By DICK MORRIS Published on TheHill.com on December 15, 2015
Money doesn't matter (much). In this year's Republican
nominating race, the standing of the candidates for the presidency is in
inverse relationship to the amount of funds they have spent.
The front-runner, Donald Trump, has spent about $250,000 on
advertising. The current party runner-up, Ted Cruz, has invested just shy of $1
million. In third place -- a distant third in the New York Times/CBS poll -- is
Marco Rubio, who has spent over $14 million on media. And bringing up the rear
is Jeb Bush, who has garnered a hearty 5 percent of the vote by spending over
$35 million on ads in his campaign and is en route to winning the John Connally
Award for amount of money spent per delegate vote at the convention.
The lesson is clear, or should be: The importance of money
is highly overvalued in a high-profile presidential race, though it is still a
deciding factor in down-ballot races like those for senator and governor and is
the be-all and end-all for congressional or state legislative races.
The free media coverage of a presidential race simply
overwhelms what paid media can bring to a campaign. We see wonderfully produced
ads for the likes of Bush and Rubio, only to see the real thing in a debate a
few weeks later. This disjuncture is disturbing: The figure conjured in the ads
has only the most tenuous relationship with the guy we see at the podium. Who
are we to believe, the ads or our own eyes?
Paid media has some specific purposes but is hardly a
cure-all for what ails a campaign.
It can provide biographic depth, particularly with a
candidate with a moving life story like John McCain or Ben Carson.
It is very useful for hitting an opponent with negatives (as
Mitt Romney did to Newt Gingrich and President Obama did to Romney). But, when
debates come as frequently as they do in the GOP nominating process, it is easy
for a candidate to debunk the accusations and nullify the ad buy, no matter how
extensive.
Its greatest use is to rebut opposition attacks and to make
the attacker appear untruthful or ruthless as a counter-punch.
So why do candidates spend their entire waking lives raising
money if it's not that important?
Money has become a status symbol with the media, a gauge of
how seriously one should take a candidacy. For example, Mike Huckabee's
inability to raise funds solidified his status as a minor candidate. Likewise
with Rick Santorum. This means the winners of the last two Iowa caucuses
(Santorum in 2012 and Huckabee in 2008) are way down in the polls in this
year's Iowa contest. Why? Their limited fundraising caused the media to
marginalize them and focus on Carson -- who raised vast amounts -- instead.
Federal Election Commission filings have become like
campaign posters, attesting the strength of a candidacy -- they're show pieces
to be paraded about but not actually spent. Cruz first won respectability as a
candidate when he out-raised others in the first reporting period (and he
continues to out-raise many of his competitors). But Cruz never had to spend
the money; having it and displaying it was enough.
So, curiously, the very press that deplores the Citizens
United decision and castigates the amount of campaign spending that has
followed in its wake perpetuates the myth of the importance of money.
Before voters get to cast their first ballots in the
primaries, candidates have to prove their credibility in the money primary and
in the debate primary. These winnowing processes -- rather than the decisions
of the voters themselves -- spell inclusion or exclusion in these pre-primary
rounds.
So having a large bank account is like owning a fancy car or
living in a mansion -- a symbol of wealth worth more than the money itself.
Source:
dickmorris.com
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