All special interest groups combined spent $28 million, nationwide, promoting McLoser's campaign

[KamaAina]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20081107/pl_cq_politics/politics2984285

...while Republican nominee John McCain was favored with $28 million over the same period.

Meanwhile, one special interest group, which shall remain nameless but is sometimes mistyped (?) as "Moron", spent nearly as much, $20 million, in one single state to pass a single ballot initiative. :grr:

Moral: The influence of big money has turned the initiative and referendum process on its head. A hundred years ago, it was seen as a way for the people to express their will directly and eliminate the middleman, state legislatures viewed as easily influenced by lobbyists. Today, in a mass-media world that turn-of-the-century populists could not have imagined, all it is is a way for big-money special interests to buy votes wholesale instead of having to piece off legislators one by one. :eyes:

[Libertyfirst]

1. You are absolutely right. Money talks more in initiative and

referendum that it does it legislatures. There are rules about bribing legislators, but none possible against powerful interests misleading voters on a referendum. Money subverts democracy in this manner. That's why I still believe in representative government, not popular.