Is the most advertised product the best product ?
Wheather its a bicycle or a yo yo. or say a candidate ? 
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There is a very hard push in general that things should happen politically based on the mass of money behind them. To equate dollars with viability. It happens not just with candidates, but with legislation and policy.
Of course that thinking comes from those with the most dollars to swing around. It seems perfectly just to the Mitt Romneys of the world that cash in the bank should equate to legitimacy. It's an old philosophy, going back to the idea that only white male landowners should vote.
It's the philosophy still very much underlying the Republican approach to politics, and it's seeped further into the Dems as well. There are a lot of reasons for it: not just elitism, but also the BUSINESS of politics. A lot of people make their living based on the money that campaigns can spread around, and increasingly, I see a push to conflate political campaigns with a business enterprise -- how much "product" can you move? How many "employees" can you support?
Of course, policy is supposed to be about the common good, but it's forever being implied that either isn't true (a strange position) or that it isn't practically viable. Money is speech and corporations are "people" is the motto, and it's assumed and implied by even by many who won't say it.
The new no-holds-barred world of dark money and Super PACs bestowed on us by the Supreme Court is having some interesting effects though. How many Republican Presidential contenders are we up to now? 10? 12? And they keep on coming. Because it's no longer a big risk or a financial struggle to field a national campaign. It's become a marketing enterprise. Gingrich wasn't going to win. Cruz isn't going to win. Pataki may not even be allowed into a debate.
But they can all raise their profiles, employ their friends; sell books. All while jetting around on billionaires' tabs. It's a game.
I wonder though, when actual reality is going to overwhelm the kind of dumb-dumb numbers game philosophy behind all of this. Plenty of billionaire / Wall Street / Koch-backed candidates have fallen squarely on their faces. Districts may be skewed and votes may even be sullied, but there are still a lot of voters in the country, and they're not getting paid for how they decide.
What happens when he / she with the most cash doesn't win, again? And again? When the calculus of the throngs of paid surrogates and consultants and operatives can't browbeat everyone into voting a certain way simply because the money all lies on one side?
What happens to sensible pragmatism then?
indeed, eh?
