Familiarity breeds content, not contempt

Yes, you read it correctly. Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt in our political system. It’s breeds content. How does that work?

Simply put, if you have enough money in your political campaign you’ll almost certainly win. There are a combination of a few factors –

If you have enough money, you can flood your district with signage, billboards, postcards, giveaways and anything else that the cottage industry of political vendors can sell you and deliver.

The media will also respect you as you will have more money than the other candidates. The old saying is that money begets money, and the first million is the hardest. In political terms, you loan (not donate) your campaign a million dollars or so but don’t spend it. That will make you a front runner in House races, although you need much more in Senate races and so on. It’s all based on district size, from city council races to the presidential race.

As a “front runner” you will, with sufficient publicity, attract large numbers of donations. The media will give you lots of coverage so that your name becomes familiar, as they watch the campaign donation reports carefully. It’s a snowball effect.

Conventional wisdom is that you’ll win as you have the most money and are getting the favorable press, so people will give your campaign money to buy favors after the fact. Why favorable press? The press needs access, so if they annoy the winning candidate they won’t get the access. No access, no job.

There is a telling saying in Washington, “Lean to the green.” It means that politicians listen to who gives them money. You don’t. Politicians are the public’s best friend until election day, and then they don’t exist. Only donors exist after.

If you don’t believe it, listen to this PBS show –

If you aren’t expected to win, you won’t attract campaign donations. People like backing a winner. It’s human nature. Human nature is very, very carefully researched so that the public will do what they are told, and believe that they have free will. So do cattle, before heading into the abattoir.

Once you’ve received enough money, you spend it on your campaign and after you win, repay the million dollar loan to yourself. Politicians don’t like spending their own money, but love spending other peoples donations.

So think how comfortable you become with familiar names and are “steered” to voting for them. It’s a very carefully plotted scenario and the public has no idea. Will the general public figure this out? Your answer will almost certainly be correct.