Presidential candidates in the US must have enough stamina to endure an all-fair competition: the cheap and cunning blow, personal, racial, gender attacks, lies, baseness, deception, cheating. Private donations are essential to elevate a candidate to power and to maintain the system. 

Private donations are essential to elevate a candidate to power and to maintain the system. During the US electoral process, money flows from the coffers of the powerful of the military, industrial, financial, and media complex who buy, from time to time, people who serve them. It does not matter if they are blue or red, Democrats or Republicans, they represent only one party, that of the very rich. The multiparty system in that country is a scam, a lie built over years to steal rights from the American people.

For decades the representation of third parties has been declining, the possibility of reaching elective decision-making positions, especially at the federal level, is limited to two parties: the Democrat and the Republican. Presidential candidates in the US must have enough stamina to endure an all-fair competition: the cheap and cunning blow, the personal, racial, gender attacks, the lie, the baseness, the deception, the cheating.

It is scrutinized without ethics of any kind in the private lives of the applicants, the exploitation of the sexual scandal to get rid of a rival is common and has a history in American politics.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan, 73, knew how to dodge the arrows that his rival Walter Mondale threw on his old age. Bob Dole, a Republican candidate in 1996, with the same years as Bush, was constantly attacked with the issue of age. Perhaps that is why Bush tried to gain ground on Bill Clinton - the favorite - with other tactics, such as suggesting that the then-president, who confessed to having used marijuana in his youth (although "without swallowing the smoke"), was to blame for the increase. of drug use among adolescents. In one spot, Republicans wondered: Did he swallow the smoke or not?

John McCain learned well from the tripping of his party partner George W. Bush when he ran for president in 2000. Voters in South Carolina received a curious call asking for his opinion: "What would you think if you knew that Senator McCain had an illegitimate child with a black prostitute? "

McCain, whose "illegitimate" daughter was actually his adopted daughter from Bangladesh, was left out of the White House race.

How much does it cost to be president?

According to estimates by the Center for Responsible Policy (CRP), an NGO that tracks politics in the United States, the 2016 US presidential campaign cost about $ 6.918 billion. In the 2016 presidential campaign, through the Super PAC (Political Action Committees), 100 wealthy individuals contributed $ 1.5 billion, the equivalent of the contributions of 4.7 million individual donors.

The CRP assures that 2 621 million cost the presidential race in which Barack Obama was elected.

The political contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is estimated to exceed $ 3 billion.

Private donations are essential to elevate a candidate to power and to maintain the system. So, can you legislate against large industries, organizations, power groups that have donated millions of dollars to the cause of a candidate?

These are the elections about which José Martí said in 1881 that "politicians spoil and poison all the flags of the spirit, they are public criminals, these ex officio slanderers."

By; Raul Antonia Capute, international@granma.cu

10/17/2020