I'm periodically told how Republicans are for the rich and Democrats are for the working man. I'm told how corporations give so much money to Republicans, and Democrats can barely keep up. This is sometimes used as a justification for why unions should be entitled to my money, by law in California, so they can give it to political candidates--countering the corporate donations to Republicans.
People who try to feed others that crap have their heads stuck in another time (must.resist.urge.to.make.wisecrack--darn, didn't entirely resist the urge, did I?), as the list of contributors to President Obama's campaign makes abundantly clear.
5 comments:
It is past due to have true election reform that forbids corporations and unions and lobbyists and think tanks and other groups from funneling money to their favorite empty suit. In fact I think the entire election process is far too long. There should be ONE DAY nationally that has primary elections across the nation. ONE DAY-not twenty with smallish states vying for who gets to choose the candidates months before more populous states even get to vote. Then, after the primaries, the campaign should last six months and not a day more. Frankly all the last campaign did was make a bunch of ad agencies rich. We need to limit campaign funding and carefully monitor who is sending money in order to call the shots.
Ellen
I agree that it is past time for real campaign finance reform, not the crap we got with McCain’s. Why the hell Bush didn’t veto that bill is a major failure of his tenure. Now the Supreme Court has already ruled on part of McCain-Feingold unconstitutional and hopefully it does what Bush and the Congress failed to do.
One of the major problems is the soft money and we all know one thing a politician hates is sunlight on what they are doing. What I would suggest eliminate the limits on hard money and have it immediately posted on the internet so everyone could see it. All politicians are bought to one degree or another. At least this way the public can see it and act with knowledge.
If there is one reason to go for this….Mr. Campaign Finance Reform, Senator McCain, didn’t want anything to do with opening the books like this. In all fairness, neither did most members of the Congress.
Enough said :)
Can campaign finance reform actually work? I'm beginning, more and more, to doubt that in any substantive way, it can.
Constituencies will inevitably find ways to funnel money to the candidate of their choice but campaign finance reform has burdened the system with a thicket of regulations that, on the evidence, haven't resulted in a better, more honest crop of politicians.
So if we don't have more honest politicians and more honest campaigns then what's the purpose of the entire effort?
allen (in Michigan)
Agreed, money is like water, it will find a way through. Soft money is a way to hide who is paying for the politicians. I would like to use technology to work for us. Let’s find out who is paying these politicians and then take appropriate action.
I agree that we probably can't control the inputs ... so, why not control the outputs? It would require a Constitutional amendment, but ban all political advertising. In it's place, have each candidate have a web page, publicly funded, with written and/or video answers to platform questions, and publicly funded debates. Doing this would make money less important . . .
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