Political Campaigns: Crash Course Government and Politics #39

So political campaigns are a pretty big deal in the United States. For instance the 2012 presidential election clocked in at the most expensive ever - at around $6 billion dollars! Needless to say, money plays a very big role in American elections. So today, Craig is going to take a look at why we have campaigns in the first place, why the campaign seasons run for so long, and of course why campaigns cost so much.

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[arielwells]

These videos have taught me more about government in ten minutes than my government teacher has taught me in five week.

[Graser]

I feel like the problem with "money equals speech" is that free speech is supposed to be the thing that makes all Americans equal but this makes it to where the rich get more speech than the poor.

[xfsvcvr]

My online school used to have these videos available in their material and now their new material doesn't. I'm just happy to find it on youtube! Thanks for making history and politics less boring.

[xXSeNiLeXx]

Considering how important Citizens United is, a little blurb does not do it justice. You could do a whole video on the shenanigans that is campaign finance, 501-C3s and C4s, Citizens United, Super PACS, etc.

[isabellachardiet]

I've been a huge fan of crash course for my entire high school career. I'm honestly beginning to wonder if Stan is a real person, or just a figment of imagination both John Green and K-dawg like to talk to.

[SecretAgentMan]

"....or eating Little Caeser's"

I was literally eating Little Caeser's $5 large pepperoni deal while watching LOL

[rollofnickles]

No mention of the most important candidate of 2016, Bernie Sanders. Even gave credibility to "Corporations are People". PBS blew this one.
Poor Wheezy

[rabidware]

Great video, cleared up a lot!
Over in the UK we have limits on campaign spending overseen by an unaffiliated campaign regulation board that MUST receive ALL receipts of spending and donations so that the money can be tracked and counted.
If i campaign overspends then he who was managing the campaign can be judicially tried in court.

Likewise, so many UK politicians appear on American TV because their not allowed to have their own broadcast time in the UK due to anti-political bias broadcasting laws, if one party gets a TV slot then all the others have to have an equal appearance or none one does.
Being a guest on USA TV is a loophole as the american broadcast will eventually find it's way here.

[alexruiz]

I just binge watched this entire series in two days. This was pretty amazing. Keep doing what your doing!

[TinRapper]

Yeah. On the first democratic debate, did you see how many news companies said Hillary won, despite the fact that everyone else (80% polls voters) said Bernie won?

[LarryPhischman]

Money is not speech. Get money out of politics! WOLFPAC!

[bentoth]

"...When a congressman who receives millions of dollars from the oil industry then works hard to weaken regulations on oil companies so they can make more profit." Hey, you mentioned the senator from my state. :P Seriously though, that's Senator Inhofe, sadly.

[GlitchyShadow]

I took a small loan of a million dollars for my president of earth campaign.

[victoria_bongiorno]

I worked as a Field Organizer for my local Democratic committee during the 2015 election for County Executive and County Legislator, and while everything you said is true, and I'm surprised you didn't mention one of the biggest parts of campaigns: knocking on doors and phone banking. I would like people to understand why they are contacted so frequently during campaigns, and why these contacts are so important to the race. I understand that we may be bothering people at sometimes inconvenient times, but if they understood the importance of the contacts and why we make so many attempts to contact them, they may at least be less likely to spew abuse at innocent callers and canvassers who are simply trying to improve the community.

[edensmith]

Craig is my favorite! These videos are so awesome, I wish he was my government teacher. :D Thanks crash course!

[Marklar]

The forced neutrality in this give too much validation to those who argue that big money doesn't corrupt politics.

[aidanclark]

Wow, for about five episodes now, this series has roughly followed the topic pattern of my US government class.

[Antenox]

Why should a billionaire have a larger influence on a politician than a middle-class American? Campaign donation limits are there not to limit other people's free speech; they're there to ensure as many people as possible have the same amount of free speech.

[JamesLewis]

An important point that you didn't mention, which is especially important in this cycle, is that the candidates' ability to raise money for their own campaigns, as opposed to aligned Super PACs, is vital for some of the expenses that outside groups can't pay for, like staff salaries, meals, and lodging, and formal expenses like signature-gathering and ballot registration; a relatively minor point related to this is that although political campaigns get reduced rates for "the teevee, " outside groups, even pro-candidate Super PACs, don't, and a more major point is that running out of campaign funds is the main reason Presidential candidates end their campaigns early, as repeatedly pointed out on Andrew S. Tanenbaum's Electoral-Vote blog (for example, Scott Walker was a favorite of the Kochs but they couldn't inject enough money into his campaign, which suffered poor fundraising, to keep it afloat via Super PACs, even though they themselves *had* enough money, so he dropped out).

[almondmelk]

I see a lot of “money shouldn’t equal speech, ” but the thing is that Political Speech is the MOST protected type of speech under the First Amendment. SCOTUS ruled to get rid of spending limitations because it infringed on freedom of political speech. Whether you believe this is good or not, it is a product of Judicial Activism and is how SCOTUS decided to interpret the Constitution.