On Sat, 2004-12-18 at 10:42 -0800, Lowell C. Savage wrote: > >From the NY Times. > > A few highlights. George Soros contributed $23.7 million. The Swift Boat > Veterans for Truth spent $22.4 million. I'm sure more money will be spent > on politics in 2006 and even more in 2008. However, there is plenty of > evidence that we are approaching saturation--i.e. the point at which > additional dollars don't do much to move votes.
It's long been a myth that money wins elections. Funny thing; numbers. When you start looking at the data, it shows that slightly more often than not, the biggest spender lost. IMO, the focus on money is a red herring. It is perpetuated by the higher power politicians because they know we will focus on it and thus avoid looking further. Third party candidates get so wrapped up on it they lose sight of how to win. They create dollar/vote charts and other such stuff that they forget how the Republicans and Democrats came into power in the first place: networking. Far too often third party candidates think to get name recognition they have to blast their message out. This is not true. Modern physics shows us through network science that our society becomes like a hub and spoke model. The same science that shows us how to practically, if not totally, eradicate certain communicative diseases (such as STDs an non-common-cold items), or prevent epidemics from spreading shows us how to change political power holders. Here is where Lowell is right on. The not enough money problem. The problem as I see it isn't there being too little money, but that it is being artificially dispersed. The real effect of campaign contribution limits is to inhibit network operation. I know people who could (and indeed under certain circumstances *would*) individually fund my campaign to levels higher than my opponent in state elections. Does my opponent have the same connections? Undoubtedly. But as Lowell states, there is a saturation point. Artificially limiting the ability of individuals to fund political operations simply inhibits the small world operations from reaching that saturation point. That is why one of the single most effective ways to effect reform is to remove the contribution caps. Period. There are a whole host of benefits that can be argued, but the single largest effect such an accomplishment would do is to boost the "smaller parties" visibility, and demonstrate that money isn't the answer to getting political traction. Cheers, Bill -- Random Fortune of the moment: Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through any of its streets. _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
