Eight years ago, $148 million was spent in the New York gubernatorial race and people were amazed, sickened, dismayed and shocked. Last year, again in New York, but this time the city and not the state, Michael Bloomberg spent $108 million of his own money to get elected mayor... again. This year, by all indications, the California gubernatorial contest will eclipse both these earlier examples, and if people are amazed, sickened, dismayed and shocked, then they are lying.
To be sure, there are always some who will express all those sentiments and mean them. But there seems to be a public fascination with the soaring costs of political campaigns in much the same way people with not the slightest connection to the motion picture industry will recount to friends and family how many millions were spent to produce a particular film.
The fact is, the corruption (and it is that) of American political campaigns has become, itself, a sort of armchair sport: Is Meg Whitman spending the most of her own money? (at more than $60 million and counting, the answer is yes!); Is Steve Poizner going to go for broke himself trying to match Whitman? (well, maybe not broke, but he's spending tons); and, can Jerry Brown manage to get himself elected governor---again---without winning the Super lottery? (the answer is, perhaps!)
At a time when newspapers, television and radio are competing for fewer ad dollars than in pre-Great Recession years, the California gubernatorial race is like a giant silver spoon being shoved into the mouths of hungry ad salespeople.
Television and radio spots. Check. Full page newspaper ads. Check. The promise of even more money rolling in past primary day right up till the November general election. Double check!
There isn't a hell of a lot of incentive for media companies to raise too much of a stink about the corrupting influence of money in political campaigns, not when they benefit so much from that money.
But the worst part is that fewer and fewer voters each election cycle seem to ask--or even care about--the key question: why would any sane individual pay tens of millions of dollars out of his or her own pocket chasing a job that pays a fraction of that amount? Increasingly, wealthy candidates don't even bother taking the salary the job offers.
I don't know about you, but I want politicians to take the salary. That way, they are both morally and financially bound to the public. They become, as they ought to be, employees. The voters are the employers--or should be--and, therefore, are entitled to call the shots.
A politician who shuns the salary that comes with the position is, in effect, saying he or she works for no one but him or herself. Is that what we, the people, really want?
Charles Feldman is a journalist, media consultant and co-author of the book, "No Time To Think-The Menance of Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle." He has covered police and politics in Los Angeles since 1995 and is a regular contributor of investigative reporting to KNX1070 Newsradio