{"id":46209,"date":"2014-11-03T08:12:37","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T15:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/if-money-is-speech-its-clear-whos-dominating-the-conversation.html"},"modified":"2014-11-05T08:33:27","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T15:33:27","slug":"if-money-is-speech-its-clear-whos-dominating-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/03\/if-money-is-speech-its-clear-whos-dominating-the-conversation.html","title":{"rendered":"If money is speech, it's clear who's dominating the conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just 42 donors are responsible for a third of all Super PAC contributions this year. All are older and white, and 35 of them are men.<\/p>\n

Does money determine elections? No, not in every case. But it sure doesn't hurt (as proof of which look at how much is spent and how much time and effort candidates put into pursuing it).<\/p>\n

Are all these "old white guys" pushing precisely the same ideology in their donations? Probably not, but I'll bet you it's a less diverse ideological spectrum than you'd get from a cross-section if the America public.<\/p>\n

Super PACs, by the way, are spending more this year than the political parties.<\/p>\n

Votes, of course, are the bottom line in the democracy, and money can't buy votes (yet). But money does help determine which people can even afford to get into the pool to compete, and it can help determine which of those candidates then get heard (and, thus, voted on). And, of course, as they say, he who pays the piper calls the tune.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nWho’s Buying the Midterm Elections? A Bunch of Old White Guys<\/a><\/span>
\nForty-two people are responsible for nearly a third of Super PAC spending in the 2014 election cycle.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just 42 donors are responsible for a third of all Super PAC contributions this year. All are older and white, and 35 of them are men. Does money determine elections? No, not in every case. But it sure doesn't hurt (as proof of which look at how much is spent and how much time and … Continue reading “If money is speech, it's clear who's dominating the conversation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,353,374],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-elections-2014","category-money-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":30840,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/24\/if-you-are-a-mail-in-voter-in-colorado.html","url_meta":{"origin":46209,"position":0},"title":"If you are a mail-in voter in Colorado","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Oct-12 9:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's how to determine if your ballot has been received. 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A couple of Victory Tour posts about Pennsylvania and Mobile, and then ...\u25ba Are we talking about the same cyberattack where it was revealed that head of the DNC illegally gave Hillary the questions to the debate?Just a random\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/maxresdefault5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/maxresdefault5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/maxresdefault5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":26161,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/07\/the-role-of-the-judiciary-and-why-mitt-romneys-a-dolt.html","url_meta":{"origin":46209,"position":5},"title":"The role of the judiciary, and why Mitt Romney's a dolt","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Feb-12 2:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Mitt: Believe it or not, the Constitution says nothing about the courts being instituted to protect \"traditions\" or popular \"values.\" The courts are there to rule on the law and, in cases like this, to determine whether a law is in keeping the Constitution itself.If you disagree with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46255,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46209\/revisions\/46255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}