As candidates across our great land of amber waves of grain push full throttle in the final two days of election season, they’re realizing it’s do-or-die time.
And sometimes the difference between doing or dying is $11 million.
In the final 12 days of the election season, Rick “This-Election-Is-About-Jobs” Scott tossed another $11.6 million of vitriol and 30-second commercials (we can only hope his mom stars in these as well) into his campaign.
That, Floridians, brings Scott’s self-funded campaign tab to a paltry $73 million.
This clearly leaves our only other viable contender, Alex “I-Cnt-Stp-Txting-During-Debates” Sink at a financial disadvantage with her measly job as chief financial officer.
With a record-shattering wallet and a sole focus on job creation, Scott has created, along with the help of many large private corporate donors, the most expensive governor’s race in history.
The $11.2 million Sink raised throughout the campaign, which would seem to be enough to withstand a sizeable political race, is less than Scott has spent in the past 12 days.
And even $11.2 million is a huge amount of cold, hard cash that is dripping with disdain from the middle class for whom Sink is fighting. The middle class will never see $11.2 million.
And the middle class isn’t able to comprehend $73 million.
There’s something wrong there.
When politicians can afford to fork over $73 million of their own hard (fraudulently) earned money while accepting million-dollar donations from huge corporations, something is wrong.
When $11.2 million just doesn’t cut it anymore, something is wrong.
And while we acknowledge the great American way of opening our pocketbooks to the candidates we most agree with, we realize this Who-Wants-To-Elect-A-Multimillionaire game, played out at the ballot, denies the great American way for countless people who want to serve their fellow countrymen and women but are too busy paying their mortgages to finance TV ads.
And while we’re not saying politicians shouldn’t be able to spend the money they have — many of us have made campaign contributions in the past — we also realize the importance of campaign spending limits to even out the playing field.
Because when Floridians are given a candidate to whom U.S. Sugar donates 1.7 million
and Blue Cross Blue Shield donates $910,000, it leaves little room for that candidate to say what’s on his mind. It leaves little room for him to say anything besides what U.S. Sugar and Blue Cross Blue Shield want to be said.
And that makes for very influenced, dirty and biased politics where the losers are each and every one of us.
Because the sad truth is money talks. In fact, it shouts. And dirty money yells just as loud.
But perhaps there’s hope that Floridians will see past the political money-making machine. In a gubernatorial race that is full of nothing but jobs, money, mortgages and more of Scott’s money, one would think this race should be irrefutably one-sided with Scott’s wallet, leaving his opponent in the dust.
But the race for governor, although financially one-sided, is neck and neck down to the wire.
This is not a partisan issue. This is not about blue versus red. It’s about accountability. And it’s about accountability to the people who matter. U.S. Sugar doesn’t matter. We matter.
