Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] MU vs private university funding [politics]

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 4/12/06, Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
>
> Isn't the constituency multi-billionaires who send their kids to USC with
> enough money to hire poor Chicana girls to write their term papers?

No, it isn't.  That constituency is very, very tiny, and it doesn't
control enough votes to keep you in government.  The success of modern
political parties rests on combining a surprisingly small number of
big-time donors (who you could think of as clients, if you like) with
the largest possible voting bloc that doesn't piss off the big donors.

This causes some serious tensions for both parties, since the donors
are essentially special interest groups who have much more in common
with the donors from the other party than either set of donors does
with the vast number of people who are the audiences for the TV
commercials that are used in the actual campaigns.  The big risk for
Republicans in 2006 is that just enough of their electoral base will
stay home this year for them to get hurt big-time in the November
election.  If that happens, then the donor segment has much less
reason to support them in 2008 since one of the big reasons for the
big-time elite to contribute to Republicans in the last decade has
been because they ran the whole show.  The big time risk for Democrats
in 2006 is that they won't do well enough to regain even a little bit
of power, in which case their donor base will start to wander off as
well, possibly towards a third party.

jking

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