The past election threads have gotten kind of excessive, so I thought I would start my own FIRST thread. Topic: Money involved in elections To me, a lot of the problems with the national and state elections stem from the enormous amount of money involved. Special interests dump millions of dollars in the elections, and quite often, the one with the most money wins. Imo, not the best way. Also, then the elected official is beholden to the donors. What if......... the money donated to the elections was donated to the particular race, but instead of going to one or the other, it was used to develop a system of "candidate introductions", maybe debates or even individual "commercials", but evenly distributed among all of the candidates. I'm sure there are holes in the theory, but maybe we could come up with some solutions that would take the control out of the money. Sure, there wouldn't be as much money donated, but we could use taxpayer money to promote all of the candidates at some level, at least enough to hold debates, where the voters could make their selection based on the merits of the candidates instead of how many deceptive commercials they are innundated with. Too often, the Democrats or the Republicans can financially just shove the smaller guys/gals out of the way. Many of the independent politicians seem to be very level headed and seem to be more willing to compromise to get things done, willing to reach a consensus. So many things in this country get shoved under the rug because the two sides can't come up with a consensus. Imho, the founding fathers realized the importance of reaching a consensus, and that is what they had in mind by setting up our government the way they did. I don't think they thought about corporations that have more financial assets than most countries in the world, not to mention how much money would eventually be involved in elections. Whadyathink?
I would love to get money out of politics. I do not trust the system to do it. Regardless how much we regulate it, the banks and corporations and wealthy interests are going to prop up their candidate with their money. Even if its just by banning the oppositions supporters on social media as 'inflamatory' while pushing their candidates supporters to the top of the feed. The corrupt system can't fix the corrupt system. At this point I think we're all better off with as little regulation as possible until we're able to wrest some it back from the elite controllers.
One person, one vote how hard is that? And no dead people voting. Yet our politicians still don't have a clue about running an election. We need term limits so we can get these dolts out of our government.
Social media has complicated things greatly. You never know really who is pushing what, and most people don't take the time to really investigate, even then you are putting a certain amount of trust in the source. Critical thinking skills seem to be on the decline, I attribute it to the internet.
I did. a lot of research on this and much of what you say isn't accurate. 1. It is a myth that who has the most money wins. There are 3 things a campaign needs money for. Advertising, staffing, and travel/rental. Money is only useful until you can cover these three things. If you can't you will be at a disadvantage. Money spent on top of this has been shown to produce negative results as in you are overflooding the voters. Knowing where this cutoff line for your race is what makes a good campaign manager. There are countless elections that show candidates losing support by overspending. 2. Campaigns are extremely expensive to run now especially advertising because it is not regulated. This means a station can charge a campaign ten times the normal amount because there is no return expected unlike with advertisers. Very few campaigns end up with money left over. 3. Campaign funds are under the control of the FEC and it is extremely difficult to use that money for anything other than your campaign. Any money left over must be given to your national party or saved for a future campaign for the candidate. If they want personal donations they have to set up certain funds not tied to the campaign. There actually is no problem between money and our elections other than for those who don't have enough for the basic three. 4. A final note is this. It is rare for big donors to support only one candidate, most support many on both sides, this ensures their lobby has a better chance to be heard regardless of who wins. The Koch bros dump millions into liberal causes as well as conservative ones. As candidates gain traction they get more donations. So money is not as destructive as many would have you believe.
First off, thank you for your research. But I think you missed the point. You didn't include your research source, but it seems like you're comparing campaigns that are big and bigger, moneywise. My point is that the Democrats and Republicans have lots of money for those things mentioned, particularly on a national scale such as for president. But the little guys, independents, green party, even the libertarians and many others get just run over in presidential and congessional races by the big money from the big two. Also, in your scenario, the elected politicians are still beholden to the corporate donors. It is a difficult thing to do, given that tradition and laws are entrenched, not to mention that those who would have to make the changes would be the ones who would be hindered by such decisions making it unlikely, but it seemed like something fun to discuss instead of the current fiasco the presidential election is turning out to be.
They get run over not because of money but that their politics will never appeal to enough voters. If it did then big money would follow so I think you have that reversed.
You have some good ideas, but you can't really have a discussion on money in politics without mentioning the Citizens United decision. Unless the SCOTUS reverses that decision, you may as well be spitting into the wind.
Good post, however, in my opinion the "dark money" path of political donations is an evil we brought upon ourselves when the SCOTUS gave us the Citizens United decision, essentially saying that corporations are people and are entitled to the protections of the 1st Amendment. Since then, the money pouring in and controlling which candidates we have to choose from has become obscenely controlling. It is very difficult to get really good candidates for office. We tend to populate our ballots with those who have been vetted by, and have the approval of, the biggest donors, be those individuals or PACs. I don't like that. I'd like to see a more level playing field, especially for other so-called third party candidates. Not sure how to accomplish that, but what we have now is not equitable for all.
No we don't. Term limits means you can make your living solely by selling your influence and becoming millionaires. You know there's more millionaire politicians than Hollywood stars by a long shot. And they're not all Republicans (see Clintons, Obamas, Bidens, Pelosi I could go on).
If the people of any state or district keep voting for the same crook, they get the government they deserve. Taking the money out of politics is an entirely different can of worms. If any of our governing bodies are in need of term limits, I'd say it was federal judges who currently get lifetime appointments.
