Being Outspent

 

Mitt Romney thinks this guy is Kanye West.

I think I’ve donated something like $75 to Barack Obama’s campaign so far, because in spite of his Puritanical stance on marijuana and the fact that his foreign policy involves more Predators than the movie Predators, I still think he’s a pretty swell guy and I’d like to keep him around for another four years. Now that Obama has the coveted Truman Capps endorsement, I imagine the next five months should be pretty smooth sailing.

Part of the online donation process involved me submitting my email address, which is why every morning I check my email and see that I’ve received messages from people like Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama, thanking me for my tireless efforts in support of the President and gently requesting that I donate whatever else I can spare.

The Obama campaign is running a number of pretty cool promotions as incentives to get people to donate, but I think I’ve thought of a better one: Donate $1000 or more and they’ll never send you another email. Sure, small ticket donors like me would probably just opt not to donate at all, but I think a scheme like that could really ensnare a lot of the limousine liberals who can’t in good conscience not donate but don’t want to get spammed by a who’s-who of the Democratic Party.

Both the news media and the emails have recently taken on a more and more bleak tone regarding fundraising. The general theme is this: MittRomney is going to outspend Obama in this campaign, which will make Barack Obama the first incumbent in history to be outspent in his reelection campaign. This is bad news, so give us more of your money.

I keep hearing that statistic over and over again, and it’s not striking fear into my heart for three reasons, which I’ll share with you below. If you don’t want to read them, I guess you can stop reading the blog here. I mean, it’s up to you.

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND INANE SPORTSCENTER BULLSHIT

Whenever I watch a football game I’m always kind of shocked at the sheer volume of useless statistics the good people at ESPN have pulled together for the color commentators to say before kickoff and during time outs.

”Well, Oregon has won the coin toss – now, interesting statistic here, in 63% of games in program history, Oregon has gone on to win the game after winning the coin toss. Anybody want to call this one?”

”Weather in Eugene at kickoff is light drizzle and 43 degrees – and it’s interesting to note that since 1977, Oregon has only won three of the eight games where the temperature at kickoff was 43 degrees, so this could be a bad sign for the Ducks today here at Autzen Stadium.”

”Something something time of possession something something.”

I like to think that somewhere in the basement of ESPN headquarters they’ve got Rain Man sitting in a room full of televisions watching every sporting event in history with a plate full of pancakes, and there’s a bunch of interns there taking notes on all the statistics he says, which they then transmit to Lee Corso via satellite.

The fact of the matter is, none of these type of statistics have any more bearing on the outcome of a football game than astrology has on our day-to-day lives.* They’re interesting to think about – depending on your definition of the word interesting – and they prevent dead air, but if you want to accurately predict who’s going to win, you’d be better off analyzing the two squads who are about to play instead of the size and density of their bowel movements the morning of the game.

*Yeah, that’s right, I said it.

Certainly some statistics are well worth analyzing – past performance on turf versus grass, weather conditions, home field advantage, etc – but those generally aren’t determining factors. They just influence the other factors in play.

Assuming that Mitt Romney is going to win because he’s going to be the first guy to outspend an incumbent is like saying that Oregon is going to lose because they’re playing on a grass field and they lost on a grass field at the Rose Bowl in 2009. It’s a point of concern, but it doesn’t deserve the amount of attention it’s getting, particularly because…

CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE NOW, APPARENTLY

Mitt Romney is one of the richest presidential candidates in history and he happens to be in balls-deep with Wall Street, whose residents have literally all money. On top of that, this is the first election where corporations can make unlimited political contributions.

Of-fucking-course Obama’s going to get outspent. That was pretty much a certainty the day Citizens United was decided. It’s the perfect storm – a rich douchebag who happens to be friends with some of the richest other douchebags in America, who have just been told that their multi-billion dollar investment banks can contribute as much money as they want to the original douchebag’s campaign. I’m sure Andrew Breitbart went to his grave with a raging stiffy just having witnessed such an event.

The statistic, “Barack Obama is the first incumbent in history to be outspent in his reelection campaign,” is misleading. It should be, “Barack Obama is the first incumbent in history to be running for reelection after Citizens United.”

Campaign finance is just different now, and what’s happening to Obama is going to happen to every future president who isn’t giving and receiving reacharounds from bankers.

Mitt Romney is going to spend over a billion dollars to try and defeat Barack Obama, and none of that means a damn to me because…

NO AMOUNT OF MONEY WILL MAKE ANYBODY IN THE WORLD LIKE MITT ROMNEY – EVEN FOR A SECOND

Nobody likes Mitt Romney. He is an unlikeable, shitty dude. If he was an ice cream flavor, he’d be pralines and dick. These are immutable facts, and we all know I’m fucking right.

It’s been a red-letter year for Obama – he tied up gays and Latinos pretty handily, he’s still got black people, and sometime in March the GOP just decided to up and hand him women as well. His party loves him, celebrities love him, people my age love him. He’s a great public speaker and he’s got swagger for days.

Who does Mitt Rommey have? Well, he’s got old white people. But not all of them, since a sizable contingent of Evangelical Christians have decided that his religion is too weird for their blood and are just going towrite in ‘Jesus’ on the ballots instead. So he’s got some old white people.

You can run all the slick campaign ads you want, but they won’t make up for the fact that Romney’s party and policies have alienated a huge chunk of the electorate and that the man himself has all the charisma of a character in The Polar Express.

AAAAAAHHHHHH!

The Obama campaign has to play this thing up and be worried, because if they let Democrats get complacent then they’ll lose momentum and maybe the election. I get it. I wouldn’t have it any other way, honestly, because I want Obama to win so very badly.

But this isn’t what I’m worried about. The Supreme Court healthcare verdict, on the other hand, is giving me an ulcer that I may not be able to afford treatment for in the morning.

Truman Capps knows how you feel, Republicans - his name was John Kerry, and he sucked on toast.