Money in Politics

Tens of millions of dollars to political campaigns?

Just scale your argument up, you don’t think it’s worth it to someone to influence an election? What’s all that money for then?

Idea: ban ”campaign contributions”. Cap spending and fund politicians with campaign money so they can reach voters.

Money in politics actually does little for the candidates. Please review Freakanomics on this. As a recent example, Trump won with a great deal less money than what Hillary used. Had he used more, we would not hear the end of how money influences politics. But it doesn't. People have tastes, convictions, prejudices, etc that no amount of ads will change. Ads affect a small number of people and help to cement in the voting block, improve turnout, etc. Swaying votes is much harder. The media

Political campaigns today are decided by advertising budgets. It isn’t conspiratorial to think that the people funding these media campaigns would want something in return.

It's not the ads, it's giving money to political parties in return for influence.

The purpose is campaign financing.

Are those worse than political ads paid in dollars?

What world do you live in that presumably most donations to a political campaign are spent on ads?

I wouldn't give advertising that much credit. An equal amount of money is spent on lost elections too.