Vote Buying in Bahia vs Polarization in the US

Here goes a link with a good and brief description of some political aspects of Brazil (or at least the state of Bahia), coming from a paper :
http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/23028/No_119_Varieties_of_ClientelismCDDRL.pdf

The section relevant to Brazil starts on page 24.

Political polarization in the United States at least seems to outdo itself even more outrageously each time around, from the Clinton years to the current budget fiasco. But which is worse for a country's development, a situation of complete polarization, where political change can come only with slow-changing demographics, or complete apathy, where money buys everything?

I realize that the US and the Brazilian state of Bahia don't fit these descriptions exactly, but they are pretty close. Here in Bahia, voters are nakedly for sale. Though strong trends towards Evangelicalism can change this further down the road, for now it appears that very few people care about party affiliation. If they do, it is generally insofar as a party at the municipal level may get more resources if it is aligned with the same party at the state and federal levels. A partial exception to this might be the Worker's Party, which could garner more support among young people due to its association with the extremely popular ex-president Lula. But I believe that even this is limited in the region, and I've never seen almost any evidence of a party platform or ideology during a local campaign. The article cited above notes that in Brazil, only 10% of people are affiliated with political parties. Even the politicians didn't care much for keeping party affiliation traditionally, leaving it to the highest bidder, but new legislation may influence that. For working adults, what matters is not which candidate will adopt policies that will make the city better for their children, but which will put more money in their pockets next year. If this isn't done directly with cash, it's done with government jobs, which in these small towns in the interior account for an enormous portion of the total. Statistics show that "public administration" accounts for over 25% of the GDP of the city of Capim Grosso, for example. And I know that over half that money goes to payroll (the legal limit is 54%, but Capim Grosso is currently over the legal limit). When the mayor changes, so do all the school principals and almost anyone in public administration that the new mayor can remove. The mayor cannot remove employees that entered based on civil service examinations ("concursos públicos"). However, anecdotally I've heard of cases of the mayor or his allies influencing test scores to benefit the sons and daughters of their favored electorates, and any mayor will do what he can to limit the number of "concursados" as much as he can in order to free up political capital.

The prevalence of vote buying almost certainly gives it inertia as well - a do-gooder would have incredible difficulty to buck the system. If all his competitors are offering compensation for their votes, and the voters are demanding it, how can anyone trying to do otherwise compete?

This contrasts starkly with the case in the United States. Issues such as abortion, complete immaterial here, can go a long way towards deciding elections in the US. Rather than being practically obligated to switch positions frequently depending on the political winds as local politicians do here in Brazil (for a councilman to curry favor with a newly-installed mayor, for example), it is almost impossible for an American politician to change his or her mind without significant reputation damage, meaning that it is only done by turning the smokescreen on full-blast on the public, even if the the change of mind is prudent.

So what's worse, party affiliations (and thus voter intentions) that are decided by high school and never revoked regardless of the circumstances, or party affiliations that are signify nothing other than the pool of people that will get new jobs after the election? In either case, arguing the merit of politics is useless, since an American's mind can't change and a Bahian never really cared about the policy in the first place. So I guess it's a draw.