Virtues of the SuperPACs: No democracy?!
Ross Douthat states an interesting opinion in the New York Times.
[…] it’s time to celebrate two heroes of participatory democracy, two champions of the ordinary voter, two men who did everything in their power to make the ballot box matter as much as the fundraising circuit. I speak, of course, of Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess.
This is of course a little bit surprising, since we know that the two mentioned significantly influenced the election, by donating large sums and thereby turning democracy in the USA ad absurdum. He tries to make a case, that because of those donations candidates like Gingrich and Santorum stayed longer in the race.
But consider what would have happened without the rich cranks. Mitt Romney, who attracted far more big-money support overall than any of his rivals, would have probably followed up his near-win in Iowa and his victory in New Hampshire with an easy win in South Carolina, and the primary campaign would have been, to all intents and purposes, finished after that. Instead of having the Republican nomination decided by millions of voters nationwide, it would have been decided by the voters in just three states – and, of course, by Romney’s sturdy donor base.
First of all, this is just one single example. It could have been very well that those two rich donors also support Romney and that would have been it for the Republican race. Second, how is it even democratic that money plays a role in the election process? Finally, Mitt Romney won anyways.
The very basis of democracy is that every citizen has one single vote or every citizen has the same amount of votes. Any deviation from this principle can’t be called democracy any more. Be it the influence of money into the process as allowed by the Super PACs or be it choosing the candidates like in other countries we denounce for that. The outcome is the same, its not the people who reign, its not demos cratos (from Greek).
