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Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

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Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#81

Post by danans »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #57

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I am ok with Bloomberg spending some of his money. Granted, 300MM to him like approximately $20 to me, but still.. Do not misunderstand me. His attempt to simply buy an election is.. annoying, if not unseemly. That said, I am perfectly fine with him finally spending at least some of his vast fortune instead of hoarding it like a dragon. Hell, he wants to pay me $2500? I will pocket…

> Hell, he wants to pay me $2500? I will pocket that and then vote for hopefully less obnoxious candidate.

What about the votes of the people you influenced in his direction? If just 2 other people turn to him as a result, your vote against him has been effectively negated. Perhaps the $2500 means more to you than the vote against Bloomberg? If so, that's fair. A lot of people could use that kind of money, and I don't blame them for taking it. Ironically, that speaks directly to the imbalance of political power caused by the existence of massively wealthy individuals like him.

But assuming you are OK with promoting a candidate in exchange for $, why not take money from a candidate you believe in, rather than one you plan to vote against? Is it because (just guessing) he's paying more? In which case, it seems a lot like he's just buying the primary.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#82

Post by eej71 »

arrosenberg wrote: post #49
malandrew wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's not very substantive, this observation is correct so while it may be valid to downvote, it isn't valid to flag. The US is not a democracy. It's a constitutional republic with an electoral college. The checks afforded by this system make it much harder than just manipulating a mob (which is another way to describe a democracy).

It's both non-substantive and also incorrect. The United States is both a constitutional republic and a representative democracy. Ignoring the democracy part is a favorite trope of people who oppose it.

No one who supports the electoral college is opposed to the nature of democratic voting such as is used by the House of Representatives.

I believe it's a strength of the US that we have different voting methodologies for different roles. One for the House and a _different_ (yet also fair!) methodology for the President.

While these reasons were partially born as a result of compromise - the compromise is rooted in some good political theory.

We would be worse off if we only had one method and not the other. But we have both and we are stronger for it. I'd like to keep both. I think most ardent defenders of the electoral college would say the same.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#83

Post by claudeganon »

empath75 wrote: post #47
claudeganon wrote: post #8

If Bloomberg succeeds in buying the election, we will never have another president who isn’t a billionaire again. This is a far greater, long term threat to American democracy than anything posed by the Trump administration’s lawlessness.

I agree with the former, but not the latter.

I’d be interested to know why not the latter.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#84

Post by jacob019 »

slumdev wrote: post #68

I don't like this idea of buying elections. But at the very least, I'm happy to see the Democratic machine upside-down, with all of the designated incumbent royalty falling behind the outsiders.

I appreciate the sentiment, but for those of us who have been negatively impacted by the policies of the current administration, it is worrying that a candidate with broad appeal has failed to materialize at this point.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#85

Post by aldoushuxley001 »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #57

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I am ok with Bloomberg spending some of his money. Granted, 300MM to him like approximately $20 to me, but still.. Do not misunderstand me. His attempt to simply buy an election is.. annoying, if not unseemly. That said, I am perfectly fine with him finally spending at least some of his vast fortune instead of hoarding it like a dragon. Hell, he wants to pay me $2500? I will pocket…

"Hell, he wants to pay me $2500? I will pocket that and then vote for hopefully less obnoxious candidate."

You mean, you'll pocket that $2500, then vote for him for another promised $2500, because your vote is for sale - that much is certain.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#86

Post by paulgb »

blowski wrote: post #55
tyfon wrote: post #4

I don't even.. wow.. Talk about buying the election. Are anyone going to be fooled by this? Edit: does facebook and twitter require that you disclose any payments you get for posting?

Hasn’t this been going on for years? People made the same complaints about spending on TV adverts. Is it substantively worse in this election, or just spending a bit more on a different type of media? I don’t know, genuine question from a Brit.

Part of the problem is that it's a self-funded campaign. It's one thing when a campaign raises a bunch of money from donors and does an ad blitz, because at least it in theory represents real people (with contribution caps) who donated. When it's a billionaire self-funding, that's not the case. (PACs are also problematic, because they side-step the contribution caps)

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#87

Post by cvwright »

sigmaprimus wrote: post #25

I'm looking forward to the debate tonite, hopefully Bloomberg will get to show everyone what kind of candidate he really is. I still think his entire campaign is just a twisted way to get around campaign contribution limits and possibly a bulwark to keep the wacko socialist candidates from winning the nomination. Hopefully he proves me wrong and is a real candidate that will be able to stand toe to toe with President…

Love them or hate them, the one nice thing about Bloomberg and Trump is that, finally the billionaires are stepping out of the shadows. Instead of just bankrolling some frontman who looks good for the cameras, they are running as candidates themselves now.

Back in 2015 or 2016, The Atlantic had a great article that highlighted the billionaire donors behind each of the (traditional) Republican candidates in the presidential primary. It wasn't hard to see how the candidate's platform aligned with the donor's agenda in each case.

If some billionaire is going to be driving a political campaign, I'd much rather they were upfront about the whole thing and put their own name on it.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#88

Post by morelisp »

grumple wrote: post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

Mostly other politicians are running ads and campaign offices as politicians have done for decades - maybe with a social media manager or two per major office.

Bloomberg is doing that, also at a level of intensity not really seen before, but then also managing a uniquely expensive social media campaign.

Clinton's total campaign was something like $600e6. Bloomberg has already spent half of that, within the span of three state primaries. I would not be surprised if he spends at least that on the primary, and if he somehow gets the nomination, a billion minimum for the entire campaign.

It's unreal.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#89

Post by 6510 »

leftyted wrote: post #45
tyfon wrote: post #4

I don't even.. wow.. Talk about buying the election. Are anyone going to be fooled by this? Edit: does facebook and twitter require that you disclose any payments you get for posting?

Was Hillary Clinton "buying the election" when she outspent Donald Trump roughly 2:1? Or is it only "buying the election" when it's a candidate you dislike? My vote isn't for sale and I assume that's true for other Americans. If I thought otherwise, I'd have a hard time convincing myself that democracies can work.

It doesn't work like that. The big spenders drown out any alternative and they offer only a different interface for pretty much the same back end.

Since the US green party had 200-300 views per youtube video for them out of a million voters about 1 or 2 are not fooled. With candidates further "down" the list we all are fooled. I read maybe half the program for 1% of the alt-candidates. Definitely fooled I was.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#90

Post by hcknwscommenter »

leftyted wrote: post #45
tyfon wrote: post #4

I don't even.. wow.. Talk about buying the election. Are anyone going to be fooled by this? Edit: does facebook and twitter require that you disclose any payments you get for posting?

Was Hillary Clinton "buying the election" when she outspent Donald Trump roughly 2:1? Or is it only "buying the election" when it's a candidate you dislike? My vote isn't for sale and I assume that's true for other Americans. If I thought otherwise, I'd have a hard time convincing myself that democracies can work.

Hillary outspending Trump 2:1 is a ridiculous way to look at it. When you combine the PAC/SuperPAC money spent for Trump with the Kremlin GRU efforts, it seems to me that Trump (including 3rd party efforts to help Trump and/or reduce Dem turnout) outspent Hillary roughly 100:1.
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