Should presidential campaigns be limited to the extremely rich (as they currently are)?
A suggestion for leveling the playing field is to get rid of campaign financing altogether and have the federal government pay for [insert gasp here] a specified maximum number of campaign rallies, commercials, etc - the candidates would not be allowed to do more than that maximum number. The effect would be to separate candidates from special interest groups, so that they don’t have to spend their entire presidency fulfilling promises to companies that have no interest in the specific issues that actually got them elected. On the state level, congressmen would be free to support their constituents in the House and Senate, rather than support their primary campaign providers.
If this sounds ludicrous, what alternatives are there? How can we keep candidates interested in their constituents rather than the special interest groups and companies that currently own the candidates?
What needs to happen is to get rid of the primary election system and go back to candidate nominations occuring at the party conventions in smoke-filled rooms. The current primary system is garbage, and the reason why is similiar in nature to what you are complaining about - mainly, the candidates must focus time and energy on raising money and appealing to party-base voters while maintaining centrist positions. Essentially, what a candidate is trying to do in a primary is convince the biggest idiot in the room to vote for him.
In part it might be a symptom of the fact that politicians have so much power over the economy, thus making it advantageous to have one’s own “man in Washington”. Changing the rules to reduce the influence of people with money, while retaining the excessive power that politicians have over such wealthy people, would not be a fundamental change. On balance, history would tell us that power of the proletariat is often worse than power wielded by corrupt businessmen.
What needs to happen is to get rid of the primary election system and go back to candidate nominations occuring at the party conventions in smoke-filled rooms. The current primary system is garbage, and the reason why is similiar in nature to what you are complaining about - mainly, the candidates must focus time and energy on raising money and appealing to party-base voters while maintaining centrist positions. Essentially, what a candidate is trying to do in a primary is convince the biggest idiot in the room to vote for him.
I agree with you in that respect, but what would happen after party nominations? The candidates would still need money for advertisements. That money comes from groups who were guaranteed that their interests will be higher priority than those of the people.
I agree with you in that respect, but what would happen after party nominations? The candidates would still need money for advertisements. That money comes from groups who were guaranteed that their interests will be higher priority than those of the people.
Political clout and economic power must be kept seperate, which is why the concept of a constitutional republic is more important than the concept of democracy. Everyone must be subject to the rule of law primarily, and the people hold this in balance by electing officials to legislate and enforce the law, but not to interpret the law. This means that an elected official can accept donations from whomever he desires, but he is ultimately bound by rule of law. This law states that an office-holder cannot force government to enter into a business it should not be in, i.e. seperation of economics and state. When government does enter business it should not be in, you will find businessmen conniving with elected officials in order to get favorable treatment. But this is merely an inevitable consequence of large government and nothing else, and the problem has to be addressed at that level first.
A big part of the problem is the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance “Reform” laws. the idea was to get money out of politics (a flawed idea to begin with, because what we need is to get politics out money), but it has worked to make it impossible for anyone but the rich to run for much of anything (or people with a large political organization like the Clintons).
The real problem, as we all know, is how much of the economy is influenced by politics. If Microsoft or Ford had nothing to gain by influencing politicians, that would reduce the costs of all campaigns right away.
The primaries bother me, too. Essentially the winner has to run twice, once for candidate and once for president. That’s too hard and unnecessary. On the other hand, do we want party hacks dominating the executive branch of government? I’d like to see a shorter primary, carried out nationwide over a period of two weeks at most. Perhaps with a more informal voting system, say through the itnernet, or opened for several days.
A big part of the problem is the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance “Reform” laws. the idea was to get money out of politics (a flawed idea to begin with, because what we need is to get politics out money), but it has worked to make it impossible for anyone but the rich to run for much of anything (or people with a large political organization like the Clintons).
The real problem, as we all know, is how much of the economy is influenced by politics. If Microsoft or Ford had nothing to gain by influencing politicians, that would reduce the costs of all campaigns right away.
The primaries bother me, too. Essentially the winner has to run twice, once for candidate and once for president. That’s too hard and unnecessary. On the other hand, do we want party hacks dominating the executive branch of government? I’d like to see a shorter primary, carried out nationwide over a period of two weeks at most. Perhaps with a more informal voting system, say through the itnernet, or opened for several days.
Great post! Even if the costs of a campaign could be reduced, it still remains true that “getting the word out” requires lots of money - for commercials, rallies, etc. The only people capable of being elected are the ones that are either rich or able to quickly gather large sums of money - ie those with connections to the rich. This doesn’t seem like something that could ever change, does it?