I continue to marvel how strange a year 2016 has been in all respects.
Among the many strange but true things we've seen is that Bernie has run against money in politics while spending a lot more than anyone else-and losing badly.
Jeb Bush also spent who money in a 'shock and awe' campaign that produced extremely meager results.
Billionaire Donald Trump has spent the least amount of money on his very successful campaign and democratic socialist Bernie Sanders has spent the most in a losing campaign.
All of this perhaps should be good news for Bernie: perhaps money isn't everything in politics after all:
"The small-dollar fundraising juggernaut that has kept Bernie Sanders’s insurgent White House bid afloat far longer than anticipated has generated another unexpected impact: a financial windfall for his team of Washington consultants."
"By the end of March, the self-described democratic socialist senator from Vermont had spent nearly $166 million on his campaign — more than any other 2016 presidential contender, including rival Hillary Clinton. More than $91 million went to a small group of admakers and media buyers who produced a swarm of commercials and placed them on television, radio and online, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission reports."
"While the vast majority of that money was passed along to television stations and websites to pay for the advertising, millions in fees were kept by the companies, The Post calculated. While it is impossible to determine precisely how much the top consultants have earned, FEC filings indicate the top three media firms have reaped payments of seven figures."
"Sanders’s money blitz, fueled by a $27 average donation that he repeatedly touts, has improbably made the anti-billionaire populist the biggest spender so far in the election cycle. The campaign’s wealth has been a surprising boon for vendors across the county who signed on to his long-shot bid."
"The large profits stem in part from the fact that no one in Sanders’s campaign imagined he would generate such enormous financial support. So unlike Clinton, he did not cap how much his consultants could earn in commissions from what was expected to be a bare-bones operation, according to campaign officials."
"That has meant big payouts for the firm of senior strategist Tad Devine, which has produced the bulk of the campaign’s ads; Old Towne Media, a small media placement operation run by two of Devine’s longtime buyers; and Revolution Messaging, a digital firm led by veterans of President Obama’s 2008 campaign."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-is-biggest-spender-of-2016-so-far--generating-millions-for-consultants/2016/04/28/600170ce-0cf2-11e6-a6b6-2e6de3695b0e_story.html?postshare=2191461867269614&tid=ss_tw
Big money for Tad Devine. Some irony here.
I seriously do wonder what the takeaways in the long term from 2016 will be. Will others try to replicate what Trump did. He didn't need to spend much because of how much media exposure he got.
This may well not be entirely replicable-Trump's celebrity made this possible. Perhaps other celebrities can try.
In some ways the Bernie model is not really new. I've pointed out in previous posts that most Democratic primaries have followed a similar narrative. There is almost always an Establishment candidate and an outsider, small donations candidate-Jerry Brown was the small donations guy in 1992.
His pitch here was very similar to Bernie's, just that Bernie updated his innovation. Brown's big new thing was a toll free number you could call and make small donations. In some ways his setup was more populist than Bernie's even, as he refused to take donations of more than $100 dollars.
If you haven't watched the epic Clinton-Brown debates from 1992, you have to.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bill+clinton+jerry+brown+debate&oq=bill+clinton+&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j69i61j69i60j69i59l3.12473j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Then we had Howard Dean's small donations in 2004 and then candidate Obama's small donations in 2008.
Obama did, however, take larger donations in the general and has since come a long way in terms of accepting the need for heavy fundraising at least for now.
I wonder what we actually come out learning about money in politics from this year. One thing is that Bernie's purism on the subject is not really realistic-as proven by his own campaign.
Among the many strange but true things we've seen is that Bernie has run against money in politics while spending a lot more than anyone else-and losing badly.
Jeb Bush also spent who money in a 'shock and awe' campaign that produced extremely meager results.
Billionaire Donald Trump has spent the least amount of money on his very successful campaign and democratic socialist Bernie Sanders has spent the most in a losing campaign.
All of this perhaps should be good news for Bernie: perhaps money isn't everything in politics after all:
"The small-dollar fundraising juggernaut that has kept Bernie Sanders’s insurgent White House bid afloat far longer than anticipated has generated another unexpected impact: a financial windfall for his team of Washington consultants."
"By the end of March, the self-described democratic socialist senator from Vermont had spent nearly $166 million on his campaign — more than any other 2016 presidential contender, including rival Hillary Clinton. More than $91 million went to a small group of admakers and media buyers who produced a swarm of commercials and placed them on television, radio and online, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission reports."
"While the vast majority of that money was passed along to television stations and websites to pay for the advertising, millions in fees were kept by the companies, The Post calculated. While it is impossible to determine precisely how much the top consultants have earned, FEC filings indicate the top three media firms have reaped payments of seven figures."
"Sanders’s money blitz, fueled by a $27 average donation that he repeatedly touts, has improbably made the anti-billionaire populist the biggest spender so far in the election cycle. The campaign’s wealth has been a surprising boon for vendors across the county who signed on to his long-shot bid."
"The large profits stem in part from the fact that no one in Sanders’s campaign imagined he would generate such enormous financial support. So unlike Clinton, he did not cap how much his consultants could earn in commissions from what was expected to be a bare-bones operation, according to campaign officials."
"That has meant big payouts for the firm of senior strategist Tad Devine, which has produced the bulk of the campaign’s ads; Old Towne Media, a small media placement operation run by two of Devine’s longtime buyers; and Revolution Messaging, a digital firm led by veterans of President Obama’s 2008 campaign."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-is-biggest-spender-of-2016-so-far--generating-millions-for-consultants/2016/04/28/600170ce-0cf2-11e6-a6b6-2e6de3695b0e_story.html?postshare=2191461867269614&tid=ss_tw
Big money for Tad Devine. Some irony here.
I seriously do wonder what the takeaways in the long term from 2016 will be. Will others try to replicate what Trump did. He didn't need to spend much because of how much media exposure he got.
This may well not be entirely replicable-Trump's celebrity made this possible. Perhaps other celebrities can try.
In some ways the Bernie model is not really new. I've pointed out in previous posts that most Democratic primaries have followed a similar narrative. There is almost always an Establishment candidate and an outsider, small donations candidate-Jerry Brown was the small donations guy in 1992.
His pitch here was very similar to Bernie's, just that Bernie updated his innovation. Brown's big new thing was a toll free number you could call and make small donations. In some ways his setup was more populist than Bernie's even, as he refused to take donations of more than $100 dollars.
If you haven't watched the epic Clinton-Brown debates from 1992, you have to.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bill+clinton+jerry+brown+debate&oq=bill+clinton+&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j69i61j69i60j69i59l3.12473j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Then we had Howard Dean's small donations in 2004 and then candidate Obama's small donations in 2008.
Obama did, however, take larger donations in the general and has since come a long way in terms of accepting the need for heavy fundraising at least for now.
I wonder what we actually come out learning about money in politics from this year. One thing is that Bernie's purism on the subject is not really realistic-as proven by his own campaign.
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