Also it's not about explicitly buying votes but there's a lot of lower information voters out there who currently are principally hearing from Bloomberg because he's spending lots of money in later states where the more traditionally funded campaigns haven't because they're on lower cash reserves.
It's not clear at all that Bloomberg would have failed had he run a traditional campaign.
I'm not bothered by self-funded campaigns because my vote isn't for sale (and I assume the same is true for others). Winning elections is about convincing people, not brainwashing them. Money increases visibility, but it didn't save Hillary Clinton.
> Also it's not about explicitly buying votes but there's a lot of lower information voters out there who currently are principally hearing from Bloomberg because he's spending lots of money in later states where the more traditionally funded campaigns haven't because they're on lower cash reserves.
"Lower information voters" is just code for "dumb people who disagree with me". Your perspective is that voters are dumb animals who flock to whoever spends the most on ads.
Are you suggesting that political advertisements don't use the same sorts of psychological manipulation as non-political advertisements? Or you do consider psychological manipulation to just be a form of "convincing"?
>Your perspective is that voters are dumb animals who flock to whoever spends the most on ads.
Voters are human beings, most of which are highly susceptible to being manipulated through an array of time-tested psychological tricks that advertisers have been using for over 100 years.
No 'low information' is just that people who don't, either through apathy, time or lack of interest, seek out or read that much about the various campaigns. Tons of smart people are low information.
Also your vote might not literally be for sale but it's definitely influenced by the amount of media and information you see about campaigns which is correlated with money. Consider the degenerate case of a campaign with nearly zero money but a perfect fit with your politics. Can't vote for it if you haven't heard of it.
Since the US green party had 200-300 views per youtube video for them out of a million voters about 1 or 2 are not fooled. With candidates further "down" the list we all are fooled. I read maybe half the program for 1% of the alt-candidates. Definitely fooled I was.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...
Or is it only "buying the election" when it's a candidate you dislike?
My vote isn't for sale and I assume that's true for other Americans. If I thought otherwise, I'd have a hard time convincing myself that democracies can work.