Big money buys air time for elections. Analysts say the 2012 campaign will be dominated by wealthy corporations, unions and individuals who can anonymously spend as much as they want in favour of a candidate. Here is an example mentioned by PRWeb:
“Revolution Super PAC, the committee supporting U.S. Rep. Ron Paul for the Republican presidential nomination, is running approximately 32 hours of promotional content from January 27 to 30 on Florida’s WHDT-TV, largest independent broadcaster and America’s first HD network. Florida’s Primary Election will be held on Tuesday, January 31.
The super committee’s eight-hour airtime blocks feature numerous full-length and short documentary films running between 1:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. daily in the lead-up to Tuesday’s contest. WHDT broadcasts in the West Palm Beach and Miami television markets, reaching more than 1 million subscriber households and 3.5 million viewers in St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.”
The American mainstream media rarely mention the principal reason why American elections have come to look like auctions in which the White House and Congressional seats go to the highest bidder.
Special interest groups buy influence with campaign contributions and the politicians gladly take their money and put it into their pockets. This is democracy.
Money talks, and two US judicial decisions in 2010 gave it a megaphone by allowing certain fund-raising committees known as “superPACS” to spend unlimited amounts of cash supporting parties and candidates. That has made the already deplorable practice of influence buying far worse.
Previous article:Political Action Committees (PACs)
