There are some things money can’t buy

With my apologies to Mastercard, the election results are fascinating based on how ineffectively the money spent was. Now some of that may be that you have some groups taking a large share of the funds raised to cover “expenses”. It will be interesting to see if Karl Rove has any credibility left, or employability.

However, I think the bigger problem was with the message. One hindsight analysis going around today was that a top Romney bundler said "We had no message and we gave it to the worst communicator in the world." This is not true. Romney is not that bad a communicator, and there was a definite message. However, the message is demented, and Romney is not crazy or passionate enough to sell it.

That’s to his credit, and I think it’s how he got as far as he did—not being obviously crazy like a Cain or a Gingrich. (I’ve decided Hunstman’s problem was that he openly claimed to believe in science too early.)

I don’t think there is a messenger who can sell their message to enough people to win an election, and this is because of the hands behind the party. What they want is actually awful, so they lie and mislead, and it falls apart.

Yesterday we talked about how minimum wage in the Pacific Territories gets into the national GOP platform, and it’s because someone influential has a vested interest in that. All right, I was disappointed with Rolling Stone’s music journalism, but their political stuff is pretty good, and this was a fascinating one:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/right-wing-billionaires-behind-mitt-romney-20120524

Everyone hears about the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, but there’s more, and they all have things that they want, and they tend to be good at getting them, and the Republican machinery tells you that this is what the economy needs. That is a lie.

Tax cuts don’t create jobs, but they do increase the concentration of wealth at the top. The government can create jobs. Government spending does have a greater than 1:1 ratio in terms of effects on the economy. Stimulus has been helpful. I don’t have time to get into all of that, but here are two links.

http://healthcareforamericanow.org/2012/11/02/gop-suppresses-crs-report/

http://www.nationalmemo.com/global-index-praises-us-as-sole-bright-spot-in-sluggish-world-economy/

Still, this is what the big donors want, and they’re not going to change what they want, so they do two things. One is that they lie. They lie lot, with an audacity that is hard to believe, but more on Fox news tomorrow.

The other is to focus on “moral” issues, because this has historically been an effective way of getting people to vote against their own self-interests. (I referred to Thomas Frank’s “The Wrecking Crew” yesterday, but I would be remiss if I did not recommend his excellent “What’s the Matter with Kansas.”)

There is a lot of evidence that the big money doesn’t really care about moral issues, but that they keep up with this strategy because it is supposed to work. That seems to be changing, and it should have been obvious that it was changing a few months ago.

Now, part of why it may not have been obvious will go back to the Fox news thing, but I think there is another factor here, in that they are already doing pretty well. Adelson, for example, has billions already, has access to McConnell and Boehner among others, he can afford to lose or win big. There’s no real advantage to getting a moderate Republican in office over a moderate Democrat. An extreme Republican who is beholden to him? Now that would be hitting the jackpot. And people who have billions are willing to spend millions to do it.

It is a beautiful thing that this is not working now, and I will put aside my idealism and caring for the Earth and its inhabitants for a moment and say that Rove did a good job of accomplishing his evil goals. It’s really impressive that you were able to pull it off for so long.

So, back to caring, including caring about Republican people—not the billionaires who control it, but the regular people, you have no motivation to continue this losing strategy. Afraid that the government will tax your money once you start making some? The party elite are gaming the system so you will never get some. Leave them behind, and build something new. Something that honors the values that you have, but looks at them honestly, and looks honestly for solutions to the real issues that are out there.

To do so, you will need to broaden your data sources. More on that tomorrow.