The US presidential elections are still some three months away but already the candidates together have spent well over $300 million. Some $400 million has been raised thus far from both corporate and individual supporters. Republicans normally outspend Democrats and George W. Bush won the White House in 2000 with an outlay of about $480 million. Al Gore, the man he so narrowly defeated, only spent $290 million.
A growing number of Americans is becoming very uneasy about the immense sums candidates must spend in order to win the Oval Office. There are two main grounds for concern. The first is the impression that the expenditures give about the state of US politics. It suggests that the arguments themselves no longer matter — only the amount of money handed out to get those arguments across. Of far greater concern are the motives of the donors themselves in supporting their chosen candidate so generously. Are these individuals and companies buying electoral favors from their man if he wins power? That is of course vehemently denied but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that this is indeed the case. Big business in the US was becoming increasingly concerned about the rising cost of environmental legislation. That cost would have risen sharply had the US ratified the Kyoto Agreement on climate control. US big business also backed Bush generously. Within weeks of winning the presidency, he reversed Clinton’s environmental policies and, most importantly, trashed the Kyoto Agreement. This simply cannot have been a coincidence. The half-a-billion dollars or more that will have been spent by polling day in November may actually represent an equal number of reasons to be suspicious.
The largest amount spent, of course, is on TV ads which become slicker and more ruthless with every campaign. The attempted diminishing of Kerry’s Vietnam War record is one of the most unpleasant aspects of this ruthlessness. But anything will do if the campaign managers believe it will gain even a fraction of a point more in the opinion polls. Thus Bush’s cited Iraq’s Olympic football squad this week as proof of his foreign policy competence, a citation which has caused understandable fury among the Iraqi players in Athens.
Is it not time that this obscene expenditure of money given by hardly disinterested backers was brought to a halt? Are Americans really so simple in their approach to politics that their opinions can be swayed by the slick Madison Avenue advertising campaigns? Would it not be better for rival camps to be given set amounts of media time to set out their political stances without hype and vitriol? That, combined with candidates going on the stomp around the country and properly moderated broadcast debates, ought to give voters a clear view of the policies of each party on the issues that matter.
If America is a democracy, then it should be the vote — and not the bucks — that count.
