Dems Getting Outspent? Not so fast.

[Pangloss]

Interesting story at Politico:

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44216.html

 

According to the story, citing the Center for Responsive Politics, which runs OpenSecrets.org, apparently the Democrats are actually outspending Republicans this cycle by a long shot. This runs contrary to a story in last week's news cycle about spending by third parties on Republican candidates, which was running 2:1 over similar spending on Democratic candidates. The numbers cited (160mil versus 80) are a big drop in a very large bucket.

 

The money race totals come to $856 million for the Democratic committees and their aligned outside groups, compared to $677 for their Republican adversaries, based on figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

 

But what's really interesting to me is that the article draws a comparison (on page 3) with the situation in 2006, when the ratio was similar but the shoe was on the other foot. Republicans outspent Democrats, but LOST. Now Democrats are outspending Republicans and appear to be poised for a massive defeat.

 

The elephant in the room here, in my view, is the frustration of the American voter. What do you think?

[lemur]

The only frustration of the American voter, it seems like, is that they can't directly sell their vote for cash. There is really no interest in politics except "the economy" as far as I can tell. If they could use their votes to produce an authoritarian government that would guarantee wealth and prosperity, most would do it I think. The extreme reaction to this is the tea party, which seems to lure people into political conflict by telling them the road to wealth and prosperity is less spending instead of more. This seems to be the only way it is possible to generate political disagreement, because no one seems to think the people should create their own wealth and prosperity. They want the government to be responsible for the economy.