Public Campaign Action Fund - Public Financing - Comments

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Wed, 14 May 2008 00:11:31 -0500

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Sen. McCain is a military

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:27:54 -0500

Sen. McCain is a military man, yet the only military presence that I was aware of was the NJROTC cadets... Are there any pictures of them with him?

what happened to the letter

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:37:07 -0500

Is the Willard Hotel named after the rat? When I want to make sure a letter gets into a person's hands, I send it certified mail and pay the extra dollar fifteen to get the addressee's signature on it.

Self-financing is not bad!

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:18:03 -0500

It may be an unpopular opinion on this blog, but I believe there's a big distinction between self-financed campaigns, which are often good, and corporately financed campaigns, which are almost always bad.

When we choose a physician, a lawyer, or a carpenter, we seek competence. We don't worry too much about whether anyone has the opportunity to enter one of those occupations. Political office should be the same way: we, the public, should seek to hire the most competent legislators. Equality of opportunity to run for office is not quite as vital a principle as it may first seem. The essential thing is getting the best.

There are quite a few political figures who have leveraged their personal fortunes into electoral success. And although some of them are almost comically unqualified -- think Ronald Lauder running for governor of New York -- a remarkable number of them are truly admirable politicians. I think of Senators Herb Kohl, Jay Rockefeller, and (previously Senator) Jon Corzine, as well as Michael Bloomberg of New York. They are idealistic and incorruptible, because they don't need the money that would corrupt them. And when we look at the history of rich people in politics, we have to think of FDR. There are also, of course, people like Ross Perot and Mitt Romney in that boat also, so self-financing is no guarantee of enlightment, but it does skew the odds in that direction.

Individual contributions are an interesting case. The idea of a candidate gaining office through many small contributions is appealing, but all too often individual contributions are a front for corporate interests, particularly when bundling is involved.

So the best solution might be to allow self-financed campaigns and publicly financed campaigns, but nothing else.

FAIR ELECTIONS

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:26:31 -0500

BRAVO!

RICO war think tanks and foreign lobbies

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:10:42 -0500

They are violationg treason, RICO, FARA, and non-profit laws. RICO and ban these war think tanks and foreign lobbies .

Public Finance Survey

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:32:11 -0500

I agree with you. Why is it that only McCain's ties with lobbyists are mentioned in the survey that I took for Public Campaign Action Fund? Hillary and many other Democrats are just as bad when it comes to perpetuating influence from lobbyists by taking their dirty money. She's become soft on Health Care reform and credit card companies due to her ties with lobbyists, not because of lessons learned from her first show down with insurance companies. In addition, Obama originally said that he would not allow the insurance companies to buy all the seats at the table when it came to health care reform (I attended the speech in San Diego), only to turn around and sell the insurance companies 2/3 of the seats. No health care reform will work without some serious controls on health care costs. Otherwise, we need to have a strong Public Campaign Finance system is this country. However, this will never happen with the two parties controlling the rules. Heck, even unions don't support Public Campaign Financing (they voted against it in California) even though it would be more beneficial to them. I've grown tired of everybody begging money from me to start their campaigns. I can't afford to anymore!!!

Reform-ulate entire system

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:14:54 -0500

You make some good points, Mark, but I think the flaws run deeper than you indicate. Many of them are rooted in the antiquated winner-take-all system we inherited from our 18th century predecessors. This system more or less guarantees a monopoly on elected office to the two establishment parties. This, in turn, means that they tend to drift towards each other and worry much more about winning elections than about actual policy.

Fortunately, we don't have to re-invent the wheel. The proportional parliamentary system has already been developed, experimented with, and, if not perfected, at least improved to something a lot closer to democracy than what we have here. For one thing, when parties don't enjoy a monopoly on power, they have to start "selling" a product to the electorate. They have to develop clearly articulated policy stances and approaches that differentiate them from each other, and they can afford to more closely follow the courage of their convictions, knowing that someone out there will agree with them.

Does this fix everything? No. But it would represent one hell of a start towards fixing things.

The beauty of it is that Congress could start by standing up to the administration as many European parliaments did in the 19th century, and refusing to approve any cabinet except the one that Congress itself selects. This would bring in parliamentarianism, in which the legislative branch controls the executive. The second step would be a constitutional amendment instituting proportional representation.

In such a system a president elected by the Electoral College wouldn't be such a problem, as s/he would have little power. An independent, appointed judiciary would be a good thing. And tight reins on election financing could hopefully limit the role of the corporate elite in the governing of the people.

Supreme Court Just does not GET IT

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:55:48 -0500

Unlimited campaign spending by one candidate is akin to your neighbor constantly bombarding you with excessively loud music at all hours of the night. Both are equivalent in its effectiveness in limiting effective free and equal speech!

Money an object of demise in a nu aged democracy: BIG 'n' DEEP !

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:45:40 -0500

Money measures guilt. Democracy evolves as thrills. When money subsides in toilous shares. All deficits are pointed towards a human relegated rights auctioned at the altar of harm reduction, insights ! Que in a fresh dose of ailing democarcy which in itself...needs a NEW aged facebook today, past conformed sleep-overs...basis of todays'.. common courtesy of no bondednes but lusted unloved human face book of all democracy based rhetorical...thus...MAJOR HI % waste of human breath ...so called LIBERATION ....baseless... conundrums !

Presidential Election Campaign Fund $1

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:29:00 -0500

Wiki this for starters. It's been around as long as I can remember. It's a no-brainer!

Only changes to this fund:

1. minimum SIGNATURES, not DOLLARS! This is the no-brainer part! It never has been and never shall be (on my watch anyway) "one dollar, one vote"!!

2. presidential AND congressional elections!

3. SOLE SOURCE OF CAMPAIGN FUNDS! Watch the media outlets trip over themselves going after a couple pennies rather than a couple hundred thousand $! Same principle as "single-payer healthcare", see: suddenly, like magic, appears a BUYER'S (us the taxpayers) market as it should be rather than a SELLER'S market (the candidate with the most money gets the ad).

Did I mention this was a no-brainer?

Clean elections

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:26:11 -0500

Mark E. Smith--you have stated exactly what millions of us feel. Thank you. Wmericans are sick of this entire greedy, corrupt and bias system filled with long-term self appointed hedonistic b-----rds.

public campaign action fund

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:11:57 -0500

Right on Mark E Smith I couldn't put it any better.

At a minimum....

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:42:48 -0500

....we need a new Constitution that allows us to vote directly for President and Vice-President, and the power to directly recall all elected officials. The Supreme Court has to be an elected rather than an appointed position. Of course we need to bar all corporations for participating in elections in any way, shape, or form, which means no corporate manufactured or programmed voting machines, no corporate donations, and no corporate decisions regarding media coverage. We need to abolish the Electoral College and bar the Supreme Court from intervening in elections. We do need publicly-funded elections and ranked-choice voting so that all candidates have an equal chance and no votes are wasted. We need to ban anyone with ties to political campaigns from being an election official or a Secretary of State. We need to get rid of our corrupt Justice Department and the corrupt judges and District Attorneys so that violations of election codes can be prosecuted and punished. We need to get rid of gerrymandered districting. We need citizen oversight and total transparency of all aspects of election procedures -- no votes can be counted secretly behind locked doors or inside computers that can be undetectably hacked. No person should be sworn into office before all votes are counted, audits and recounts have been performed if necessary, and the election has been certified -- by the citizens, not by elections officials who may have manipulated the hand-counted ballots to match the machine counts. Ballots must have a secure, citizen-controlled chain-of-custody at all times and never be left in the sold custody of elections officials. Currently, the military-industrial complex selects the candidates by bankrolling their favorites and denying media coverage to those they disfavor, so all candidates with a chance of winning are pro-war. That, and the fact that we do not have free and fair elections, is why I no longer vote. As long as people continue to vote for pre-selected candidates who are all pro-war, in sham elections where we can never know for sure if our votes were counted or were counted accurately, and where unelected candidates cannot be removed from office merely because evidence that they did not win is uncovered after they've been sworn in, we will continue to have a rogue, outlaw nation that has torture and crimes against humanity as national policy. If we really want peace and the rule of law, we have to stop voting in sham elections and refuse to vote until we get free and fair elections. There is no element of our system that is not deeply flawed, irreparably corrupted, or totally broken. It cannot be reformed -- we need a new system.

Campaign Financing

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:33:05 -0500

I believe corporate contributions to political campaigns at ANY level should be illegal and punishable by severe fines (up to the amount of the contribution, and perhaps more) AND imprisonment of the corporate officer who authorized the contribution. I believe that any candidate for elective office who accepts such contributions, or refuses to return them once their source is determined, should likewise be put on trial for corruption and, if found guilty, summarily imprisoned. I believe that corporate lobbying of politicians/officeholders should be criminalized amd punishable by severe fines. Corporate involvement in the American political/electoral process is NOT "Free Speech" - it is nothing less than Bribery, Soliciting to Commit Bribery, Conspiracy to Solicit/Commit Bribery, subverting our democratic system for purely selfish, nefarious, and malevolent purposes. If Corporate America wants "free speech", they can buy it just like everybody else. Let them buy commercials, PSAs, full-page ads, and web-spam - NOT politicians!!