This Election Don’t Just Trust Politicians at Their Word, Follow the Money, Investigate Their Campaign Contributions for Insight on How They’re Likely to Vote

It’s a new year. It’s an election year.

Two quotes come to mind as we usher in this new election year. The first is by American writer Alvin Toffler: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

The second quote is by the famed scientist Albert Einstein who said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Specific to politics and elections, both quotes speak to a need for doing things differently if we want to change the results of the same toxic, underwhelming and partisan politics in Congress. Americans are tired of an unresponsive, do-nothing Congress that’s paralyzed by fear from special interest groups.

The same pattern has been playing out for decades and both political parties are to blame. Typically, a new politician promises change, to rattle the status quo and represent constituents, the “people,” the voting public. Then once that politician is elected, that campaign rhetoric is quickly muted to mere idealism as he is sidelined and humiliated to follow a dysfunctional D.C. culture run by special interest groups.

New politicians learn immediately to survive and be reelected, they must follow what veteran politicians are doing – pick and choose battles most important to them to one or two, play softball with the rest, and give in to special interest groups who are the bread and butter to one’s reelection hopes.

So, what do we have left in this corrupt system? Very little gets accomplished incrementally. Or as what transpired in this last election cycle, practically nothing gets passed except a budget that looks almost identical to the budget of two years ago.

Follow the money
What needs to be done? What needs to change? Perhaps just thinking in terms of voting for a political party that matches your values is not enough. There needs to be more thought in primary elections. There needs to be thorough research into each candidate’s campaign contributions on both sides of the political spectrum.

The rule of thumb: the more money that’s donated to a campaign by special interest groups, that politician, in essence, is beholden to each of those special interest groups. His vote on policies is easily foreshadowed. That politician is bought.

Inversely, the more money that’s raised that’s smaller in amount by grassroots support, individuals, and less special interest group dollars in his treasury – that politician is less beholden to big monied pressure. That means the potential for real change is higher.

As educated, smarter voters, we no longer can rely on words and rhetoric, what we see on campaign brochures or candidates’ websites, instead we must follow the money.

And this has gotten easier.

For example, there is OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, independent, nonprofit, that’s a research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. By visiting Opensecrets.org, voters can track the flow of money in American politics.

It’s possible to track money (data) by industries like the Defense industry’s contributions by year. It’s possible to track contributions by mega billionaire donors to find out which party they are donating more and less to. If you want to be specific and find out about a certain group of politicians like those who were electoral objectors during the last election, there is data on them, their donors, that explains why they were so willing to object to the certification of electoral votes.

It’s also possible to type in the names of specific candidates and get a detailed summary of his or her campaign committee funding and see who that candidates’ top donors are whether they are from individuals, corporations or PACS (and types of PACS). There is also a breakdown of contributions by industries.

It’s possible to know donations to a candidate from commercial banks, non-profits, labor groups, professional groups like health, trade groups, real estate firms, law firms, education groups, human rights groups, tourism groups, and so on.

Then you as a voter will have invaluable insight into how these politicians would vote if elected on specific policies. For example, there’s a lot of talk on building affordable housing in Hawaii. Is that something that the real estate industry supports? In some cases, it is and others it isn’t, depending on the real estate firm. By investigating further, you can determine if a candidate received large amounts of contributions from the real estate industry as a whole or to specific real estate firms to get a better idea if in fact a candidate supports more affordable housing or is just giving lip service during election time.

Change takes better research
The fact is American voters express frustration over the way government has been running, but they do the same thing over and over, simply trust what candidates are saying without really looking into how they’re most likely to vote by finding out who is donating to their campaigns.

If we want change, we all must be willing to do the homework. Skepticism is healthy for a healthy democracy. Don’t’ just trust what politicians say, follow the money!