TV Networks "Monetize" Politics

More than a year before the traditional start of the U.S. campaign season – Labor Day 2012 – the political horse race is already heating up with an early measure of the field determined by how much money each contender can raise. As Danny Schechter notes, the TV networks end up as both handicappers and beneficiaries.

Already the 2012 projections are in – not for who is going to win the election – but for how much it is likely to cost.

Public Radio International concludes: “Campaign spending in the 2012 US election could reach $6 or 7 billion dollars as outside groups pay for electoral influence.”

Here we are in the middle of a deep recession that’s getting deeper by the day, with austerity the unofficial slogan du jour as Republican scheme up new ways to trim, cut and decimate government spending, and the parties are spending billions on political horse races.

The Republicans decry government spending, but they don’t talk much about their own spending, do they?

And neither do the Democrats who are also backing an orgy of spending cuts if only to show their opponents how “responsible” they are.

As both parties slash spending that benefits people, they are in a manic overdrive effort to raise more for themselves and their campaigns.

PRI’s Here and Now program reported, “In 2008, Barack Obama raised some $778 million for his presidential bid. The total cost of the national election, including Presidential and Congressional, was about $5.3 billion. Since then, court decisions like Citizens United have made spending by outside groups easier.”

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