Money & Politics: Freakonomics Author Gives “Big Fat No” to Idea Money Buys Elections

Money buys elections? I'm from California and I watched Meg "Didn't vote for 28 years" Whitman throw away $140 million and lose to Jerry Brown who is one of the most distrusted people in California politics.

Why not test this by taxing political contributions at something around 90%?

Whether some obscure study shows that money influences elections or not, a politician will still inevitably be beholden to the donors who shoveled millions of dollars into their campaign coffers, and will toe the line of their donors agendas. Let's not be stupid about this, and it is a shame that this most important point was not even touched on in this interview.

Mr Dubner missed four salient points although he obliquely addresses them. 1) The Citizens United decision unleashed an amount of money on campaigns that have no precedent in politics so what may have been true in the past may no longer apply. 2) He argues one side of the coin, namely does money affect votes in favor of a candidate and as we have seen in recent elections, most recently the Florida primary, an increasing amount of money goes to trying to convince people not to vote for the other guy and 3) Lastly, and more importantly, money and ads most likely to not have an impact on the committed who would vote for their candidate or party regardless. The influence comes from any effect on independent voters who decide most elections. Either he missed some data here or it wasn't presented. 4) Money (and by correlation advertising) does have effect if name recognition between the two candidates is taken into consideration. If an unknown candidate is running and devotes no money to advertising, I suspect the data would show that person loses 99 out of 100 times.

We'll then Ron Paul did get the short end of the stick by the obvious effort by the news media to ignore him from the beginning.

When I think of money buying elections.. it's not what they spend on the campaign, but what they promise to give you once they're in office.

Doubling your spending gets you an extra 1% of the popular vote. Most elections are won by a few percent, so increasing spending by a factor of 4 or 8 really can buy you the election. Romney outspent Gingrich in Florida by a factor of 5, which means at least a couple of the points of spread was due to that.

If money has no influence on the outcome then why not get it out of politics?

Riiiiiiggghhht! And I've got Ocean Front Property in Arizona I would love to sell you.

Seriously. Do you really think we're that dumb. You're right, the candidate with the most money does not necessarily automatically win. But that's a LONG way from saying that money doesn't buy elections. First of all, show me the non-millionaire candidate? I'm waiting.

But most importantly, money buys campaign ads. It buys exposure. It's the life blood of campaigns. If money truly isn't important in an election, then the candidates should all be fine taking all of their funding from the same government pot. Ya. Didn't think so. Super Pacs don't form for their sheer entertainment value; they pool millions of dollars for the express purpose of influencing the election. All I've got to say on that is they wouldn't spend the money if it didn't work.

Sure. A candidate who has all the money backing him may act like an idiot, say stupid things, and do stupid things and lose the nomination. But all things being equal, money determines who's president in this country. And it owns Congress as well.

Is this the same money that doesn't buy happiness? Maybe you should think about changing your currency, cause all I see are rich @&(%@^%#s running for office.

LOL. Sure it doesn't.

I like fair minded guys who out think themselves. Just like Dubner, here.

The fact that just because two things go together does not mean that one necessariy causes the other is true, but way off the point. After all, opening umbrellas does not cause rain, but rain does cause people to open umbrellas.

The 1% plus or minus argument on campaign spending is an analysis for a different time [pre-Citizens United] . And the analysis being confined to congressional elections, which by definition are smaller and personal, does not seem to have much application to either national elections or presidential primaries. And we are now in the interesting world where millions of funds can come from anonymous people, can be used to say false and misleading things, and the candidate for whom the money is spent can deny involvement. This is a brand new game.

The idea that news coverage is worth more than campaign ads also misses the point: a candidate cannot control what the media says, but he can control what his political ads say. And, the reality is he also controls what the super-pacs say.

I could go on, but why bother: Dudner is being too clever for his own good, like the little kid who thinks he has the right answer no one else thought of.

"Money doesn't buy elections"...............blink blink........you're joking, right?

// Steve Forbes, Linda McMahon and Meg Whitman //

Not exactly the most qualified or charismatic people to run for office.

Even money can't buy love!!

Money is buying the Republican nomination. Basically none of us like Romney, Newt, or any of the others. That's obvious from the fact that there's a new favorite every week. And yet, what choice do we have? Money got them there and now they are our only choice other than not voting.

It does appear to take a certain amount of cash to not have to work, and thus to be able to run for office as a full time job. I would accept the premise of this article with the caveat that you have to have a minimum amount to gain that 90% name recognition that it takes for folks to at least be aware enough to vote with some confidence. Undoubtedly likeability is the key factor. Too bad folks don't take the time to examine policy with an eye towards historical success of those policies.

dubner is definitely dorky

Don't be naive, this isn't the 1800's, of course money buys election to office.

While I agree with Dubner and Levitt that money (for an unpopular) can't buy elections, it can, I think, contribute significantly toward making a candidate unpopular--look at what the Swift Boat ads did to John Kerry...because the Super-Pacs can't be held accountable to even the most minimal standards of truth and decency in running attack/character assassination ads, they've become, not only a pollutant on the airways, but, given the political naievety of many Americans, a clear and present danger to our democracy.

Elections are like love - you can't buy it with money... but you can rent it for a little while