Was SC Debate Audience Stacked for Bloomberg?

During the recent SC debate there was quite a bit of booing of Bernie Sanders (and also booing of Warren).  And, cheering for Mike Bloomberg.  It appears the tickets for the debate started at $1750 a piece.  The ticket pricing may explain the demeanor of the debate crowd.  To me, people of all economic classes should get a shot at attending the debates.  Even if this means pricing some tickets lower.  Or, perhaps giving each campaign more free tickets to distribute to their supporters.

It appeared that Bloomberg had the "home field" advantage.

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https://www.salon.com/2020/02/26/did-bloomberg-buy-the-debate-crowd-1750-ticket-prices-for-south-carolina-debate-spark-outrage_partner/

Brief excerpt from above link:

Citing party officials, the outlet reported that "tickets are handed out to organizers like the Democratic National Committee, CBS, Twitter, and the Black Caucus Institute. Then, they are first given to paid sponsors and handed to campaigns to pass out extras."

Critics argued that the prohibitively high price of admission may help explain why the crowd appeared more favorable toward Bloomberg—who will not even be on the ballot in South Carolina's primary Saturday—and loudly antagonistic toward Sanders and Warren, who were both booed and heckled on several occasions.

Sanders was booed for highlighting Bloomberg's "strong and enthusiastic base of support" among fellow billionaires:

Warren was booed and jeered for pointing to inappropriate comments Bloomberg allegedly made to women employees:

Asked about the crowd's behavior in an interview following the debate, Sanders said "to get a ticket to the debate, you had to be fairly wealthy."

"Most working people that I know don't spend $1,700 to get a ticket to a debate," Sanders said.

The Bloomberg campaign denied that it stacked the audience with paid supporters amid rampant social media speculation that the billionaire "purchased" a portion of the crowd to create the appearance of a strong performance following his poor showing in Las Vegas last week.

"One might be forgiven for being somewhat skeptical that those attendees hadn't been paid by the Bloomberg campaign for their presence and energy," wrote the Washington Post's Philip Bump. "This is a campaign, after all, that paid Instagram influencers to bolster his candidacy. The campaign paying people to send regular text messages to their friends promoting Bloomberg's candidacy.

Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee tweeted that "the tickets were divided up between the DNC, campaigns (with equal allocation), SC Dem Party, CBCI, CBS, and Twitter."

"We invited local and community leaders, and DNC supporters," Hinojosa added. "This is the most diverse audience."


Slate has an interesting article on this and a related Bloomberg-inspired-email-army.

 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/for-some-reason-a-whole-lot-of-people-sent-emails-to-say-bloombergs-debate-cheering-section-was-very-normal.html

It would not be surprising if Bloomberg money is involved, considering politics is played on a capitalism field. But I do think it's interesting that you're the one bringing this up. What would you suggest for a remedy not just at the debate, but across the board?


The remedy is for the moderators of the debate to tell the audience to shut up.


sprout said:

Slate has an interesting article on this and a related Bloomberg-inspired-email-army.

 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/for-some-reason-a-whole-lot-of-people-sent-emails-to-say-bloombergs-debate-cheering-section-was-very-normal.html

It would not be surprising if Bloomberg money is involved, considering politics is played on a capitalism field. But I do think it's interesting that you're the one bringing this up. What would you suggest for a remedy not just at the debate, but across the board?

My solution:   give each campaign more free tickets to each debate so that each campaign can distribute these free tickets to their supporters.


RealityForAll said:

sprout said:

Slate has an interesting article on this and a related Bloomberg-inspired-email-army.

 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/for-some-reason-a-whole-lot-of-people-sent-emails-to-say-bloombergs-debate-cheering-section-was-very-normal.html

It would not be surprising if Bloomberg money is involved, considering politics is played on a capitalism field. But I do think it's interesting that you're the one bringing this up. What would you suggest for a remedy not just at the debate, but across the board?

My solution:   give each campaign more free tickets to each debate so that each campaign can distribute these free tickets to their supporters.

My question, which you bolded, asked about a remedy across the board. 

In other words, how can the influence of Bloomberg's big piles of money be mitigated in general? Not just in this one very specific case.


sprout said:

RealityForAll said:

sprout said:

Slate has an interesting article on this and a related Bloomberg-inspired-email-army.

 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/for-some-reason-a-whole-lot-of-people-sent-emails-to-say-bloombergs-debate-cheering-section-was-very-normal.html

It would not be surprising if Bloomberg money is involved, considering politics is played on a capitalism field. But I do think it's interesting that you're the one bringing this up. What would you suggest for a remedy not just at the debate, but across the board?

My solution:   give each campaign more free tickets to each debate so that each campaign can distribute these free tickets to their supporters.

My question, which you bolded, asked about a remedy across the board. 

In other words, how can the influence of Bloomberg's big piles of money be mitigated in general? Not just in this one very specific case.

Taking big money out of elections (for example, eliminating Super PACS) is going to require bipartisan consensus in order to pass legislation negating the Citizens United decision (we have almost no bipartisan consensus at this time).  IOW, unlikely to happen but desperately needed.

AFAIK, preventing billionaires (like Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer) from self funding their campaigns is allowed (but NOT because of the Citizens United decision).  Thus, if we are going to address big money in Super PACs then we should also deal with the issue of self funding billionaires.  If not addressed, we are likely to see in the future as presidents: Koch, Zuckerberg and Bezos.

I do not have any particular legislation to recommend at this time.


RealityForAll said:

Taking big money out of elections (for example, eliminating Super PACS) is going to require bipartisan consensus in order to pass legislation negating the Citizens United decision (we have almost no bipartisan consensus at this time).  IOW, unlikely to happen but desperately needed.

AFAIK, preventing billionaires (like Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer) from self funding their campaigns is allowed (but NOT because of the Citizens United decision).  Thus, if we are going to address big money in Super PACs then we should also deal with the issue of self funding billionaires.  If not addressed, we are likely to see in the future as presidents: Koch, Zuckerberg and Bezos.

I do not have any particular legislation to recommend at this time.

Congress can't legislate around Citizens' United.  That was decided on Constitutional grounds.  Similarly, it can't prohibit self-funding of campaigns under the First Amendment.  What Congress, the SEC, and FEC could do, however, is mandate disclosure of expenditures and contributions.


Steve said:

RealityForAll said:

Taking big money out of elections (for example, eliminating Super PACS) is going to require bipartisan consensus in order to pass legislation negating the Citizens United decision (we have almost no bipartisan consensus at this time).  IOW, unlikely to happen but desperately needed.

AFAIK, preventing billionaires (like Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer) from self funding their campaigns is allowed (but NOT because of the Citizens United decision).  Thus, if we are going to address big money in Super PACs then we should also deal with the issue of self funding billionaires.  If not addressed, we are likely to see in the future as presidents: Koch, Zuckerberg and Bezos.

I do not have any particular legislation to recommend at this time.

Congress can't legislate around Citizens' United.  That was decided on Constitutional grounds.  Similarly, it can't prohibit self-funding of campaigns under the First Amendment.  What Congress, the SEC, and FEC could do, however, is mandate disclosure of expenditures and contributions.

 Thanks for the clarification.



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