California Voters Should Buy Retail When Voting for President

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Susanne Savage

Now that we have a February ‘08 presidential primary, a debate is raging within California’s progressive community about which candidate would benefit most from the earlier date. Most argue Hillary Clinton and her money machine would emerge victorious while any insurgent candidate (with little money but lots of moxie) wouldn’t get out of the gate.

This premise is predicated on the concept that California, unlike Iowa or New Hampshire, is a “media state” where campaigns are waged exclusively over the airwaves rather than on the ground. Californians, the conventional wisdom goes, can forget about seeing Sen. Obama in a neighborhood diner over a cup of coffee. Candidates would come here to raise gobs of cash, define themselves by handsomely produced television ads, and appear at the occasional rally for the news cameras.

Political consultants rely on this scheme because they’re paid by the amount of media they buy, not by the number of votes they deliver. The system is rigged in favor of viewers being bombarded with commercial after commercial because it makes the people behind the candidates rich.