putting their “billions” into anyone’s campaign, other than Mayor Bloomberg and Tom Steyer.
On March 3rd we will get to see if Bloomberg’s millions can “buy” an election. That will be the first time his name will be on the ballot, and since it’s “Super Tuesday” with seventeen state primaries up for grabs, we’ll see. Bloomberg has placed a huge bet, close to $400 million, that he can change the Democratic narrative. One day will tell the tale.
We will get a “field test” of the money strategy this Saturday in South Carolina. Tom Steyer has spent $20 million in that state alone to try to make a dent. Steyer is no Bloomberg, but we should get some idea of the impact of mass spending. We will see if the adage “if a little money is good, a lot of money is better” is valid when it comes to votes.
Amounts are Relative
Money has always been important in politics. In the early 1980’s I was a twenty-four year old campaign manager trying to get my candidate elected to city council. We had a $15000 campaign budget. There was an offer from a member of Cincinnati’s “elite”: the candidate would come have a “talk” and a $10,000 check would conclude the discussion. $10,000 would more than double our budget, letting us go “on the air” with commercials. The problem we (the candidate and I) had was when over half of your campaign funds comes from a single source, how does that person NOT control what you do? We never got the money. We didn’t win the council race either.
In one of our famous “family” discussions this weekend, we talked about how influential money was. We were talking about what happens if there is a “brokered” Democratic Convention, with no one candidate having a majority of the votes. The younger end of the table was convinced that the “money” would step in and stop Bernie Sanders. They went on to say that when it happened, it would fragment the party so badly that it would guarantee Trump’s re-election.
Berne Down the House
If Bernie doesn’t have a majority going into the convention, it would surprise me if other candidates don’t try to take the nomination. After all, that is the process: there is a “first” vote, with all delegates locked into their pledge for their candidate, and the so-called “super delegates” not allowed to vote at all. If a candidate wins a majority on that first vote, then they are the Democratic nominee for President.
But if one candidate doesn’t win, then the rules change. Delegates are allowed to move from their “pledged” position and choose a different candidate. The “super delegates,” who represent the structure of the Democratic Party, can now add their votes, approximately another 500 our of the over 4000 delegate voters. It is called a brokered convention.
Back Before Elvis
The last time that happened was 1952. The Democrats were replacing Harry Truman, who chose not to run for a third term as President. Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson was able to grasp the nomination from Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver. Kefauver led the first ballot, but Stevenson’s candidacy took hold on the second vote. It took three votes for him to reach the majority.
The Republicans had a brokered convention as well that year. While General Eisenhower ended up with the nomination, he wasn’t even the only General in the running. Douglas MacArthur was there, as well as Senator Bob Taft from Ohio. Eisenhower was close on the first vote, and after some wheeling and dealing, was declared the unanimous choice before a second vote was officially taken.
But 1952 was a long time ago.
Whether a political party could survive the results of a brokered convention today is questionable. But if Bernie doesn’t win the Democratic nomination outright, the machinations against him won’t necessarily be about money. There are many older and more institutional Democrats who are afraid of the electoral outcome of running an avowed socialist for President. For Bernie to win the Presidency, he’s going to have to show that his “revolution”, all of the new votes he has for the party, are there.
The way for him to do that is to win the nomination outright. If he can’t then he lends credence to the argument that a Sanders candidacy will lead the Democrats to another historic outcome: the McGovern debacle of 1972. Bernie needs to prove “the revolution” on Super Tuesday, or Democrats face a fractious spring.
For great information on campaign donations – check this site –
Open Secrets – Contribution Information
We should not underestimate the power of money in modern elections, whether we like it or not. I don’t understand Democrats’ concerns about wealthy candidates funding their own campaigns, when we all know that several deep-pocketed Republican donors will fund their candidate.