I don't believe you're a simpleton. Perhaps I'm wrong.

dbd33 suggested what you say I did. What I said is that money buys votes and that, if unregulated, parties elected by those votes repay their investors in spades.

Surely, this isn't news to you?

It is not news to be but I don't agree with your logic. I believe that money can buy politicians and that those politicians will repay their investors in spades. I also believe that, to a limited extent, it can buy some votes. I don't agree that voters vote for policies that they know are adverse to their own interests.

As indicated by dbd33 above, voters may vote for "wonky" reasons but that doesn't diminish the fact that they are allowed to vote for whichever candidate they wish to, even if that means that, by doing so, they run the risk of incurring your wrath

Well you've nicely conflated what I was saying with dbd33's point. It seems you now agree with me, so good so far.

I suppose I should leave dbd to expand on his point but here goes anyway.

First of all, I think what he said applies more to the US than to Canada, but in both jurisdictions there are a large number of people who believe, all evidence to the contrary, that they will one day be rich. The American Dream and all that.

Thus, these deluded people will tend to support right wing parties who take from the poor and give to the rich under the misapprehension that it'll pay off for them personally one day.

To my mind this is a valid analysis, but it's not one that I put forward.

Ah yes the principled Mr Bragg who voted with his feet and lives in a rather nice multi million pound farmhouse in a nice part of Dorset rather than east London. Who could blame him though. I wonder if he sips pink champagne every evening.

It is the height of intellectual snobbery to infer, that essentially, a mass of the voting public are stupid and that because they are stupid they will vote for right wing parties. You are a decent bloke, but you don't half talk bollocks sometimes.

First of all you mean imply, not infer. Secondly I was not making that suggestion but merely clarifying a point made by dbd33, another decent bloke who don't half talk bollocks sometimes.

I mulled "impute", "infer", "imply" and think that infer may be correct here. I think one might reasonably infer from an immigrant's voting, if not for Harper then certainly for Jason Kenney, that the immigrant is suffering some sort of intellectual failure.

There's no inference of stupidity before the act of voting so I think "that because they are stupid they will vote for right wing parties" doesn't really flow.

I hold AX to be a decent bloke, I don't think he's talking bollocks in this instance.

Its because advertising works. Thats why parties throw Millions of dollars at it, if they have it, and large corporate donations certainly help in that respect.

You will notice that a lot of political advertising works on the pricipal of bashing the opposition, rather than indicating what the party funding the commercial will do. Advertising also helps in getting the name of your candidate out there and painting whatever personal image of him you wish to, caring family man or whatever, and people vote for personalities as much as policies.

If you have the money and can paint the opposition candidate as a tax fidling wicken old lady mugger who will take more of your pay packet, and paint your man as a clean cut caring captain of liberty, then that wont do your prospects any harm, even if your policies will give tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy at the expense of cutting front line health care (or whatever).

As I said, many of the electorate are sheeple and dont think critically. If thats arrogant, then so be it. It doesnt change the truth that the votes of those people bought over by image and advertising are worth the same as any MENSA political analysts, and if you can gather enough of them thanks to having a larger advertising budget, then your side wins.

Is that clear enough?

What's a "sheeple" then? A sheep standing on a steeple?

Its a portmanteau, used to denote persons who voluntarily acquiesce to a perceived authority or suggestion without sufficient research to understand fully the ramifications involved in that decision.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheeple

It's a type of bag then?

Blimey. You learn something new everyday on BE.

Most people stating their opinion about our local paper describe it as Liberal.

This despite the regular editorials promoting Conservative policy such as "axe the gun registry" and telling us all that Ignatieff is out of touch with Canadians.



I imagine they just see this as common sense and not politics.

Crystal. Thank you. It would appear that the electorate are to blame because they are stupid.

Of course, those that vote for parties funded by Unions, Greenpeace, Charities, etc., employing exactly the same distraction techniques as those funded by nasty corporations are not stupid.

I suppose it's no use pointing out that the only people to use the word stupid in the context of this recent exchange are AX and yourself?

(Both decent blokes and all that).

No, Im not blaming the electorate, Im blaming a system that allows that stupidity to be exploited by corporate funded advertising that skews the playing field.

On my island anything but private individual funding would be forbidden, although I suspect corporate contributions dwarf those you mention.

Three questions for you, yes or no ones.

1. Does political advertising work to influence some people to vote in a way they might not otherwise?

2. Does having a larger amount of money available to spend mean you can buy more advertising, and therefore influence more voters?

3. If Q1&2 are "yes" isnt it true that corporation contributions that swell party coffers are influencing people to vote in a way that may be in the best interests of the corparations, rather than what they would do for themselves if they stopped to consider the options?