Once upon a time in our Good Ol’ US-of-A, presidential contenders and their political parties had to raise the funds needed to make the race. How quaint.
But for the 2016 run, this quaint way of selecting our candidates is no longer the case, thanks to the Supreme Court’s malicious meddling in the democratic process in its reckless Citizens United decision. In that decision, the five members of the Corporate Cabal decreed that “non-candidate” campaigns can take unlimited sums of money directly from corporations. Therefore a very few wealthy powers can pour money into these murky political operations and gain unwarranted plutocratic power over the election process.
And looking at the fundraising numbers, those wealthy powers have definitely taken charge of the electoral game. These very special interests, who have their own presidential agendas, now put up the vast majority of funds and run their own private campaigns to elect someone who will do their bidding.
So far, of over $400 million raised to back candidates of either party in next year’s race, half of the money has come from a pool of only about 400 people – and two-thirds of their cash went not to candidates directly but to corporate-run super PACs. To get a get a grasp at what this looks like, take a peek at the super PACs supporting Ted Cruz. Of the $37 million they have raised, $36 million was pumped in by only three interests – a New York hedge fund manager, a corporate plunderer living in Puerto Rico and the owners of a fracking operation who’ve pocketed billions from the explosive use of this destructive drilling technology.
So while Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and gang are the candidates, the driving forces in this election have names like Robert Mercer, Norman Braman, Diane Hendricks, Dan and Farris Wilks, Toby Neugebauer and Miguel Fernandez.