Money cannot buy votes in America or: How Democrats can learn stop worrying about Hillary and Feel the Bern

In 1963, Peter Sellers starred as Inspector Clouseau in one of the most hilarious, ingenious screwball comedies of the era.  Who could have imagined that the next year would see an actor with such a capacity for absurd frivolity as about half the cast of a film that would go down in history as one of the most sobering cinematic treatments of the defining political dilemma of the age: the Cold War?

Perhaps the rise of Bernie Sanders to challenge the "biggest non-incumbent front-runner in modern presidential history," and certainly the idea that he'll win, is even more unlikely than vagaries of Hollywood and the artistic legacy of a brilliant, disturbed Englishman half a century ago.  But in these days of anxiety among the Clinton branch of the Democratic party, and increasingly desperate attempts by her campaign to show that she's "not as bad as people think," it's worthwhile to consider the biggest tangible advantage that she's been purported to have: Money.

Notwithstanding Mitt Romney's whining, we all know direct payments from candidates' (or their super pacs') coffers cannot purchase votes in America.  Money can be used to hire staff, finance GOTV operations, buy ads, run polls, or subsidize campaign swag, but what it cannot do by itself is draw voters to support a candidate.

Hillary Clinton still leads most Democratic polls (outside NH and a couple in IA), but she has a big problem: She's addicted to money.

And that is both cramping her style and devouring time that she should be using to focus on drawing voters to her (or at least stanching the hemorrhage in her support).  Hillary spent Thursday in Massachusetts, with four events--three fundraisers, and a policy discussion.  Her closed-door fundraisers apparently netted her about half-a-million dollars, but they only allowed six or seven hundred people to even see her (another four hundred turned out to the policy discussion, pushing her Mass interaction to just over a thousand voters).

Compare this to Bernie's Saturday in Massachusetts: his event in Springfield, originally scheduled for the steps of Springfield City Hall, then moved to a sports arena because of the size, was expected to draw 3,000 people.  Instead, 6,000 showed up to this free and open event.  In his campaign speech in Boston later that night, 20,000 filled the convention center down by the seaport, while a crowd of more thousands who couldn't fit stood outside in the chilly night air outside to watch him on the jumbotrons set up.

Although the excitement and enthusiasm of those already Feeling the Bern is one reason why we should be quite sanguine about Bernie's chances, even more important is these events' role in drawing people to the campaign; free and open to the public, and filling people with the excitement of participation, they have a great capacity to built an emotional tie that can connect undecided supporters to Bernie, like the 59 year-old lady from Belmont who told Globe reporters as she arrived that she was "uncommitted" in the contest, but "unenthusiastic" about Clinton.

And with Hillary's onerous time commitment to small ("intimate" is the word that sells tickets to such events) fundraisers (composed of people already so committed to her that they'll fork out $250-$2,700 just to get in the door), her ability to connect with voters not already solidly in her column is severely hampered.  If she seems impersonable, or is too scripted, such events (where she'll run into none of the surprises that Bernie has on his bumpy campaign trail) are unlikely to help.  But Hillary, or at least her campaign strategy, is addicted to money, and they seems the most direct route to it.

Bernie, and his campaign strategy, by contrast, are about people.  And indeed, if all the people who came to Bernie's events in Massachusetts yesterday gave $20 to his campaign, his campaign would receive just as much as Hillary's, with doors wide open and no cover charge!  In fact, this has already been happening for months, part of why Hillary was only able to raise $2m more than Bernie's $26m this summer, holding 58 fundraisers while he held just seven.

The truth is, people like Bernie.  And if his ideas seem crazy to anyone, it's only because so many of his have been disappointed or brainwashed into historically abysmal beliefs about how limited our system of government is in its ability to improve the country.  This campaign is about changing hearts and minds to help Americans remember an old truth about our democracy: that if they use the power of the vote, they are government.  Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, she is too busy with fundraising and trying to appear hip to remember that an election is about a competitive struggle for the people's vote, not just the people's money, and I believe this is what is driving her ever lower in the polls.

Thus, anybody reading this who has wanted Hillary for president (as I used to, myself!), but is now struggling with anxiety about her personality, her capacity to best Marco Rubio or John Kasich, or even her qualification for highest office, should stop worrying and Feel the Bern.

Money in Politics and devotion to a cause (Bernie)

Today, after the end-of-the-third-quarter campaign fundraising dashes for Bernie, Hillary, and the rest of them, the campaigns revealed how much money they took in during the first full quarter of fundraising.  Bernie raised $26m ($2m on the last day!), an increase from the $15m he raised up through June 30.  Hillary Clinton's campaign raised $28m, a drop from the $47m she raised previously.

It's true that Hillary did outraise Bernie, but the main story-line of this campaign news "event" is that Bernie's on the rise and Hillary's having problems.  She held 58 fundraising events in the period, while Bernie only held 7, and Bernie has had 650,000 individual contributors and has average donations of about $25, while for Hillary . . . well, her campaign won't say, but given how many of her big-dollar donors have been donating the maximum $2,700, it's probably less than half as many as Bernie's campaign has--maybe as few as 1/20th.

But beyond just the comparisons of how much money, and expectations, there's something else going on here, the comparison of how much money it takes each campaign to get campaigning done.  If Hillary had to take time out for a fundraising event two out of every three days in the quarter (many exclusively open only to those who could fork over hefty donations), then she's not campaigning as much as Bernie is, even while she's got more money.  And while Hillary has more campaign staffers hired, both as price consultants as well as "ground troops" in important states, Bernie might actually have more labor going into his campaign if you count not only hired help, but volunteers organizing events.

Here in Hamilton, we passed the hat around our group of about 30 people to spring for 2,500 4"x 6" campaign hand-out cards that were spread all around Whitesboro, NY, and other places in the course of canvassing.  None of this came out of the Sanders campaign coffers.  Does Hillary have such free labor on offer, or operations like "Coders for Bernie"?

I doubt it: Hillary's campaign is bought-and-paid for, because people just don't like Hillary enough to devote anything more meaningful than dollars to her campaign.  Hillary lacks charisma not just in the classic sense, but in the sociological sense: she doesn't have Charismatic Authority (Thanks, Max Weber!).  Her husband did, and millions of people wanted to do what he said because it became clear to them that it was the right thing to do, especially when he said it.  Bernie has the same capacity, which is why my wife & I quit our jobs to move to Virginia to volunteer for Bernie, and so many other people are devoting time & effort, not in return for paychecks & résumé lines, to the political revolution that Bernie is calling us to.