Roseanne canceled by ABC

[Bengalzona]

(05-30-2018, 08:50 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: One of the biggest misconceptions in politics is the role money plays in swaying political opinions. One of the political scientists on my campus, and a friend of mine, did his graduate work with people researching this and he has continued researching it, himself. He actually used to work for OpenSecrets.org before coming here to teach and research.

Anyway, the previous research, and the recent research he has done, indicates that lobbying money doesn't change the positions of elected officials. Elected officials were going to vote the way they were going to with or without lobbyist efforts or donations. That's why lobbyists and donors target them.

You are right, though, in the conversation with Dill about the party membership. This is why I talk more about political ideology. Most people will not change their ideological stance even with a switch of parties. This is a problem with our party structure in this country more than anything, though. Our political parties exist for only one reason: to win elections. In our peer countries, political parties exist to really give an infrastructure and to bring like-minded officials and people together. But that isn't the case here. We have two parties that are giant umbrellas. The party has no actual role in the government itself outside of elections. And that's one of the problems.

Except that politicians of a certain level need a warchest just to campaign. This is well known. And monied interests are needed to build that warchest.

Now, if your friend's assertion is that the comparative sizes of warchests between two candidates running against each other has little relevance (which is what it sounds like), then I totally agree with that. But that would not necessarily negate the fact that a candidate would need a base warchest just to "be in the game".

I do agree that the lobbying money is geared towards the candidates that are predisposed to vote a certain way (i.e. "insurance money"), with the politician selling this as "what is best for the constituency".