"John D. Giorgis" wrote:
>
> 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.
My point was that it CAN be done. It HAS been done. Nader had stadium
apeeches. Perot had his infomercials with pie charts. Other candidates
can find creative solutions such as those which would fit their energy
level and speech style.
> >> >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.
That fact works more against you than for you. These "Electors"
know that they have NO chance for accountability. All they have to
do is announce their decision, then they're in the clear. Also
the true depths of their poor decision won't be known until long
after their term has ended.
> 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.
How would they be responsible to anybody? All they have to do is
make enough promises to get elected, and then do whatever they feel
like doing. All you've done is reduce the number of people that
special interest groups need to dump money and favors on to buy
influence. The "Elector" who gets voted in by his district only
has one task. There's no way to get rid of him in time once elected,
and now the special interest groups only have 435 people to "convince"
for the entire national election.
Sure, it reduces the total amount of money involved, but does
nothing to curb its influence.
> >> >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.
The problem people have with large contributors is the same problem
people have with bribes. The only reason they are not called bribes
is because there is an existing legal definition. Having many small
donations considerably reduces any possible effect of any one donation,
and gives individuals with small pockets a better chance make their
voice heard compared to before when their voices are drowned out by
buckets of money coming from rich special interests.
As for special interest groups such as "The friends of...", they should
be limited to either zero contact with the main campaign, or we should
find some way to limit their influence on the candidate to the same
as the same number of average citizens who make donations to the
campaign.
> 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.
All you do is reduce the amount of money, not its influence.
> >> >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.
>
Did you count the opportunity cost of the man-hours spent by each
campaign in your totals? Your example was in a scope small enough
that door-to-door canvassing could be done by an office of volunteers.
It's also entirely possible that the opposing candidate was trying
to push an unpopular message for your area.
> >> >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.
If you want to talk about "should," then I'd say that every political
system "should" come up with responsible, reasonable leaders.
No, they're not accountable in your system. Not really. They would be
chosen do do only one task, to make a decision that binds the entire
country to have to accept whomever they choose as president. There's
no way short of impeachment to correct their mistakes. Also, once they
choose a president, their term as "Elector" is ended, removing pretty
much
all of the tools of accountability for the general public except the
lynch mob.
Sure the current electoral system has a layer of abstraction. But at
least they are told by the public whom to vote for. The biggest problem
I have with your system is that there's nothing stopping your select
group of "Electors" from making their decision based on considerations
other than the greatest public good.
-- Matt Grimaldi
Just be glad I'm not going into how it will furthur alienate people
from the election process. In your plan they really wouldn't have
any say in who gets elected, as opposed to merely feeling like they
have no say.
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