Microsoft's political donations

[fable]

From ZDnet (UK): Judge Kollar-Kotelly heard that total donations to political donations from Microsoft and its employees to political parties, candidates and PACs in the 2000 election cycle amounted to more than $6.1 million. During this period, Microsoft and its executives accounted for $2.3 million in soft money contributions, compared to $1.55 million by Enron and its executives for the same period.

[Curdis]

The American Political System

Seeing as we discuss it a lot I've got some newbie questions.

Is it an Urban Legend that the candidate who won all the US Presidential Campaigns since the seventies was the one who spent the most money on their campaign?

Corporations paying political parties - Is this regulated and if so how?

Do corporations have any status in the US constitution?

I've heard it said that what you 'buy' when you contribute to a political party is access rather than influence (which would have to be considered corruption/bribery) - Is this widely believed? Otherwise what is the justification for allowing political contributions which would appear to be systemic bribery.

Just curious - Curdis !

[fable]

Is it an Urban Legend that the candidate who won all the US Presidential Campaigns since the seventies was the one who spent the most money on their campaign?

For a long time, the Republicans were the "party of big business," and to a lessening extent, that's still true. In the two instances where a Democrat won in the period you mention, both spent significantly less than their opponents--but the Republicans were still reeling from Watergate when Carter ran, and Bush Sr. was getting blamed for several of Reagan's worst mistakes that hit the fan during the former's administration (letting Clinton in). So it could be argued that the theory still has some merit.

Do corporations have any status in the US constitution?

No. In fact, there are millions and billions of things for which the Constitution is completely irrelevant; but given the US legal system, and emotional Tradition, some connection must be invented where it didn't exist. The right to bear arms, for example, has to be twisted into a defense for the right to purchase more than a hundred assault rifles--and I'm not joking, either. (I see nothing wrong with owning a handgun, but really, I can't see any reasonable defense for buying so much firepower. Just my POV.)

I've heard it said that what you 'buy' when you contribute to a political party is access rather than influence (which would have to be considered corruption/bribery) - Is this widely believed?

Nobody believes it, though it's constantly stated. Access *is* influence. A person who doesn't have access to you can't influence you--except through the ballot box, and the concept of that influencing anybody once they're elected seems a bit laughable. On the other hand, the person who can send your political team on an all-expense-paid junket to Paris, where you're wined and dined, watch a PR film and talk over business, is naturally going to have greater influence on your opinions. Opinions, after all, do not grow in a vacuum.

[Curdis]

@fable, Thanks for taking the time to answer me.

My question about the constitution and corporations was because a corporation thus can have a much larger influence than an individual in a democracy which is constituted around the collective rights of the individual (and does not include corporations). That seems fundamentally inconsistent. There is a similar situation here (in Australia) but our constitution is laughable and not of the scope or principle of the US one.

Is there any likelihood of the political contribution system being reformed any time soon? Once you've walked down the (pretty obvious) path to, political contribution = bribery, do you just give up?

BTW I did a year of elementary school in Tucson, you'd have hoped they would have managed to explain the US political system during that time - Curdis !

[HighLordDave]

There are some interesting relationships between money, access and elections.

All things being equal, spending in presidential campaigns is not a factor. This is in part due to the fact that every presidential campaign since Watergate, with the sole exception of Steve Forbes in 1996, candidates have used federal matching funds for their campaigns. This automatically has capped the amount presidential campaigns can spend. It would be intersting to see how spending has affected presidential primary campaigns which are not aided by federal matching funds.

In terms of presidential elections, there are only three major factors: 1) War and peace. 2) Who's the incumbent? 3) What's the state of the economy?

War and Peace
Americans hate to oust their president during wartime. It has happened only once, to Lyndon Johnson who bit off more than he could chew (guns & butter). The only other president who has come close to losing during a war was Abe Lincoln who nearly lost to George McClellen in 1864.

Incumbency
The incumbent wins 90% of the time. Where spending becomes a factor is when there is no incumbent either due to death or retirement. A couple of years ago there was a Senate race in California(?) for an open seat that eclipsed all of the spending records. I believe that if that seat had been occupied, the spending would not have reached the level it did (I believe that each candidate spent over $50 million that year).

State of the Economy
The economy is the single biggest issue in presidential campaigns. No other issue is a major factor; not abortion, not gun control, nor any of the other hot button issues. Reagan summed it up best in his 1980 campaign, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" George Bush [the elder] lost in 1992 because of the economy. Al Gore lost because he botched his campaign and let Dubya "talk down" the economy.

If people are doing well and there is no war going on, they tend to vote for incumbents. If the economy is not doing well, Americans will oust the existing candidate (or congressional majority). Each election cycle, the entire House of Representitives and one third of the Senate come up for re-election. At the beginning of the election year (right about now), each party looks at the seats coming open and decides which one are vulnerable, both in their party and in the opposition's.

They target those districts with their money in hopes of ousting the incumbent, seizing open seats or sheilding their own incumbents from attacks from the other party. The most common way of doing this is to convince the local electorate that their current representative is not doing their job and that he or she is not looking out for their district's interests (ie-they're not bringing home enough federal pork barrel spending). If they're trying to protect a district, the party will attack the opponent or try to "talk up" their own candidate's accomplishments.

So what does money have to do with this? Each candidate has their own campaign war chest. The national party uses the money donated to it by individuals, corporations and special interest groups to run ads and "informational" campaign spots in the targeted districts. You will notice that at the end of each ad, there will be a claim of responsibility for the ad which will say something like, "This message was paid for by [candidate's name or national party]". This will let you know how much money the party is sinking into a district.

Companies like Enron, Microsoft et al like to give money to national campaigns because it gets them more national interest. The parties like it because they get to spend the money any way they want in the districts that "need" it the most. It is the equivalent of an unrestricted gift to a non-profit organisation.

Political parties (indeed all politicians) will deny that money and contributions gain influence or access. This is of course, hogwash. Big campaign contributors get you access to party leadership in the same way that big donations to universities get buildings named after people.

The recently passed Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill is now in the Senate (I think it's called McCain-Feingold there) and Dubya has indicated that he will sign it if it makes it out of conference committee and onto his desk. It is my belief that neither party truly wants the bill to pass; after all, why cut off your own gravy train? However, in the wake of the Enron mess, no one wants to look like the money Enron (or any other big corporation) put up got any special favours or access. I think that the bill will either quietly die in conference committee or that it will be challenged in court as soon as it hits the books.

[fable]

Americans hate to oust their president during wartime. It has happened only once, to Lyndon Johnson who bit off more than he could chew (guns & butter). The only other president who has come close to losing during a war was Abe Lincoln who nearly lost to George McClellen in 1864.

This would also explain why Dubyah is pushing his ridiculous Axis of Power. As long as he can convince the US voting public that there is an actual war going on, Dubyah and his team figure that's how long he'll have of a grace period in office. Of course, it also political sleight-of-hand, drawing people to new targets while ignoring the fact that he hasn't destroyed the one he aimed for from the first.

[Gwalchmai]

So, what do you think, @HLD and @fable, will the Republicans take over congress again during the mid-term elections or will the Democrats retain the senate and maybe take the house? What about in 3 years' time? Will Dubya, Rove, Rumsfeld, and Cheney keep thier seats? I know you'd be going out on a limb to make a prediction at this point, since the state of the war and economy at the time of the actual elections are what will matter the most, but what are your gut reactions?

[HighLordDave]

Here I go political prognosticating

At the beginning of the last elections, I told everyone who would listen to me (I counted three people, and two were infants who couldn't escape, much less understand) that the next president would be a single-term president. In 2000, the United States was coming off an economic high with no where to go but down. Remember all that talk of "market corrections" and other economic mumbo jumbo?

Bill Clinton's economic policy was fairly transparent; indeed, it was close to non-existent. However, he did manage to get a bunch of budgets passed which not only eliminated deficit spending, but actually paid down some of the national debt. Beyond that, he left his economic policy in the hands of Alan Greenspan. Purely through no real fault of his own, Clinton got to take credit for the boom in tech stocks, prosperous times and other stuff he really had nothing to do with except to keep his head down and his mouth shut.

After the bubble burst, as it always does, Clinton managed to escape blame by conveniently being ousted from office by that pesky 22nd Amendment. I said in early 2000 that whomever was elected to be Clinton's successor will receive the blame for the crashing economy, even though the only thing he did wrong was get elected to the presidency at the wrong time.

It is my belief that in the coming mid-term elections, the Democrats will retain control of the Senate (and maybe even pick up a seat or two) and will gain ground in the House (but not take control). I saw a recent poll in Time magazine that said that 44% of Americans believe that the economy will get worse before it gets better. This feeling will reflect itself in the way floundering incumbents are ousted, and I think that the Republicans will take the brunt of the blame for causing the tax surplus to evaporate by their tax rebate gimmick.

I also think that in 2004, Dubya will have squandered his wartime popularity boost and will be blamed for the economic slowdown. The same poll in Time magazine said that 51% of Americans believe that Dubya puts the interests of big business ahead of the interests of everyday people. Unless the economy picks up, this will not bode well for Dubya when he comes seeking re-election.

One other interesting note, since the modern political party system came into existence in 1850 with the formation of the Republican Party, there have been only 12 years (or something like that) where the same party has controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. If Dubya is indeed ousted in 2004, I believe the Republicans will retain a slim margin in the House of Representatives while the Democrats (plus Jim Jeffords) control the Senate. We clearly do not want one party dominating the political scene and seem to think that legislative gridlock isn't all that bad.

[Lazarus]

Getting back to the initial post ... Believe me or not, I don't really have a strong opinion on the campaign finance issue. However, just to play devil's advocate here, I'll try this out on you:

If Microsoft has millions of dollars, and feels that giving some of those to a politician will increase their voice in politics, who are you to tell them that they cannot spend their money that way? Will you next be telling them that they must tithe the church 10% of their income?

It is unfortunate that money will influence politicians. Would that we had more honest people being elected. But I fail to see how limiting people's (or corporation's) freedom of choice will bring about a renaissance in politics.

(As an aside: as you know, my position on government is such that it just shouldn't have any control on the economy - thus removing Microsoft's incentive for contributing.)

[fable]

Originally posted by Gwalchmai
So, what do you think, @HLD and @fable, will the Republicans take over congress again during the mid-term elections or will the Democrats retain the senate and maybe take the house? What about in 3 years' time? Will Dubya, Rove, Rumsfeld, and Cheney keep thier seats? I know you'd be going out on a limb to make a prediction at this point, since the state of the war and economy at the time of the actual elections are what will matter the most, but what are your gut reactions?

Tough call. But if the economy doesn't kick into motion, I think the Democrats may widen their spread in the Senate by a couple of votes this year. The House is more chancy. But with a partisan, authoritarian president, Enron in the wings, and who knows what else on the horizon, the Republican majority may slip just enough to let the wimpy Democrats slip in.

As for 2004: before bin Ladan handed Bush a popularity boost, the judicially appointed president had lost a lot of support by his partisan, uncompromisingly hardline, late 19th century approach to government--despite having run as a "moderate." If the US public becomes tired of the war on terrorism and no other attacks occur, Bush could end up saddled with a heavy deficit of his own creation, and domestic economic policies that pull him down. As HLD writes, the economy set the tone for an election. And so far, Bush has shown the traditional Republican inability to understand that an unregulated playing field for big business is very, very bad business. He should take a lesson from his father's administration, which collapsed in large part because of Reagan's deregulation of banking laws. When all those Texas banks defaulted, the US Treasury was required under law to make good the deposits--to the tune of 50 billion dollars.

If Bush Senior is looking northeast from his palatial ranch in Texas, I'm sure he's wondering right now why the boy can't read history.