Sorry Kids
Yesterday in Oregon Measure 50 was defeated with 60% of voters rejecting it. The measure would have increased cigarette taxes to provide health care for children.
Maybe people just didn't like the idea of it. But a quick look at the funding suggests something else. $3.4 Million was spent promoting the measure while $11.8 Million was spent by Tobacco Corporations in an onslaught of radio and TV ads. People don't make objective decisions in a vacuum where they are fully informed on every angle of an issue--they're influenced by what they see in read. Opinions are incredibly malleable. Framing an issue a certain way can be the determining factor in whether it sinks or swims.
This makes it a national record for money spent by Big Tobacco to defeat a state ballot measure: a whopping $24 per "no" vote. What would the result be if they spent no money?
Sadly, we live in a country where the lobbyist with the most cash get the laws written the way they want (sometimes they just write it themselves), Corporations with billions in resources smash grassroots activism and the candidates for president with the largest coffers are treated as inevitable nominees before a single vote is cast.
Maybe people just didn't like the idea of it. But a quick look at the funding suggests something else. $3.4 Million was spent promoting the measure while $11.8 Million was spent by Tobacco Corporations in an onslaught of radio and TV ads. People don't make objective decisions in a vacuum where they are fully informed on every angle of an issue--they're influenced by what they see in read. Opinions are incredibly malleable. Framing an issue a certain way can be the determining factor in whether it sinks or swims.
This makes it a national record for money spent by Big Tobacco to defeat a state ballot measure: a whopping $24 per "no" vote. What would the result be if they spent no money?
Sadly, we live in a country where the lobbyist with the most cash get the laws written the way they want (sometimes they just write it themselves), Corporations with billions in resources smash grassroots activism and the candidates for president with the largest coffers are treated as inevitable nominees before a single vote is cast.
posted by Matt Bors at
12:30 PM
4 Comments:
I've grown to dislike horserace journalism because it's close to a self-fufilling prophecy - oh, Hillary is in the lead, I'll vote for her.
Many people vote for the perceived winner in both primaries in general elections. It's frightening.
I agree. I also think that it's terrible, that so many people have now come to this conclusion, and no one has really tried to do enough about it.
the main solution is electoral reform--getting corporate money out, publicly financed elections...that ould really lift a big burden off of cndidates to be money machines.
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