Sometimes, figuratively speaking, all the money in the world can't change a political outcome. This very idea runs counter to all the dire warnings about money's corruptive influence on American politics, of course, but it makes it no less true -- at least in certain situations. For all those that decry politicians who "buy" elections, sometimes outright attempts to do so are met with nothing more than sheer indifference from the voters. I have no idea what this means in the grand scheme of things, but when it happens it's certainly worth noting.
Case in point is Jeb Bush, up in New Hampshire. But before we get to him, though, a few lessons from the history of trying (unsuccessfully) to "buy" elections might help provide some perspective. In recent times, the first instance worth noting is H. Ross Perot. Perot was the original billionaire with some crazy ideas (and, to be fair, some not-so-crazy ideas) to decide he'd like to lead the nation. He ran for president in both 1992 and 1996. In his first race, he spent a lot of money on television time (long-format infomercials, rather than 30-second ads, which was a novelty) and he wound up with a very impressive 19 percent of the national popular vote. By comparison, Ralph Nader pulled in less than three percent in 2000. But while Perot could boast that almost one out of every five voters chose him, he still wound up with precisely zero Electoral College votes -- the votes that actually count to elect the president. Perot had the most impressive third-party campaign since the Dixiecrats, nationally. But he didn't win, no matter how much money he spent.
The next two examples come from California, from the 2010 election year. If you'll recall, 2010 was not exactly a friendly year for Democrats. This was the election Barack Obama called a "shellacking," after the returns were in -- what might be called the "Tea Party triumphant" election. Republicans did very well all across the country, but not so much in California. With Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger term-limited out, there was an open race to replace him. Meg Whitman, a woman with no previous political experience whatsoever, decided she was going to run. Whitman was a billionaire who had been described in 2008 by the New York Times as among the most likely women to become president one day, which must have gone to Meg's head.
Whitman spent a whopping $144 million of her own money -- the most every spent on a single race by any political candidate in American history up to that point (according to Wikipedia) -- trying to convince California voters that the governor's office should stay in Republican hands. She failed miserably, only pulling in 41 percent of the vote to Jerry Brown's 54 percent. While Democrats were losing all over the country, Whitman got shellacked in California.
During the same year, Carly Fiorina tried to unseat Senator Barbara Boxer. Again, this was a terrible midterm election for Democrats all over America, so it wasn't that outlandish to think a Republican could win a Senate seat even in a deep blue state. Boxer was seen as vulnerable because she was much further to the left than California's other senator, Dianne Feinstein (who is about as hawkish on foreign policy as your average Republican senator). Again, though, despite spending tens of millions of dollars on attack ads (one of which was the infamous "demon sheep" ad), Boxer trounced Fiorina by ten points, 42 to 52.
Even though it was a Republican "wave" election, neither Whitman nor Fiorina got themselves elected in California -- neither really even got close, despite spending a whale of a lot of money. At the time, these were the most expensive election campaigns in California history. But even though voters were inundated with ads for Fiorina and Whitman, they didn't really affect the race much at all in the end. To be blunt, the voters weren't buying what the Republican campaigns were selling. Because of this basic fact, the cleverness of the ad didn't matter and the number of times the ad was viewed didn't matter. The money advantage just did not matter to the race. California voters saw both women as lightweight dilettantes in the political process (both faced scorn for their almost non-existent personal voting records, during their campaigns), and far too extreme in their conservatism to represent the state. Their money advantage just didn't matter when the politician didn't match the mood of the voters at all.
Which brings us back to Jeb Bush's woes. I saw a story today about how Jeb is trying (once again) to just "clear the field" in New Hampshire, by buying up $14 million in ads before the primaries. Now, $14 million may not sound like a lot on the national scene, but that is a rather outsized chunk of money for the New Hampshire media markets (which aren't all that expensive to buy ads in). It's far more than any other candidate is going to spend, almost by an order of magnitude. Bush's strategy is to just flood the airwaves with his ads, which will have two measurable effects: it will guarantee that he's putting his face before every single voter who watches television in the state, and it will also deny these ad slots to any of the other candidates. Again, the New Hampshire media market just isn't all that big to begin with. Bush will even be buying two Super Bowl ads for the entire Boston media market, at a cost of $600,000.
The thing is, though, Bush has already spent over $50 million, and it hasn't done him much good. He's below five percent in most national polls, and isn't much better even in New Hampshire -- which was supposed to be an easy pickup for him, being the establishment Republican favorite and all. But even after spending all that money, Trump still dominates the state race, with Bush far behind (and nowhere near second place, even). So will another flood of advertising help in any way?
At some point in political advertising, a saturation point is reached. When the voters have seen all the various ads multiple times and formed their own opinions (both about the ad and about the candidate), seeing the ad another six or eight (or five dozen) times doesn't really do anything at all. When the candidate is a bad match for what the voters are seeking in any particular election, then more ads just serve to point that disparity out, over and over again. This is the lesson that Fiorina and Whitman learned in California. Whitman was hit hard by the news that she had hired (and perhaps, for the campaign's sake, fired) an undocumented servant. Fiorina had to struggle against ads featuring some of those 30,000 people she had laid off at Hewlett-Packard. The voters made their choice, and the flood of Republican advertising didn't change their minds a bit.
Sometimes an imbalance in money can throw an election. I'm not saying money doesn't help politicians get elected in each and every American election. What I would caution against, though, is making early predictions based solely on the size of any candidate's campaign chest. If 2015 taught us nothing (most especially in Jeb Bush's case), it is that having an overwhelming financial advantage simply does not equate to victory in all cases. Sometimes the candidate is such a dud that all the money in the world can't change it.
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