Manipulation of US Elections によって Billionaire Backers 

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Paying the piper: The election of President Obama was partially funded by many small-time donors - but this is unlikely to happen again.

Two years ago the United States spent an ocean of money in the most expensive election campaign in history. The major parties and their donors – unleashed by the scrapping of campaign finance regulations – spent an estimated $7 billion between them.

When the dust settled all that had changed was that the divided nation was even more fractured. Congress remained split along the same lines, the White House remained in Democratic hands.

There was some hope, though, that this orgy of spending for so little effect might deter some of the mega-donors from engaging in future elections to such an extent.

Just over a month before November\'s mid-term elections and two years out from the next presidential fight, the evidence suggests the opposite.

Ken Vogel, an investigative journalist for Politico and author of a new book on impact of mega-donors on US elections,

Big Money, believes we have only seen the start of a new era of politics in America in which the power of the very rich to manipulate elections and even policy will only become more pronounced.

Vogel\'s book begins with an unsettling anecdote, at least for those who hoped that Barack Obama\'s election in 2008  - in part on a promise to reform American politics - might have led to campaign finance reform.

It is February 2012 in the living room of the Seattle mansion home to Costco co-founder Jeff Brotman and his wife, Susan. Obama is here to meet with high-end donors who have paid US$17,900 to attend. Bill Gates is described as leaning against a grand piano.

Obama, writes Vogel, who crafted the scene from interviews with attendees, seems irritated. After an anodyne statement reporters are ushered out and the president speaks more frankly to the guests who have paid $17,900 each for a brief audience with him

"You now have the potential of 200 people deciding who ends up being elected president every single time," Obama told the group in response to a question about the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in a campaign finance case called Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.

"I may be the last presidential candidate who could win the way I won, which was coming out without a lot of special-interest support," he told the assembled million- and billionaires.

Obama\'s attempts at reform had been blown away by a handful of Supreme Court decisions, most infamously Citizens United.

Simply put, the court effectively ruled that companies had first amendment rights to freedom of speech, just like people, and that spending money on political campaigning was effectively the same as speech. As a result, it was unconstitutional to limit how much companies and individuals spent on politics.

Another ruling held that non-profit organisations were exempt from disclosure laws, so now billionaires were free to spend as much as they wanted, anonymously.

One of the results of the avalanche of money was that in the Republican primary race, two major super PACs fought one another before eventually uniting behind Mitt Romney to turn fire on the Obama campaign. One was founded by the Koch brothers, billionaire industrialists with libertarian views. They backed Tea Party candidates. The other was founded by Karl Rove, the Republican fixer who was once George W Bush\'s chief of staff, which backed so-called establishment Republicans.

Some seem to just enjoy the access they get to the campaign.

Foster Friess spent $2.1 million on Rick Santorum\'s moribund primary campaign, prolonging the agony for Romney.

"I\'m so excited about becoming this instant celebrity with all you guys calling me," he told Vogel. "I mean, gosh, CNN, New York Times, Reuters, The Associated Press, I can\'t believe it."

To an extent, the Republican mega-donors cancelled each other out and divided their party. Worse, for both the Republican Party and arguably the nation, the Tea Party-backed members of Congress, shepherded and emboldened by the Koch brothers, intensified the deadlock in Congress after the election. They backed the government shutdown and the debt-ceiling crisis, which could have crippled the US economy.

Speaking with Fairfax, Vogel says he does not believe the mega-donors have been chastened either about the amount of money they spent on a loss, or by the divisions in American Congress they appeared to have spurred.

Rather, he says, some appear embarrassed by the 2012 result, and keen to demonstrate that they can win the political game by buying in again this year and in 2016.

Vogel believes many misunderstand one of the key motivations for the billionaire political class.

In part, he concedes, the mega-rich have an interest in fighting minimum wage rises, environmental controls and tax hikes on the  1 per cent. But those engaged in politics are not focused only on their bottom line, he says. If they were they could get more bang for their buck by paying lobbyists.

Most of those in the game genuinely believe that they have some genius to offer, especially given how good capitalism has been to them. He likens them to those who already have every other trinket extreme wealth can buy, so plonk down a billion or so to buy the hometown sports franchise. Once installed, they can\'t help advising the general manager on which players to buy, nor the coach on what plays to run,

The managers and coaches – in this analogy, political professionals – can\'t afford to ignore their advice, no matter how bad it might be.

Two years down, the most expensive Senate race in US history is being held in Kentucky, one of the nation\'s poorest states. The Republican Mitch McConnell hopes to become the Senate majority leader in November\'s election. If the Democrats hope to hold power in the Senate, their candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes must take his seat.

Outside money is pouring into the state and it is estimated that by November 4 US$100 million may have been spent on this race single – a race that has largely focused on coal mining.

In North Carolina, where Koch-backed candidates won a bevvy of elected positions in 2012, party organisations and independent spenders such as Carolina Rising have plowed an estimated $24 million into broadcast television ads that are either explicitly campaign ads or at least mention the name of a candidate, WRAL News has reported. It estimated the Senate race there would cost $40 million and that most of that money would come from anonymous donors and groups.

Casting forward to 2016, the major super PACs from the last election never stopped fundraising, while smaller groups dedicated to candidates that have not yet even announced their candidacy are hard at work fundraising.

The Ready for Hillary super PAC plans to convene 400 of its top donors in New York on November 21 for a meeting of its finance committee, MSNBC reported this week, and Priorities USA, which backed the Obama campaign, has already begun work for the as yet unannounced Clinton run.

Rather than being stung by their failure to effect change in 2012 with the geysers of cash, Vogel says he believes the major parties - and the super PACs they pretend not to co-ordinate with - will simply fight it out harder with the lessons learned from their last engagement.

In the end, he says, voters will get the last say, but the issues they debate will be those put on the table by the handful of people with the money to play the game.

"We are just at the dawn of this new era," he says. "And not only do I see no prospect for change, I see people getting used to it."

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