Dear participant in the electoral process: You're the underdog. Good luck.

Democracy. It trends toward the ridiculous more and more each election cycle. And you thought it was bad 10 years ago, when Dubya was up for re-election. Remember 2004, and Puff Daddy? He didn’t just ruin a perfectly good mantra, “Vote or die!” He perhaps ruined voter outreach itself. That “Vote or die!” ad campaign, featuring Diddy in a white T-shirt, aforesaid slogan emblazoned on front, and aired ad nauseum on MTV. It was plastered all over bus-stop signs, too, in a misguided attempt to try to get young people to vote. Young people were like, “That’s dumb.” Then John Kerry got his ass swiftly boated by George W. Bush.

People thought Diddy’s “Vote or die” effort was half-hearted and vacuous. Who could take Diddy seriously wearing that damn T-shirt when all of us picture him on a 40-foot yacht, pumping his fist into the azure blue sky, hanging with with 50 Cent and Mariah, rapping to “Kashmir” while Jimmy Page cuts limes and mixes caipirinhas. It’s ridiculous.

Yet “Vote or die” is still not as warped or twisted as democracy and voter outreach in year 2014. Just visit OpenSecrets.org, the website for the Center for Responsive Politics. This site brims with campaign-finance skeletons. It’s not pretty.

For instance, the wealthiest individuals in the world, plus corporations and outsider political-action committees (or PACs), have spent nearly $700 million running ads for Congressional candidates nationwide. This on top of what candidates fundraise themselves. That’s an outrageous sum—especially for just House and Senate races, and in a midterm election. Outside groups have thrown $72 million (!!) at the nation’s spendiest race—the senate battle in North Carolina between Democrat Kay Hagan, Republican Thom Tillis and Libertarian Sean Haugh. And there was still a week left to raise big bucks when that number came out.

Here in Sacramento, the contest between Democrat incumbent Ami Bera and GOP challenger Doug Ose is the most expensive House battle in the entire state, and No. 2 in the country.

As of this past Tuesday, outside groups had spent $10.48 million attacking each candidate. Perhaps you’ve seen the commercials? They go something like: Bera accuses Ose of getting rich off of his Congressional stint, but then Ose tags Bera with the same get-rich-in-D.C. scheme. Oh, you two. Everyone’s getting rich!

Nevermind the candidates’ stances on the Affordable Care Act, or student loan payment relief, or the Middle East, or social-safety-net programs for single moms, or the minimum wage. As SN&R’s publisher Jeff vonKaenel pointed out this week (see “Despicable attack ads,” SN&R Greenlight, page 12), with all this mudslinging, there’s scant airtime for substance or the issues. So goes the PAC attack.

And it’s not exclusive to the national stage. Sacramento’s two state Senate candidates, Roger Dickinson and Richard Pan, are knee-deep in the costliest same-party state Legislature race in all of California.

Current Assembly member Pan has raised more than $1 million this year from groups including physicians, health-care companies, pharmaceutical interests, gaming tribes and big donors like Sprint, FedEx and Chevron. His Assembly colleague Dickinson, who prides himself on being less beholden to corporate interests, has raked in just over half as much, nearly $550,000, from individuals like local mega-developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, plus labor groups and PG&E, Wells Fargo, and Facebook.

On top of that, there’s even an independent-expenditure committee of doctors and health-care specialists, Californians Allied for Patient Protection, backing Pan. This same group operates in the shadows and has donated at least a half-million dollars to the no-on-Proposition 46 cause, according to the secretary of state’s website. The group also ran TV ads recently accusing Dickinson of ignoring child abuse during his tenure on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors. The spot is, of course, bogus—Dickinson tried his best to clean up Sacramento’s out-of-control Child Protective Services department while on the board—but it nevertheless does damage. Who’s accountable for the committee’s lies? Pan? The secret donors to the CAPP group? Us voters, for allowing such electioneering shenanigans year after year?

This year’s spending is what’s truly ridiculous. Give me Diddy on a yacht any day.

The sad truth is that voters are the underdogs. As SN&R staff writer Raheem F. Hosseini and Erin E. Young reported in this week’s news section (see “Fear the vote,” SN&R News, page 9), many voters are afraid to vote because—despite the millions that go into “educating” us with mailers and TV ads—they don’t feel up to speed with the issues.

Groups backing Mayor Kevin Johnson will have spent more than $1 million promoting Measure L, but can you tell me just one accomplishment the mayor would like to achieve as strong mayor that he can’t accomplish now? What are Measure L’s issues (and don’t say accountability)?

In East Sacramento, council candidates Jeff Harris and Cyril Shah will spend more than $350,000 on their campaigns (a vast majority in Shah’s coffers), but do the two disagree on any meaningful issues? Can you tell me how they’d stand apart while seated on the dais? I mean, these two agree on everything from ethics reform to campaign finance to mowing public-park lawns.

Is this what it’s come to? Can we only focus on issues when they’re the most polarizing of topics, such as criminalizing abortion or legalizing marijuana?

We voters truly are the ultimate underdogs. How do we stand a chance against the super PACs’ hundred-million-dollar message machine?

It’s simple: Drink some water, take a deep breath, check out our endorsements for this coming Tuesday, and stay strong. You’re still the voter. And, while corporations may be people, too, at least according to the Supreme Court, they can’t vote. Yet.

So, um, vote or die.