Elites' Democratic Days Are Numbered

[unhappycamper]

Elites' Democratic Days Are Numbered
Saturday 14 August 2010
by: David Sirota, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Call me an '80s junkie, but when I saw the results of this week's closely watched Colorado election, I immediately thought of "Spaceballs." In that Mel Brooks masterpiece, a Darth Vader spoof named Dark Helmet says "evil will always triumph because good is dumb." Make it "dumb and broke," and you have a powerful explanation for incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet's narrow victory over former state legislator Andrew Romanoff (D).

In just the 20 months since being appointed to fill the vacated Senate seat of now-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Bennet became one of Congress' top recipients of corporate cash. A wealthy businessman who had never held elected office before, he ultimately raised and spent almost $6 million on his campaign -- more than any primary candidate in the history of Colorado. He was additionally aided by the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America's phone-banking, by President Obama's full-throated endorsement and by the built-in advantages that come with a taxpayer-financed Senate office.

Romanoff, by contrast, swore off special-interest money from the beginning. As a former state House Speaker with a deep grassroots network throughout Colorado, he constructed a scrappy campaign on less than $2 million of mostly small-dollar, in-state contributions. In the relatively few ads he was able to afford, he juxtaposed his own progressive economic platform with Bennet's odious Senate votes to protect the big banks, oil firms and health insurance companies that Americans despise and that financed Bennet's campaign.

Alas, it wasn't enough. The Bennet campaign's ads obscured the incumbent's true record, and because those ads were backed with so much money, Romanoff's spots were like a pin dropping at a Metallica concert, and the challenger lost.

So it's true -- this particular political contest, like so many others, can indeed be summed up by paraphrasing Dark Helmet and noting that malevolent forces triumph because good is dumb and broke. The simple fact is, in elections across the country, many well-intentioned voters remain ill informed and many principled candidates are still too underfinanced to mount a winning campaign.

[DireStrike]

1. Once again the party backs the corporatist for a narrow victory.

I can't wait till we have even more of these assholes running around so we can be told what is "practical" in congress, and that people with further left positions could never be elected.

[Agony]

2. "many principled candidates are still too underfinanced to mount a winning campaign"

I prefer to think of it as "many unprincipled candidates are still too _overfinanced_ to possibly lose"

Citizen's United and the seeming intractability of campaign finance reform/publicly funded elections leaves me feeling very much in the wilderness

[formercia]

3. Congress is the sport of the Rich

or soon to be Rich.

I like to watch Eddie Murphy's 'Distinguished Gentleman' on occasion to remind me that, even before the Internet, a lot of people had it right.