New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent millions and he barely won re-election in New York and that that he was a relatively popular mayor. Meg Whitman running for governor in California has spent over 100 million and she is now trailing. Even before her nannygate (scandal-non-scandal) she was neck and neck with Jerry Brown.
The reality if the voter is educated appropriately and the candidate connects on his constituent’s terms no amount of money can guarantee victory. What is important this cycle is that the educated voter go vote because it is true that the misinformed is really smelling blood and believe they are sending a message to Washington even as they continue to vote against their own interest.
Progressive will have to keep tweaking the electoral formula until the Supreme Court is biased towards the individual with more progressives. We currently have a corporatist Supreme Court that allow US corporations and implicitly foreigners to influence our body politic. This will be so for the foreseeable future.
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With less than a month until the election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is urging her fellow Democrats to highlight the ties between Republicans and corporate interests and aggressively respond to attacks by Republicans that attempt to portray the Democratic Party as out of touch with the economic concerns of voters. In an interview with The Huffington Post on Tuesday, Pelosi said she was unsure how much help Democrats will get from outside political groups that the Supreme Court has ruled can spend without limit on federal elections, and House Democratic candidates have grown increasingly nervous as corporate money pours into district after district, while union money and help from environmental and women’s rights groups has been much more restrained.
"Certainly I don’t know that, going into the election, there was any plan to do so," Pelosi said when asked if liberal groups might be airing television ads backing Democrats. Corporate groups have been on the air since 2009 battering Democrats. "I hope so. I hope so. I hope so," said Pelosi.
The influx of corporate money on behalf of the GOP will make it harder to hold the House, Pelosi said. "Absent this, we were really pretty confident about winning the election. We still are. But this makes it harder," she said.
Republican-affiliated outside groups have already committed to spend at least $200 million in 2010. Liberal groups, according to a document being circulated among Democrats, have committed to spend just over $7 million.
Much of that is being spent on mailing and ground work, however, leaving the GOP with dominance of the airwaves.
"Somebody said to me, ‘You can survive being outspent eight to one.’ I said, ‘Just as long as the one is there. Eight to one? Okay. Eight to nothing? No, I don’t think so,’" Pelosi said.
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If Democrats can’t match them in spending, said Pelosi, the party would tar Republicans by connecting them to corporate cash. "Of course, they all have euphemistic terms, "For Seniors" or "For Prosperity," or whatever it is, but really it’s just cover," she said.
"Whenever you get hit with an overwhelming weight, you have to jujitsu it. So we want to turn it against them… I want to tattoo them right on to the Republican candidate," she said, smacking her hand for emphasis. "Big oil, big banks, big health insurance: We’re going to tattoo you with that, so it’s like doggy-doo stuck on your shoe. Wherever you go, people will know."
Nancy Pelosi: We’ll Tie The GOP To Corporate Cash ‘Like Doggy-Doo Stuck On Your Shoe’