Campaign finance "reform" is censorship that benefits no one but incumbents. I can not believe McCain's "reform" was not declared unconstitutional. A situation currently unfolding in Washington state exposes campaign finance reform for what it is: censorship on a scale I never believed we would see in the US. So the government can now exercise prior restraint under the guise of campaign finance reform!
The campaign finance regulations were poorly written and people should learn from this and structure the laws more tightly in the future. This, in no way, equates to the blanket statment campaign finance reform = censorship.
First, remove pesonhood from corporations. Don't let anybody but real people give to campaigns. Get corporations, unions and NGOs out of campaign finance. Second, ban all political advertising on all FCC regulated (TV, radico, telephone,) communications networks. Print is the only form of advertising that has the potential to inform rather than manipulate people. Campaigns don't want to give out detailed policy ideas because anything you say can and will be used against you. But democracy is not really democracy if policy ideas are not debated in a public debate. At least with print advertising, if the campaign is choosing to not not give out any details on what they are for, then it will be easy to see that the campaign made that choice to hide their positions. With TV advertising the campaigns can not give out any details. If some people can't or won't read then let them get their political ideas from their friends.
I agree 100% nirakar (assuming the ban on contributions extends to political party organizations as well), but would have to add... Maximum amount that any individual can give to any candidate should be equivalent to one month's minimum wage salary. How about we try and put just a little more equality into this so-called democratic system?
I was actually going to start a thread about campaign finance (supporting it obviously) but you saved me the trouble. Thanks.
Let me go on... I also think that anyone running for office should be required to completely open his/her private finacial records and keep them that way for the length of service. No one should be allowed to pay a dime out of his/her own pocket towards a campaign - strictly supporter donations. Anyone holding public office should be required to sell any stocks, relinquish any shares, forefit any board positions and sever any form of income outside the income their position pays and blind interest (such as from a bank account). Toss ALL so-called "Lobbyists" out of Government. Anyone can petition the government. Anyone can hold a demonstration. Everyone has a right to present a petition of signed names to their government. I would support raising funds to pay for administration expenses and such for a canvasing operation to get names. But NO ONE in government should be accepting a DIME from lobbyists. All it amounts to is sanctioned bribery. We should be aiming for equal opportunity for a voice in your government. Isn't that the goal of a so-called democratic system? Take the money and power out of politics and start electing actual public servants and representatives of the people. Make the convince us to vote for them and work to keep that vote by representing our voices. Kill the power brokers and money shifting political parties. Disallow the Washington insider game. Make these money-hungry Democrat and Republican bastards accountable to teh people, not those who hold shares in their careers. Washington is one big power game between the Democrats & Republicans and WE are the only losers.
Any and all restrictions you put on the raising of money for politics has only one effect: it makes it harder to dislodge incumnents. They already have name recognition and the power of government on their side. What we should do is get rid of ALL campaign finance regulations but one the candidate must list all contributors and the amount they contributed as soon as possible on the internet. If some evil company is financing an election, let the voters decide if that's a problem.
What about freedom of association? It's wrong for a group of people to get together and pool their resources so they can afford to buy some advertising to get their message heard? Ridiculous. TV is the medium of the people. If you want to reach the average Joe, that's where you have to go. Can't argue much there. But who can blame the politicians. If they actually take a position on an issue, it simply gives the other side something to attack. Look at Bush and Social Security. Everyone knows it is in need of reform and will go broke if nothing is done. Bush makes a proposal and his opponents simply demonize him without any serious proposals of their own. Much safer to campaign on platitudes and apple pie. Blaming the format used is barking up the wrong tree. Politicians will peddle the same pap regardless of the medium used. Look at politics before the invention of the evil TV. Let's go one better. How about a literacy test one must take before voting. That should take care of all those undesirable TV watching slugs.
When you allow politicians to be legally bought you take the power away from the people in general and hand it up to the highest bidder. Plus, talk about censorship... If you allow shit like the $500 Million dollar coporate-backed party-sponsored presidential campaigns, what chance does anyone other than the party's favorite boy have to run a successful campaign? The power shoud not be in the hands a of the powerful elite few, it should be in the hands of the general populace. This was the vision of the people who started this country in opposition to taxation without representation and the monarchy. This is the point of democracy. Anything less stands against what America is suppoosed to stand for and stands against individual freedoms, because you and your freedoms are on the table for negotiation. Money has no place in politics, except in balancing the budget as the bankers of the people's common trust fund. These changes would force people to run only on their political positions and not be able to run a campaign without popular support. I don;t see how it only helps the incumbents stay in power because you can certainly run a good campaign that informs the public to run against an incumbent with the same campaign restrictions placed on him or her. The one advantage I can see the incumbent having is if he or she misused radio/television airtime to campaign and the laws could be written very cleanly to protect against that. What other advantage would the incumbent have? Exposure during his/her term would be positive if he or she was good (therefore deserved) and negative if he or she was bad (also deserved).
madanthonywayne, I have to admit you made some valid points about medium. I still stand firm on finance reform, however.
Joe has got to change. The TV advertisements are deceptive. Were lucky if they give us half truths. I don't want Joe thinking that he is informed if he is not informed. In my opinion Joes understanding will be closer to the truth if he never saw the advertisements.
As madanthonywayne said, however, campaigns were just as corrupt and full of lies before TV and Media, and at least we can control and regulate content there. Anyone can place anyting on a flyer and say, "I don;t know who printed these up. Certainly not someone from MY campaign. Here are my reciepts." I think a way to enforce truth in advertizing and possibly disuade negative ads. I read that in Germany (this was a few years back, so I don't know if the laws have changed) it was illegal to mention the name of your competitor or it's attributes in an ad. If you could not seel your product based on its own merits and strengths you were not free to sell it by degrading another's. Perhaps applying a similar rule to this would help. I am not sure how you would qualify truth to enforce it however. You can hadly even get two newspapers to agree. Plus, when campaign speeches are all about what the person believes and wants to see accomplished how do you sanctify that as truth?
Like Move on.org and Swiftboat Vets? Maybe NGO's should be able to run their own ads but organizations should not be a way to get arround campaign finance laws. There is no reason that a person should need to give money to a organization that then passes the money on to a pilitcians campaign. Any organization running political ads should not be allowed to recieve money from anybody but real people. A Ceo can beg his employees and stockholders to give money to a certain politcian but the corporation not be allowed to give money. The Siera club should be allowed to beg it's members to give but should not be allowed to give itself. Trying to stop legal bribery without hurting free speach is tricky. They used to use volunteers and have meetings in peoples home and organize networks of connected people. That shrunk after TV. I want them to need mobilized people in order to reach lazy TV Joe.
Swiftboat ran, It was disninformation. On Tv you can tell something that makes everybody here a lie. It is legal as long as it could be interpretted in another way that is not a lie. It is also legal to lie on tv if nobody can prove that you knew you were lying. I don't want to stop criticism of the opponent. Maybe the flyer must say who made it and have a link to who funded it if it comes out in the month before the election. There might be a situation where a whistle blower must be anonymous but perhaps he could get his info out in a non election month.
I don't think NGO's should be able to run political ads. If you want to write a "letter to the editor" call into a radio show, post your thoughts on the internet, write a book or exercise your freedom of speech in any other way, more power to you. I DO think that all organizations that want to call themselves "news organizations" should be Non Profit organizations with limitations on how much executives and "personalities" can be paid and only news organizations should be allowed to call the shows they produce and what the put out in print "news". Anyone who does not have "news organization" status should have to make it clear that they are NOT news. Legislation should be introduced to address the problem of Fox News suing for the right to lie if they want to and winning (it happened).
There can be no campaigns without money. Running for a statewide or national post requires the use of mass media which is quite expensive. Therefore, restricting money=restricting speech. Incumbents will always have the advantage in campaign financing because they are already in power. Every group or individual with money to donate would sooner donate to the person in power than one of a group of challengers. Furthermore, they're the ones who write the rules of any "reform", so they always set things up to their own advantage. McCarthy's campaign was almost entirely financed by one guy. So long as everyone knows it, what's the problem? Steve Forbes has some good ideas [flat tax] but suffers from the disadvantage of being a nerd with thick glasses. Instead of running himself [as he has done a few times], why can't he find some like minded but telegenic person and finance his campaign? The same goes for Ross Perot. Get rid of all campaign finance laws except for immediate reporting of all donations and let the voters decide.
So if you're running against a NAZI, you can't mention that he's a NAZI? David Duke ran for, I think, the Senate. He never mentioned the fact that he was in the KKK in his campaign ads or appearances. With that rule, his opponent couldn't mention it either and he might have won. You're running against a member of the Klan. The best reason someone would probably have to vote for you is that the other guys in the KKK, but you can't mention it?
