Politics & Power Quote by Richard J. Codey

Codey frames representation as a time-and-cash problem, not an ideology problem. The line is built on two ordinary, almost throwaway realities - who has time to read the paper, who has spare money to donate - and then snaps them into a moral claim: politics is structurally tilted toward people with leisure and liquidity. It works because it refuses the flattering fiction that citizenship is just about caring enough. The barrier is practical, and the people paying it are the ones least likely to be courted.

The subtext is a quiet indictment of how democracy actually gets serviced. Newspapers stand in for the information economy of politics: who can track hearings, scandals, budget fights, and shifting alliances. Campaign contributions stand in for access: who gets the call returned, who gets invited into the room, who becomes "a stakeholder". Codey’s pairing makes the argument feel commonsense rather than abstract. He isn’t saying the poor are uninformed or apathetic; he’s saying the system is designed around an elite schedule.

As a working-class, machine-politics-era New Jersey Democrat who rose through state government (and briefly held the governorship), Codey is also signaling a brand: the retail politician who knows the rhythms of shift work, rent pressure, and caregiving. It’s populism with plausible deniability - he can criticize money in politics and media gatekeeping without naming villains, which keeps the coalition broad. The intent is both protective and strategic: claim the moral high ground of advocacy while reminding voters that power listens hardest to those who can afford to speak in its preferred currencies.