by digby
I know domination by the rich has been part of our alleged democracy from the beginning --- after all, the vote was originally limited to white male landowners. But over time the franchise was expanded, presumably because all that talk of democracy, freedom and liberty sounded just a bit hollow when most people in the country couldn't even vote.
But as water will always find a hole in the hose, so too will money:
Dozens of the Republican Party’s leading presidential donors and fund-raisers have begun privately discussing how to clear the field for a single establishment candidate to carry the party’s banner in 2016, fearing that a prolonged primary would bolster Hillary Rodham Clinton, the likely Democratic candidate.
The conversations, described in interviews with a variety of the Republican Party’s most sought-after donors, are centered on the three potential candidates who have the largest existing base of major contributors and overlapping ties to the top tier of those who are uncommitted: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney.
All three are believed to be capable of raising the roughly $80 million in candidate and “super PAC” money that many Republican strategists and donors now believe will be required to win their party’s nomination.
But the reality of all three candidates vying for support has dismayed the party’s top donors and “bundlers,” the volunteers who solicit checks from networks of friends and business associates. They fear being split into competing camps and raising hundreds of millions of dollars for a bloody primary that will injure the party’s eventual nominee — or pave the way for a second-tier candidate without enough mainstream appeal to win the general election.
Ray Washburne, finance chairman for the Republican National Committee. Credit Allison V. Smith for The New York Times
“If you are philosophically a center-right donor, I think you have an interest in clearing the field,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a top Republican fund-raiser in Virginia with ties to Mr. Romney and the Bush family. “I think that’s important because there is clearly going to be a competition of philosophies for who is going to be the presidential nominee. And I firmly believe that person has to be from the center-right.”
They are worried that they won't be able to get their rubes to go along. Seems the polloi think they have a right to vote for whomever they choose --- and they choose to vote for crazy people. And the hilarious thing is that the crazy people they prefer are all creatures of organized right wing lunacy increasingly backed by very wealthy people who not only want to protect their wealth but have become true believers themselves.
I'm rooting for Mitt, myself. But I have a sneaking suspicion the rubes aren't going to go along with that one. Of the three listed above, I think Christie has the greatest chance. He's a big, bro asshole and I can easily see the right wing deciding he's just the guy to put the feminist Hitlery in her place.
The underlying theme in that piece,however, is not a partisan one. The Democratic elites would be no better if the rank and file were clamoring for a left wing fire-brand they assumed would lose them the election. In fact, they took the reins under very similar circumstance back in 1976. It worked out really well for them. They ended up with a one term presidency followed by 12 years of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Let's just say that this "move to the middle" is no panacea ...
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