Comment Text:
The reason we don't have a democracy in this country (we have a plutocracy) is that there is private money in politics and campaigning. The private money influences the voters in one direction or another, and the more private money there is, the more the voters are influenced.
In itself, I don't care about betting. I think it's a dumb thing to do, but I don't quarrel who want to bet on any of various things. But I do care when people influence the outcome of the thing they want to bet on. Most people care about that. It's completely impermissible in sports.
The problem with politics is that it's impossible to separate the bet from the influencing, because anyone can inject private money into politics.
It's completely destructive to American government that private money gets injected into it, and it adds insult to injury that the people and companies that manipulate elections with private money also bet on the elections (which they do anyway by manipulating them). So as much of a drop in bucket as it is, I agree that they shouldn't also bet on the outcome. Pete Rose still wishes he could get into the baseball Hall of Fame, but for the decades he's been retired, he can't, because he bet on himself.
