The hard reality has led even some of the nation's most persistent campaign-finance scolds, such as Rick Hasen -- author of “Plutocrats United” -- to concede that “In spite of the rhetoric of some campaign reformers, money doesn't buy elections.” Others still insist that it does, or will, someday -- just you wait. Big-donor money hasn't bought the 2016 election, says The New York Times -- “yet.” [...] But while unions, nonprofits, and businesses can talk themselves hoarse, they can't cast ballots. Only the voters can do that -- and they often vote in ways that resoundingly reject the efforts of so-called big money. Just ask Jeb Bush about that.

First, the editorial selectively quotes UCLA professor Rick Hasen, whose piece in The Washington Post explains that while “money doesn't buy elections,” it “increases the odds of electoral victory and of getting one's way on policies, tax breaks and government contracts.” His article continued:

And the presidential race is the place we are least likely to see money's effects. Looking to Congress and the states, though, we can see that the era of big money unleashed by the Supreme Court is hurtling us toward a plutocracy in which the people with the greatest economic power can wield great political power through campaign donations and lobbying.

Hasen's argument was backed up by a recent release by U.S. PIRG, which found that “87.5% of higher fundraising candidates won their congressional [primary] race and now head to the general election.”

Even the New York Times piece the Times-Dispatch's editorial dismisses is grounded in reality. In the 2012 election, a majority of the money spent in the election by both parties and super PACs spiked in October, the month before the general election. The Times piece argues -- again in a section left out of the Dispatch's editorial -- that major donors “like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson will come off the sidelines” in the general election.

There are real impacts to more money in politics. When elected members of the judiciary know their rulings could be used against them during an election, they are less likely to rule in favor of defendants and more likely to hand down longer sentences. And as the Brennan Center for Justice explained in a blog post, even though there is a scientific consensus around man-made climate change, those who are less likely to believe the scientific consensus are more likely to receive money from “dirty energy sources.”