It's The Voter, Stupid!

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Tuesday’s Midterms will cost $16.7 billion.

Sheila Krumholz, from OpenSecrets, told CNBC, “No other midterm election has seen as much money at the state and federal levels as the 2022 elections. We’re seeing record-breaking totals spent on elections up and down the ballot.”

The Midterms are big business.

That’s why Tuesday’s Midterms are only about the Midterms.

Consultants, radio stations, television networks, Google, Facebook, marketing executives and advertising agencies all earn millions taking a slice from this $16.7 billion horseshit pie.

Elections get more expensive each cycle because getting candidates elected is a business, and all businesses must show growth. If elections don’t get more expensive, then the people suckling off that $16.7 billion teat aren’t doing their jobs properly.

Tuesday’s Midterms aren’t about winning, they’re about inventing new ways to make the 2024 elections even more expensive.

Political consultants make anywhere between 4% to 6% of the money a campaign spends on advertising. So it is in the political consultant’s best interests for advertising to become more expensive.

Advertising doesn’t even work. At best, it moves the needle one or two points, which makes a difference in close elections, but elections wouldn’t be tight if a candidate ran on what really matters to voters, and that is money.

Poll after poll shows voters only care about money. Americans don’t have enough and they will vote for anyone who promises them more.

Here’s the winning message, “How much is in your checking account? What’s your credit card balance? Vote for me, and I promise your checking account will be higher and your credit card balance will be lower. If it’s not, then don’t vote for me again.”

A candidate who runs on making the voter, not the consultants, rich wins every time. But that’s not what elections are allowed to be about. There’s too much money at stake. So elections are about, and only about, raising and then spending $16.7 billion.

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are in charge of the House and Senate. Why? They are even less popular than Biden. Getting an endorsement from Pelosi or Schumer means nothing, they have zero political capital. What they do have is CAPITAL.

Schumer and Pelosi are, as Howie Klein would say, “Wall Street bagmen.”

They can’t get candidates votes, but they can get them money, and so they are in charge.

That’s why 2022 will be the most expensive election in history, and so will 2024 and 2026.

Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message.” In other words, television’s message is, “Watch more television.”

Now, the same way television is only about television, elections are only about elections.

The Midterms are not about the voter. They’re not even about the candidates or their parties. The Midterms are about the Midterms.

That’s the genius of Donald Trump. He totally gets this. Which is why Trump has made this election, and future elections if we have any, about the election. Talk to any MAGA Republican, the only issue they’re voting on is the election.

Reporters covering the Midterms love this because they never have to get bogged down covering the pain Americans are in.

This $16.7 billion boondoggle is a perpetual football game where players, coaches and owners get richer while fans ponying up the money can’t even afford a ticket let alone health care or food.

This election should be about the Climate Crisis, raising the minimum wage, income inequality, affordable housing, free health care and free college, but instead it’s about Red versus Blue.

Tuesday is the Big Game.

I will be up all night rooting for the Blues. If the Blues keep the House and Senate I will celebrate the way I did after the Jets won the Super Bowl.

On Tuesday we be living vicariously through players, very few of whom even know we exist.

Now, there are some candidates who do know we exist.

The only way to get money out of politics is to vote for these candidates who will get money into your pockets.

James Carville got Bill Clinton elected by putting a sign on the wall that said, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

For the next eight years the economy got better while Americans got poorer.

Read Howie Klein and donate to candidates who, when elected, will give you a Warren Buffett sized return on your investment.

Because it’s the voter, stupid!

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