Close race …

In case you missed high school civics, here’s how the US political circus works:

1) The parties have a strong financial interest in tightly contested elections:

Political donations scale with the perceived importance of the election. Therefore, the political parties have a financial incentive to keep the races close. The parties, by which I mean the career staffers and strategists making strategic decisions, make their money off of donations. Those donations come in from people who are convinced that it’s really important right now to keep / get the Democrats / Republicans in office. In an uncontested election, the only one who benefits is the actual candidate. There’s no money for the parties in an uncontested election. The parties will therefore act to make sure that as many races as possible are hotly contested.

You don’t need secret bipartisan meetings in smoky rooms to get an implicit agreement on that one. It’s obvious on the face of it that close races are of massive, financial benefit to both parties.

2) The media has a strong financial interest in keeping the races tightly contested

The media, by which I mean “the television, radio, and newspaper companies who make the majority of their money off of advertising sales,” has a similar financial incentive to keep the races hot. Most of the money in a campaign is spent on television ads. Any individual media company can see that the hotter the race – the more political ads will be purchased. In an election year, media companies can choose the size of their market. Any smart company in that situation chooses “larger.”

Consider that fact for another second – I want to be clear: The two groups most directly responsible for defining the tone of political discourse in the US are the ones who stand to make large amounts of money if only they can make the race bitterly divisive and too close to call right up until election day.

Again, I’m not positing any secret back-room alliances. This is way too obvious to require them.

3) The Democrats and the Republicans agree that the next president must either be a Democrat or a Republican

I harp on this a lot, but it bears repeating. Politicians may have an interest in good governance, but parties do not. Parties are interested in keeping power. Therefore, we can expect the two dominant parties to fight tooth and nail to prevent the emergence of any new parties, or any change in the system.

Risking what called “a whole new plane of cynicism,” here’s my synthesis:

The presidential race was scheduled to be a blowout in favor of the Democrats. The country was in agreement on the major planks of foreign and domestic policy (slow down the war effort and focus on the economy mostly by regulating the finance industry). Instead of letting that simple fact ride through the process, we have the longest and most expensive Democratic primary in history. Along the way, the Democrats have hurt themselves badly enough that the “real” campaign is expected to be quite close … right up to election day.