At 06:55 PM 2/6/01 -0800, Matt wrote:
>There was a candidate who demonstrated how to raise money
>while at the same time reaching the public -- by holding
>rallies and speeches in large stadiums and charging <$50
>per ticket.
I do not think that this is readily applicable model to all candidates.
Its nice that it worked for this one guy, but it would take an awful lot
of effort - and a bunch of crazies who would regularly pay $50 for a
political speech in a stadium to pull it off. I don't think that such
candidates would regularly be competitive.
>> >McCain, like almost all other observers, have proposed solving
>> >this problem by attacking the money- the source of money, how
>> >money is raised, how it is spent, etc. I think McCain has
>> >got it all wrong, however. Besides the fact that getting
>> >money out of politics is virtually impossible thanks to our
>> >1st Amendment, I think attacking the money is akin to taking
>> >on the flu by finding a cure for the runny nose.
>
>But the "flu" is undue influence on the eventual president. How
>would reducing the number of people who make that decision fix
>the problem?
Because the people who voted for the President the first time around, would
be very unlikely to be responsible for the Presiden't re-election.
Moreover, the electors would have their own responsibilities to their
constituents. In smaller voting aggregates, the individual voter has much
greater say in the eventual outcome.
>> >The problem is that it is entirely reasonable that a candidate
>> >should need to expend lots of money to reach a nation of 270
>> >million people. Shouldn't spending so much as $5 or $10 per
>> >voter be entirely resonable for a man or woman who would want
>> >our votes to become President?
>
>It is *not* entirely reasonable to have to buy time on media
>which is really part of the public domain. Perhaps each candidate
>should get a minimum commercial-free allotment of time to address
>the nation, pre-empting whatever programming would have been on
>at the time.
At which point, everyone goes and watches cable. :)
What makes you think that free air time would reduce political fundraising?
Would you preclude candidates who accept free air time from running their
own political ads? What then will prevent a group from forming called
"The Friends of George W. Bush", who collect donations, purchase air time,
and use their 1st Amendment Rights to air political messages on the
purchased air time?
Or, if you use this idea that because the airwaves are the public domain,
we can prohibit any political message from being broadcast on the airwaves
- what is to prevent "The Friends of George W. Bush" from collecting
donations and hiring an army of full-time campaign workers to go to ever
door in FL, PA, and MI before the election? O.k., so maybe door-to-door
campaigning is better in your mind than 30 second ads, but even so, George
W. Bush would still be just as beholden to his donors.
It is profound arrogance to believe that money can be taken out of
politics. It just can't happen. What is possible, however, is to reduce
the correlation between fund-raising and winning. If there is not a
strong correlation between fund-raising and victory, then the influence of
the money is reduced. That correlation is reduced by making the voting
aggregates as small as possible, as time after time has shown that money
does not have a decisive impact on small races.
>> >Why not, then, eliminate the need for one person to try and
>> >reach so many voters at once? It has been identified time
>> >and time again that the more local the election, to less
>> >important is the money to success. Rather, in local elections
>> >things like personal contacts, even personal meetings
>> >with candidates, matter a lot. Phone calls, town hall
>> >meetings, electioneering, etc. can all really turn a local race.
>
>What you describe has the same flu as national elections. The
>only difference is the scope is so small that it's hard for
>anyone but the victims to care about it.
Thats just not ture, there are numerous examples of well-funded candidates
falling to virtual unknowns in local races. There are a decent number of
examples for Congressional Races. There are almost no examples for Senate
and Governor races. Just one example: I worked in a Congressional race
where my candidate was outspent by $1million to $100,000, and we pulled
three times the vote.
>> >So, how do we make all of our races local? Easy...
><snip description of process>
>
>You still didn't even address concerns over fairness,
>accountability, or participation. I'll ask again, would
>you stand behind and endorse whomever this group chose as
>candidate, even if they chose the very, very last person
>you would ever want to see become president?
Yes. I mean, I would stand by our process if Al Gore were elected, which
is the same thing that you describe. But remember, the Presidential
electors are accountable. Ralph Nader is not going to become President
unless people are electing an awful lot of Green-sympathizers to Congress.
As it is, the Electoral College will look roughly like the Congress
(thanks to the coin flip). This should produce a reasonable President.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"The point of living in a Republic after all, is that we do not live by
majority rule. We live by laws and a variety of isntitutions designed
to check each other." -Andrew Sullivan 01/29/01
