Bigger Threat to Democracy: Money or Incumbent Advantage?

Doug Mataconis points out that for all the talk about how money buys elections, of the 10 candidates for Congress who spent the most money on their own campaigns this year, only two were victorious in last week's midterms.

What money does do is help a challenger get his message out to overcome the massive advantages that come with incumbency. If voters don't like the message, money doesn't appear to help a candidate much.

The real threat to democracy is incumbency and the permanent political class. In the month before the election, public approval for Congress was somewhere between 15 and 25 percent. Yet even in an election year rife with "throw the bums out" sentiment, 87 percent of House incumbents who ran for reelection won last week. If Lisa Murkowski wins in Alaska, the figure for the Senate will be 84 percent. Those figures are slightly lower than the historical average.

It's true that approval ratings for the whole of Congress are different from voter affection for a particular congressman or senator. But that's partly the point. With gerrymandering; entitlement programs that create a need for constituent service; campaign regulations that make it increasingly difficult to file and challenge an incumbent, the general celebrity of federal office; and various other advantages, Congress is a much-loathed institution that has nonetheless rigged the game to ensure its members maximum job security and minimal accountability. Money isn't even partly responsible for many of these advantages, save for gerrymandering (which both parties spend money to influence). But money is necessary to overcome them. (Of course, most incumbents also have built-in fundraising advantages, which are also exacerbated by caps on contributions.)

A deep campaign chest is usually a prerequisite to knocking off an incumbent, but it isn't remotely a guarantee. Making it more difficult for challengers to raise money only makes it more difficult for them to overcome the non-monied advantages of incumbency. The more resrictions we put on fundraising, the more difficult it is for voters to hold politcians accountable. Which explains why we keep reelecting the same politicians, in spite of the fact that we pretty consistently tell pollsters how much we hate them.