The final result of the US mid-term election battle has not yet been released. Compared with the lively scene on the table, many people may not pay attention: This mid-term election is probably the most money-burning session in the history of the United States.
According to the " Washington Post " report, the latest research by OpenSecrets, a US political contribution database and a nonpartisan organization, shows that the 2022 US midterm elections 's campaign spending is expected to exceed 16.7 billion US dollars, making it the most expensive election in history.
Four years ago, in the 2018 midterm elections, inflation-adjusted total spending was $13.7 billion, and this time it's $3 billion more.
What is the concept of $16.7 billion in campaign spending?
If you compare it with GDP of other countries, the amount of has exceeded the GDP of more than 70 countries around the world in 2021.
In other words, in the United States spent more money in this election than , which is more than , the output value of in Georgia, where more than 3 million people do not eat or drink for a whole year.
So the question is, why can we spend so much money in a mere midterm election? Where is the money spent? Where did this huge sum of money come from?
1
Americans often say that the road to the White House is paved with gold.
This is true, but only half of it is said, and the other half is that The road to Capitol Hill is also paved with gold .
In the US, a campaign needs three things. The first is money; the second is money; the third is money.
This so-called democratic election is, to put it bluntly, a power game for the rich.
In elections large and small in the United States, candidates need to continuously burn money to enhance their sense of presence. To truly become a political star, you need to spend a lot of money on advertising yourself.
According to ad consultancy AdImPACt, spending on political advertising will exceed $9.7 billion in the 2022 midterm election season, more than double the amount in the 2018 election, and even higher than the 2020 US presidential election. expenditure.
When it comes to political advertising, there are many types and channels.
For example, traditional radio and TV advertisements, electronic online advertisements on major social media platforms, search engine advertisements, door-to-door advertisements, and billboards in commercial centers, and even mailing advertisements to voters, candidates will be pervasive in order to campaign. Advertising is to increase your exposure.
Speaking of this, you may think that this is not the same as many celebrities and Internet celebrities who buy hot searches on Weibo for the sake of fire, promote new dramas and songs, and hype topics everywhere. Indeed, these two There is really no essential difference.
According to AdImpact, traditional broadcast TV still accounts for about half of all ad spending in this midterm election.
Political advertising, of course, is something that the media, who are the beneficiaries, like to see.
Media tycoon Murdoch previously revealed that in the second quarter of this year, Fox’s 29 local TV stations earned about three times as much political advocacy revenue as they did in the same quarter of the 2020 presidential election year, a “record company record.”
His exact words: "We're seeing an unprecedented wave of political spending, accelerating as November approaches... The outlook is very strong." Television networks Nexstar and Sinclair also mentioned that various indicators point to a bumper year.
But campaigns on both sides are also investing heavily in digital advertising as the TV and radio markets rapidly saturate.
According to the search engine, in the past month, candidates have combined to spend nearly $46 million on Google ads. In the US mainstream social media platform Facebook , the advertising investment exceeded 4 million US dollars.
The advertising investment on social media is often not only propaganda and self-promotion, but also a considerable part of attacking opponents.
The Senate-led fund , which is linked to McConnell , has spent $2.72 million since late August on Google ads attacking Democratic races, according to relevant data.
In addition to advertising, other projects, such as hiring staff, going to various places to hold election campaigns, and buying campaign-related supplies , also cost money.
There are many places to spend money, but if you look closely at the purchase bills of these candidates, you will find that people like spend money like paper money, and they are quite reckless .
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) counts some of the candidates' purchase bills, some of which are interesting.
For example, in the FEC data, a reimbursement receipt for current Georgia U.S. Senator Rafael Warnock included $15,850 in limousine travel and $2,400 in order and delivery services. USD, Spent $2,500 at airport kiosks and souvenir shops .
I won't talk about spending money without a list. The key is that shopping at airport stores is also considered as a campaign expense, which is somewhat unreasonable.
Florida Congressman Val Demings' campaign reimbursement bill even included a $300 go-kart racing ticket, , what a jerk, could it be that this person wants to go to the kart arena to find inspiration for his campaign speeches ?
Arizona Senate candidate Mark Kelly reimbursed $220 for a ticket to a Chicago White Sox baseball game, apparently unrelated to the election.
These Democratic candidates' campaign expenses look strange, and the following Republican 's campaign expenses are also varied.
For example, Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, spent $638 on "office supplies" in the U.S. Senate gift shop, and Marc Antonio Rubio bought it at , a clothing store that sells cross-stitch products in , Maryland. $2420 for sportswear.
According to its "reimbursement receipts," McCarthy spent about $8,400 on meals at the National Republican Club on Capitol Hill and about $37,300 in pre-ordered flowers, which was a hefty sum.
So here comes the question, thisSome candidates spend their money like water, treating their money as paper money. Could it be that they all have mines in their homes?
2
Indeed, some candidates of have strong financial resources, and they are indeed who are running with funds.
Take, for example, the Democratic governor of Illinois, Pritzker, who is a billionaire and has invested more than $130 million in his own re-election campaign.
And Sen. Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, who has spent about $31.8 million on the campaign since Jan. 1.
But most candidates, with their own pocket money alone, are who can't afford to campaign.
What if there is no money? The answer is simple, fundraising.
With such a huge campaign expenditure, how to find the sponsor's father to pay is the top priority of almost all candidates.
How important is that? For example, McCarthy, who spent a lot of money in the House of Representatives, had more than half of his campaign funds, about $4.1 million, on "fundraising consulting".
It's a bit sarcastic and funny, but it's very real.
When it comes to candidate fundraising, there are basically the following channels.
First of all, in the US elections, external organizations such as Political Action Committee (PAC), super PAC, 501c3 non-profit organizations, etc. all play a very critical role in raising funds.
At the federal level, an organization is considered a political action committee if it earns or spends more than $1,000 to influence political elections and is registered with the Federal Election Commission.
Political action committees can contribute directly to political parties and candidates, but are not run by candidates or parties.
The law limits the amount of donations to political action committees to a maximum of $5,000 per election per year to one candidate.
But Super PAC has no limit on the amount, donate as much as you want.
Why? The emergence of super PACs stems from a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned century-old campaign finance restrictions, enabling companies and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections.
This precedent is used for super PACs. Super PACs cannot formally partner with candidates or parties or donate directly to candidates or parties, but can invest unlimited funds in support of or against a candidate.
According to Open Secrets statistics, In this year's midterm elections, Soros was the largest individual donor, giving $128 million to support the Democratic Party .
A spokesman for Soros said 125 million of that went to a super PAC and the rest went directly to candidates and campaigns.
The biggest donor to the Republican party is the Uhlein and his wife, the founders of Uline, a shipping and business supplies company in Wisconsin, who gave the Republican $67 million.
According to a count by The Washington Post, during this midterm election cycle, the 50 largest "funders" donated about $1.1 billion to various campaign committees and other political groups.
In addition to these big donations from the rich, some seemingly inconspicuous small donations are also very impressive when accumulated.
In this mid-term election, the two parties launched various donation software , such as ActBlue and WinRed, which can make donations with one click.
Small donors who donated up to $200 have now contributed a cumulative $1.1 billion, double the amount in 2018.
In addition to ordinary donation software, the cryptocurrency industry has also significantly increased political donations in this midterm election. Cryptocurrency companies and their employees are pouring $73 million into the 2022 election, hoping the new Congress will be kinder to the industry and shield them from regulatory blows.
Of course, in addition to the above-mentioned public election funds, has a large amount of secret funds that are also very active.
The wealthy Americans often support candidates of a certain party through super PACs, although there is no limit on the amount, and often have "black gold" who do not want to reveal their true identities, and influence elections through super PACs .
CNN reported that in recent years, these peripheral election support groups have increasingly turned to the "black gold" model. As a result, various bottomless election support operations do not need to disclose who the "big money" behind the scenes is.
For example, recently, the British " Guardian " website published an article revealing that in the past two years, through a series of opaque transactions, American billionaire, 90-year-old electronics manufacturing giant Barry Seid, to Republican Renner. The Federalist Society, a conservative political group chaired by De Leo, donated the largest known amount of "black money" in U.S. history, totaling $1.6 billion .
This man used to be the boss of a large American manufacturing company. In 2021, he invested the huge amount of money he obtained from the sale of the company's shares he held into the "Federalist Institute" in a very complicated way. This "black money" successfully avoided taxes by nearly 400 million US dollars through stock transfer.
It is no wonder that the American magazine Rolling Stone lamented: "If the news hadn't been leaked, this country might never know the source of this huge investment - even if it was equivalent to the GDP of a small country, even if it might reshape the entire era. American politics .”
These large donations and black money not only disrupted the American election and political ecology, but also exposed the tip of the iceberg of institutional corruption in the United States.
3
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
It is obviously impossible for the rich to call the candidates so generously just to "chasing stars".
Take what happened recently with Pelosi .
" The New York Post " broke the news some time ago that Pelosi sent a letter to in October to the FCC , directly expressing "serious concerns" about the acquisition of the Tegna TV network.
First of all, Pelosi's constituency does not have Tegna TV, and this acquisition case is not within her scope of responsibility. Why does Pelosi care so much about something that can't be fought with her?
There are two intriguing details behind this.
The first is that Pelosi and Democratic campaign groups received more than $500,000 in campaign donations from media mogul Byron Allen late last year.
Second, Alan happens to be trying to buy Tegna too.
It's no coincidence that Pelosi is so keen on Allen's rival to buy Tegna.
The political power of the United States comes from capital, and naturally it also serves capital.
The election system in the United States has always been about rewarding merit and deeds . After candidates take office, they typically offer political rewards based on the contributions of political donors.
The most common is to enter the government to engage in public office, or let the big donors participate in the ruling process in a direct or indirect way, or provide convenience in other aspects. To put it bluntly, it is a public return.
For example, after Wang came to power, he appointed donor Louis DeJoy as the head of the Federal Post Office.
This Louis DeJoy, who does not have any working background in the postal system, was appointed because he is a long-time supporter of Wang, who has donated many times to the Trump campaign and the Republican Party for a long time. Engage in fundraising.
From the point of view of understanding the king, this person has paid so much for himself before, and now he is sitting on the Iron Throne, it is obvious that it is unreasonable not to give this person a little bit of oil and water.
Another example was once made statistics, ObamaAfter taking office in 2008, one-third of the more than 500 fundraisers who supported Obama got positions in the then government cabinet. Of those fundraisers who raised more than $500,000, 80% secured key positions.
After candidates take office, it is common to find ways to repay the sponsors. More importantly, such political contributions often also influence legislation and government decisions.
For example, in 2017 the United States passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in order to repay the donors who donated during the campaign. According to the Act, the income tax rate paid by wealthy families in the United States has been greatly reduced, from 39.6% to 35%, while the income tax rate paid by poor families has increased from 10% to 12%. Widening the gap between rich and poor in America.
The problem of gun violence has plagued the United States for many years, but in the face of the serious deterioration of social security, why has the US government still failed to take effective measures on gun control?
The reason lies in the "black gold interest chain" behind it. As the "boss" in the anti-gun control interest group, the influence of the National Rifle Association, which has more than 5 million members and a large amount of funds, has penetrated deeply into all levels and aspects of American electoral politics.
Interest groups such as the National Rifle Association of the United States continue to lobby politicians and provide a large number of political donations, hindering gun control legislation, so that the United States has not made important progress in gun control legislation.
More than 100 years ago, campaign expert Mark Hannah helped William McKinley win the US presidential election twice, when he talked about his successful experience, he did not shy away from the long-standing "" in the United States Money Politics " Secrets.
"You need two things to win an election. The first is money, and the second I can't remember."
With the development of the times, American money politics has intensified.
According to statistics, in the 1860 US election, the Republican Party spent $100,000 to make Abraham Lincoln the sixteenth president of the United States.
Now, not only is the cost of the presidential campaign increasing exponentially, but the cost of elections, both large and small, including the midterm elections, is also increasing exponentially, hitting record highs repeatedly.
This so-called American democracy , is it the democracy of ordinary people in the United States, or the democracy of the rich and capitalists?