Path to the White House is Paved by Billions of Dollars

by Walter Brasch

      With a month left before the November general election, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are trash-talking each other in a financial race to the White House.

      According to the latest filing with the Federal Election Commission, Clinton has raised about $516.8 million for her campaign. Total spending by outside groups and SuperPacs supporting her was an additional $31.7 million; the total spent opposing her was about $40.2 million.

      Trump has raised about $205.9 million. About 45 percent of his income is from individual contributors; one-third is from Trump himself. Total spending by outside groups and superPACs supporting Trump is about $69 million; opposition spending is about $139.7 million.

      Both Clinton and Trump are spending heavy on TV ads. Clinton and pro-Clinton outside groups have spent about $190 million, and Trump and pro-Trump outside groups have spent about $50 million, according to data compiled by Advertising Analytics. However, Trump has mitigated the difference by a barrage of Tweets to 12 million followers, and by constant calls to TV stations. In Pennsylvania, one of nine “swing states,” Clinton has outspent Trump, $17 million to $6 million.

      Trump’s problem isn’t a case of having less income than Clinton. Every time he opens his mouth, network TV and cable news stations are more than willing to air whatever he utters. His problem is a malignant case of braggadocio.  He brags about how great a businessman he is, and says he is smart because he doesn’t pay taxes but he uses every tax code loophole he, his attorneys, and accountants can find. This past week, the New York Times disclosed he took a $917 million loss in 1995, and could easily have written off income for every year since then. In a twisting logic that baffles even those who never studied philosophy, Trump blames Clinton because, he says, “Why didn’t she ever try to change those laws so I couldn’t use them?” His four bankruptcies helped assure his companies would have losses. However, because he refuses to release copies of his taxes, unlike every major party candidate in the past four decades, it’s difficult to determine if Trump is a great and experienced businessman or just a great and experienced juggler.

      Also within this past week, the New York attorney general issued a cease and desist order against the Trump Foundation for not registering with the state’s Charities Bureau and for violating state rules by making several donations from the Fund to politicians and political groups. The Washington Post reported that the Foundation probably violated IRS regulations by spending $20,000 for a portrait of Trump, and $12,000 for a jersey and a football helmet autographed by Tim Tebow. The newspaper previously reported that the Foundation has spent about $250,000 to settle lawsuits. His problems won’t end with New York. The Foundation wasn’t registered in the 40 states that require registration. It is possible that Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois, three of the states that are rigorous in enforcing rules for charities may file against the Foundation.

      A third problem that surfaced this past week is an Associated Press story, based upon statements by about two dozen crew members and contestants of Trump’s “The Apprentice USA” TV reality show. According to the AP, citing the sources, “Trump repeatedly demeaned women with sexist language,” including rating “female contestants by the size of their breasts and talked about which ones he’d like to have sex with.” The cast and crew of his show also told the AP that Trump wanted his female celebrity contestants to show more cleavage and wear shorter dresses. Hope Hicks, speaking on behalf of Trump, called the statements “outlandish, unsubstantiated, and totally false claims fabricated by publicity hungry, opportunistic, disgruntled former employees [and they] have no merit whatsoever.” However, the AP’s story confirms that Trump has a history of demeaning women, something the Clinton campaign has seized upon in its TV ad campaign that has a series of comments by Trump who calls women pigs, fat, bimbo, ugly, and other names not suitable for a family-based newspaper. That and his frequent use of obscenity and disregard for civility alone makes him unsuitable for the presidency, according to the ad campaign.

      Trump has attacked Clinton for her e-mail scandal, something she should have acknowledged months before her public apology. In response to her attacks upon him not being suitable for office, Trump charges Clinton as unfit for office, and adds crook and liar to his definition of who she is.

      The independent Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFRB) analyzed each candidate’s economic plans and concluded that Clinton’s proposed budget would increase the debt during the next decade by $200 billion, and Trump’s business model proposal would increase the debt by $5.3 trillion. The CFRB noted, “Neither candidate has presented a proposal to address our growing national debt and put it on a more sustainable path, nor have they offered a proposal for shoring up the Social Security, Medicare, or Highway trust funds.

      By the election, each candidate, their SuperPacs, and outside groups will have spent more $1 billion to be elected to an office that pays $400,000 a year.

      By contrast, the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson raised about $8.5 million, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein raised about $1.9 million. Both have solid platforms and strong ideas that might benefit all Americans, but Americans don’t hear them. Neither candidate has the financial income the Democratic and Republican candidates have; they don’t receive the funds from numerous lobbyists; they don’t get the attention of the mainstream media. Just as important, Congress, made up of Democrats and Republicans, with Bernie Sanders as the only independent, are reluctant to pass campaign finance reform.

      And that is why a third party candidacy can’t survive at this time.

     [Dr. Brasch’s latest book is Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit.]

The Sounds of Silence—Political Style

by Walter Brasch

      A hush has fallen over our house.

      It began late Tuesday night and, if we are fortunate, will last at least a week.

      But it will return. We have no illusions that there will be continued quiet.

      That’s because we are in the middle of yet another election cycle.

      It’s not as bad as it was in 2008 or 2012 when we were getting five to ten robocalls every day from Democrats, Republicans, Friends of Democrats, Friends of Republicans, Chambers of Commerce, and unions.

      During those years, almost every TV ad was someone praising his own political legacy or attacking her opponent for something that may or may not have been better placed in one of the supermarket tabloids that informed us about Elvis sightings and politicians influenced by aliens. At least by putting most of their ad budgets into television, they were able to keep ad salesmen from losing their lofty prestige and falling into the abyss of wages earned by news directors.

      The candidates are using their money and public platform to express their opinions, no matter how absurd.

      In Arizona, a rancher who thought he should become a member of Congress claimed, “If you look at the fiascos that have occurred, 99 percent of them have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people.”

      In Florida, a state representative claimed those who support the concept of an educational common core have a not-so-hidden agenda—they want to “attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can.”

      And in Pennsylvania, we learned that incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett, running unopposed in his party, brought 150,000 jobs to the state; it was a remarkable feat considering that when he took office, the state was 13th in job growth and in less than four years, even with the “economic boom” in gas drilling, had plunged to 41st among all states. Corbett then added the spice—his administration made significant increases to the educational budget, a claim that even members of his own party had trouble not bursting out in uncontrollable waves of gagging laughter. Of course, Corbett had to do something since his popularity is about 17 points below that of a Nigerian scam artist.

      The cost to convince us to vote for a particular candidate is in the range of the gross national product of a small industrialized nation. Already, Congressional candidates have spent about $330 million, while Senate candidates have spent about $175 million, according to Open Secrets.

      In Pennsylvania’s District 13, in the southeastern part of the state, candidates for Congress have spent almost $4 million. And it’s only sixth among all 435 districts.

      Leading the spending is Ohio’s 8th district where Speaker of the House John Boehner, first elected in 1991, is running for re-election. He won the primary this month with about 70 percent of the vote. Apparently, he’s looking at a vigorous general election, since he’s already raised about $12.9 million, the largest amount in the country for a House campaign. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is a distant second with $5.3 million; in third is House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), with a paltry $5 million.

      Leaders in the Senate campaigns, according to Open Secrets, are Ed Markey of Massachusetts ($16 million), Cory Booker of New Jersey ($14.5 million), and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate minority leader ($12 million).

      Open Secrets also reveals that in this election cycle special interests and lobbying groups have helped make sure the candidates are bathed in green ink. Contributions to Republicans have already come from securities and investment companies ($33.5 million), real estate ($21.4 million), the oil and gas industry ($16 million), the insurance industry ($13.8 million), manufacturing industries ($10.2 million), pharmacy and health care ($8.3 million), and commercial banks ($9 million).

The Democrats have already received funding from law firms ($36 million), the entertainment industry ($10 million), building trade unions ($6.8 million), public sector unions ($ 6.7 million), and environmental groups ($1.3 million). Hundreds of millions of dollars are coming to both the Democrats and Republicans for the general election; the third parties, no matter how strong their candidates and public policy positions, will be campaigning with spare change.

      India, which provides much of America’s telemarketing and tech services, may be on track to out-America America. The cost of the Indian election may be about $5 billion this year, second only to the $7 billion cost of the 2012 election in the United States.

      Thanks to special interests and lobbies, and their generosity in promoting American’s version of democracy, if the past is the future, voters will experience non-stop robocalls and TV ads for the next six months, some of the calls outsourced to New Delhi, possibly by flag-waving All-American, Constitutionalist patriotic politicians whose loyalties are to the mother’s milk of politics rather than to the people who will elect them.

      [Dr. Brasch has been covering politics and social issues more than four decades. His latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania, which includes a chapter about the influence of the oil and gas lobby upon politicians.]