He describes America as having two elections:
“The United States has two elections. One a voting election, where citizens get to select the candidates who will ultimately govern. But the other is a money election, where the candidates who wish to run in the voting election raise the money they need to compete… the candidates don’t necessarily need to win the money election. But they must do extremely well.”
In the fundraising election, according to Lessig, only 50,000-150,000 Americans contribute enough money to be noticed by politicians. These are people like Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul who gave $70 million to Republicans in the 2012 elections. ...“For members of Congress and candidates for Congress spend anywhere between 30% and 70% of their time raising money from this tiny, tiny slice of us. Think of a rat in a Skinner box, learning which buttons to push to get pellets of food, and you have a pretty good sense of the life of a congressman: a constant attention to what must be done to raise money, and to raise money not from all of us, but from the tiniest slice of the 1% of us.”
Read on to find out about the 20% or so who actually choose candidates in primaries. Then comes the general election. Fascinating piece.
America's Three Elections: One For The Rich, One For The Crazy, And One For Everyone Else
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