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will be better equipped to persuade the voters that he is the better qualified for the job. Money buys media time and media time, skillfully used, is probably the strongest single determinant of who wins and who loses on election day.
Politicians know this perfectly well. Thus the display of large amounts of campaign cash on hand can not only be used to demonstrate the fund-raising ability - and thus, presumably, the popularity - of a candidate, it can also be used to frighten off prospective opposition.
In this year’s senate race, incumbent Republican John Warner let it be known that he had raised a warchest of over a million dollars before the first of the year. In our money-conscious political jungle, it was like the roar of a lion. It sent a dozen Democratic senate hopefuls bounding into the bushes like so many frightened gazelles. Warner will be opposed, however, by Democratic nominee Eythe Harrison of Norfolk, about whom more in a moment.
The point is that in a political environment in which the ability to raise money is often a decisive factor, an incumbent has an almost insuperably advantage whether he or she is a Republican or Democrat.
Writing in the Washington Post last week, columnist David Broder noted that in this year’s elections, the campaign fund advantages of incumbent senators', ranges from.gfcto-1 fat CbWfado, I2rto-l in Minnesota, 13-to-l- urMaine, 20-to-lih Alhhama. «*to-i in New Jersey, SS-to^l in New Mexico, to a crashing 110-to-l in the Virginia race between Warner and Harrison!
It is simply a fact of political life that an incumbent has innumerable ways of electioneering while in office that a challenge does not have, and they are all completely within the law. The mere fact of his incumbency preserves and enhances his name recognition and, as any office-holder will tell you, the best way to run for re-election is to do a good job in the office in which you are serving. Warner has capitalized well on these advantages.
All of this, of course, translates back into the ability to raise and squirrel away the cash which , will be needed for the campaigns yet to come. More often than not, political consultants are hired, not to create innovative plans for the better governance of the populace, but to dream up new ways of adding to the larder.
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