Common Cause Projects the Winner of the Presidential Election

So, do you think the next president will feel a great debt to Americans who are struggling with high unemployment, a housing crisis and soaring healthcare costs?

After all, whoever wins will have spent two years or more criss-crossing the country, meeting with Americans from all walks of life, hearing their stories, kissing their babies and tearing up at their hard-luck stories.

And even though the candidates themselves are much too busy to read the latest report showing nearly half of all American families are just one one crisis away from poverty, no doubt their aides will read it for them and urge them to do the right thing.  

Right?

Don't count on it, says Common Cause, which notes that whoever wins the election will take office deeply in debt to a relative handful of wealthy Americans and special interest donors.

“We don’t know who will win in November, but the latest round of campaign finance reports shows ‘we the people’ are already running far behind ‘we the 1 percent,’” said Bob Edgar, president and CEO of the non-profit government watchdog group.

“The huge sums flowing into the presidential race from a few, deep-pocketed donors will give us a President and Congress more beholden than ever to big corporations and individuals already at the top of the economic ladder, and with little incentive to watch out for the rest of us," Edgar said.

“Every investor, and particularly those willing to make six- and seven-figure donations, expects a return on his or her money,” Edgar said. “And experience should tell us that those who owe their offices to big money investors will provide it. 

The Supreme Court said in Citizens United that our elected officials can’t be corrupted by donors with whom they’re unconnected, and so we have nothing to fear from unlimited political spending by independent groups, Edgar said.

“But does anyone seriously believe that a President can be truly independent of people who’ve spent tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars to promote him or tear down his adversaries? We’ve had some admirable, even heroic Presidents, but none with that kind of super-power.”

Common Cause is a non-profit consumer organization that has long pressed for public funding of elections to reduce the influence of wealthy individuals and corporate interests.