Michael has responded to my comments from the other day. In his wisdom, he has convinced me, at least, that it is not prudent to take what I (think I) know about people's views towards the presidential elections and inject it into an analysis of the recent bludgeoning that took place in the legislative elections. The two are not analogous.

To be clear, I am not recanting my very humble opinion that the DPP needs to change focus. Rather, I'm accepting that large quantities of money and an entrenched political network may have played significantly larger roles than I led people to believe in my previous article.

Bent summed up my feelings well here when he said (by the way, Ben, thanks for speaking my mind so well):

Here’s the thing - Michael’s right, which is why I’ve agreed with him from the beginning that the DPP had no chance to win. My entire argument was that this election was a disaster because the DPP’s message alienated the young, leaving less hope for the future when the old guard has passed away.

In short, a guaranteed loss shouldn’t mean a free pass. The DPP had two choices in this election: lose with a message tailored to their base that alienates the young and jeopardizes their future, or lose with a message focused on the future, freedom and the environment that would at least attract those my age giving hope for the elections in 2016, if not sooner.

Neither Ben nor I have ever said that the DPP would have won in light of a different strategy, rather that there is another votership developing in Taiwan that does not play by the old rules, even hates the old rules, and the DPP would do better for the future if they embraced that.

Michael explained:

For some reason many of the Green-supporting bloggers have decided the DPP lost because it ran a bad election campaign -- alluring logic, but fundamentally wrong. The KMT won, because it vastly outspent the DPP (on the assumption that it can recoup those losses), because it gerrymandered the districts, and because it has the local level systems in place. If the DPP wants to dominate at the local level, it will need to either replicate those KMT advantages or else come up with an analogue. There is, at the moment, no message that the DPP could come out with that could overcome that concrete KMT advantage of disciplined, well-oiled, tightly linked local networks that the KMT has nourished for the last 60 years.

For some time now, I've been well aware of the fact that the KMT was -- at least until recently -- the richest political party in the world. Here's a recent rundown of the discrepancies between the assets of the two major parties in Taiwan:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is nearly 80 times richer -- in total asset terms -- than the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), figures from the Ministry of the Interior show.

The KMT has assets worth more than NT$27 billion (US$821 million), while the DPP's assets amount to nearly NT$339 million.

In a rare peek at hard numbers from political parties' financial statements, some surprising information about the top parties appeared on the ministry's Web site yesterday (www.moi.gov.tw/home/home.asp).

Although it is no secret that the KMT possesses copious assets -- much of which its critics allege it plundered after Taiwan ceased to be a Japanese colony -- it might surprise some to know that the DPP's income for last year was more than double that of the KMT.

The DPP earned NT$661 million while the KMT pulled in a little more than NT$301 million.

In terms of net assets, the KMT boasts 100 times more asset value, or roughly NT$25.5 billion, to the DPP's nearly NT$253 million, the records show.

But the KMT is also saddled with more debt, nearly NT$1.6 billion as of last year, compared with the DPP's nearly NT$86 million.

It's necessary to keep in mind that, to the best of my knowledge, it is illegal in Taiwan for political parties to own private assets, yet the KMT majority in the Legislative Yuan has repeatedly blocked attempts to rectify this.

In my previous post, I noted this and said that the campaign to relinquish the KMT of its assets is the only of the DPP's present drives that I think merits the focus it has garnered. More precisely, it merits the focus that the UN Referendum has attracted. Yet, I had been led to downplay it as a result of mentions in different articles I've read recently that refer to these assets as, as one put it, a "red herring." I came to believe that the KMT was pouring so much of these funds into campaigns, as well as selling of their illegal properties to the extent that it didn't matter as much. Perhaps it won't matter in the future, but it seems to have been significant in this election.

I stand delighted to be corrected.

However, one thing I still do not understand is how this plays out from person to person when it comes to their votes. While I certainly believe that the KMT can make greater promises and mount more intense campaigns with the money they have in their coffers, I don't see that as proof that "voters in Taiwan are not attracted by sound public policy, but by flows of money out of the central government into the personal networks of the politicians they support." For now, at least, it just seems to me that their superior funds give them not only a larger platform but also the ability to make better promises. And the DPP only makes it worse for themselves when they tackle issues that lead to an even more disenchanted youth.