Bernie Sanders stumps for Ben Jealous in Maryland

[JCanete]

98. A politician with no money has no chance. A politician with a little

money or pre-established clout/name recognition/etc. may catch fire in a fluke
conflation of circumstances and thus raise a whole lot of money from individual donors, which is what happened to Sanders, allowing him to propel that message forward and in turn, get more funding to do so and to run his campaign. What positions can get corporate funding and what positions cannot is kind of what is at play here. There is no big money to be had if you have a certain ideology, particularly if it puts a target on the back of those with the purse strings. They don't like it there.

At some level how much money a campaign has versus one's opponent stops being as much of a factor. Or at least there's going to be a point of diminishing returns...but there is a whole lot of other capital that exists, and how that capital is achieved is worth at least exploring. One could argue that people who have a lot of backing from arms of the corporate media, have it because they have generated that good will and have come out the best from rigorous journalistic vetting. One could argue as a counter-point that those who get that media blessing(positive free press and the negative or absence of press for their opponents) get it because of the hiring choices these media institutions make in the first place, which reflect the mindset or desires of their hirers. Also, that individuals in media and those organizations they work for fear crossing front-runner candidates because to do so could limit access, which could directly impact their bottom line.

One could point to direct intervention of media owners into what message will be sold to the public and what message will be ignored. The most obvious examples have to do with Sinclair broadcasting and FOX news and its infamous memos. I think this is the least common and most egregious form of media manipulation, and there are examples to be cited at MSNBC and I'm sure elsewhere as well, but they aren't by any stretch the most pervasive way in which the candidates with the most financial support from industries get the most attention. For one thing, it is popular for journalists to report on viable candidates based upon their ability to secure that kind of funding. By virtue of impressing corporate donors and getting them on your side, you are already considered by the media to be the legitimate candidate in the race from early on.

So much journalism doesn't even dig deeper at this stage of a race. They're already picking winners and that ultimately has an impact on who people will put their vote behind. Sure, the very fact that these candidates did secure that money is evidence that they will be better situated to take a nomination, but I'm not sure it is the media's job to simply report that person as the serious candidate...the media's job should be to look into the candidates and to determine what their platforms are and what their ideals and records are and to bring that information to the public so that the money itself isn't the biggest thing that weighs on who is viable.