should money = free speech in elections?

[wheels]

until the supreme court's ruling that money=free speech is overturned, isn't it a little silly to debate the "differences" between dems and republicans in this presidential election?

what do you think?

[Easy Mac]

you may have to flesh out what you mean a little more.

[wheels]

there should be no financial contributions of any kind in any election, for any office. everything should be publicly financed.

[JonInMiddleGA]

everything should be publicly financed.

Not just no, but HELL NO!

The fox is already in charge of the hen house, no sense sharpening his teeth even more.

{not to mention forcing me to fund candidates that I do not support via this "public financing"}

[wig]

What's your alternative?

[wheels]

Originally Posted by wig

What's your alternative?

all elections fully financed by the public

[Easy Mac]

You contradict yourself. Doesn't public financing mean that all money is supplied by the public. If your arguing for government being the only thing to finance the campaign, then yes there is some free speech stuff going on. However, I haven't seen anyone advocating that position.

Most of the postions I have seen are based on 2 points. 1) That people should only be allowed to donate x amount of money to any campaign. The counter is that a person should give as much as they like to a campaign. To me, this is not curbing free speech. This is curbing influence. Donating money is a form a free speech, but there is no one saying you can't donate. Its intended to curtial someone buying the election or installing a puppet regime (i.e. one "special" interest weilding entire control.

The other argument 2) is that there should be a cap on campaign spending. Obviously there should be no limit there. If G-Dub can raise $5 billion (from varying sources obviously), then spend away, good job for you. To cap a candidates spending is violating their free speech IMHO.

MAybe I haven't paid attention, but I dn't really see anyone mention that everything should be financed by the government.

[Axxon]

If everything is funded by the government then how would you determine who gets funded? You can't just fund everybody who wants to run without it being prohibitively costly and a logistical nightmare.

If you draw a limit then you would be stifling the rights of independant candidates and what do you base that on? You can't guage a candidates viability before they campaign after all and campaigning costs money.

I don't think this one makes very much sense but it does sound nice in theory.

[Airhog]

maybe the government shouldnt fund any money to any candidate. And there should be a limit too the amount of money a person recieves from any one individual or business

[Greyroofoo]

there should be a solid cap on what candidates should be allowed to spend

[tucker342]

I agree with Easy Mac

[Fritz]

It is a good morning when I read a thread that makes me burst out laughing.

Nothing but public financing..... that is a good one

[oykib]

James Carville had a novel idea that seems at first to be as whacky as he is, but makes more sense than what we've got now.

He basically came up with a plan wherein incumbents could accept no private funding. They would recieve 85% of the funding of their strongest competitor from the government-- the 15% difference owing to the inherent benefit of running as an incumbent.

He theorized that it would allow people in office to do their jobs without taking fund-raising breaks every other day. It would also lessen the amount that they'd be beholden to the special interests that they take the money from.

The challengers'd have no cap on the total amount of money they could raise. They'd also have no cap on the amount they could accept from individual doners. The only regulation would be that all the money was "hard" money and the donors had to be part of public record. So you could take $10 million from the UAW if you wanted. But, then, everyone would know on which side your bread was butttered.

The result would be that candidates real agendas would become clear. Also, when they got in office, they'd be indebted to a few special interests that were much closer to their core principles, rather than many various interests that they'd have to continue pandering to in order to be re-elected.

[Fritz]

paid for by the friends of the guy who can not raise the money to do ____ the old fashioned way. We have no official connection *wink wink* to his campaign.

[HornedFrog Purple]

wanting more government intervention in the one thing they should not be involved in is insanity... just my opinion

Government intervention is the main reason why there are only two parties to begin with.

[Fritz]

Originally Posted by HornedFrog Purple

Government intervention is the main reason why there are only two parties to begin with.

How many parties do you think can afford all the baloons you need just to have a primary convention?

The Libs tried having each person bring one baloon to their Muncie, Indiana covention, but half the people did want to (which a-okay with the libs) and half of the others said they would rather go to New Orleans and look at titties (which is okay too).

[Fritz]

also - what numbskull equates free speech with free distribution of speech?

(I got a wicked case of the hools going today)

[HornedFrog Purple]

but they got on C-Span!

Nobody cares about balloons anymore, just how many bands you can have outside the convention center.

[Abe Sargent]

There is no need for campaign finance reform. If voters voted on real items like issues instead of soundbites, exposure would no longer be a top priority. Then candidates would not need so much money. If voters want reform, they can simply choose to vote (Many are not voting currently) or vote with some sort of meaning. No campaign finance reform idea will ever work, because what is really needed is voter reform. Until that happens, voters get the system that they set up.


-Anxiety

[wig]

What about freedom of soundbites?

[HornedFrog Purple]

Don't scare Rush Limbaugh like that...

[wheels]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

Donating money is a form a free speech, but there is no one saying you can't donate. Its intended to curtial someone buying the election or installing a puppet regime (i.e. one "special" interest weilding entire control.

you're right. no one is saying you can't donate. but consider the following:
less than one percent of the u.s. population contributes 80% of the money in federal elections. besides, there are a vast majority of people who cannot afford to do so. i guess this "free speech" isn't as free as it seems.

my point is that it's so prohibitively expensive to run a campaign, that voters have been left with two choices. and i believe that the high cost is directly related to television and other media exposure costs.

at the very least, the networks, who profit from publicly owned airwaves, should be mandated to allow free air time to candidates. at least this would allow for more diverse debate and loosen the grip of our current two-party system.

[wheels]

interesting voting so far.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by wheels

at the very least, the networks, who profit from publicly owned airwaves, should be mandated to allow free air time to candidates. at least this would allow for more diverse debate and loosen the grip of our current two-party system.

If you mandate that, then they will no longer profit from it. Where do you stop at who should get free air time. All I have to do is say I'm running for president and I can get free air time.

[Peregrine]

my point is that it's so prohibitively expensive to run a campaign, that voters have been left with two choices. and i believe that the high cost is directly related to television and other media exposure costs

This is an extremely good point, I read an article a while back on this subject, which discussed the huge amounts of money that TV networks and other media companies make from elections. They keep jacking up the price year after year, and since the politicos don't have many options, they have to pay it. If the networks and other companies provided at least some airtime at low cost to all candidates(subsidized by the government's public financing monies, for example) it would be a step forward IMO.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Actually Peregrine, media outlets licensed & regulated by the government already provide "low cost" airtime to political candidates for federal offices. That is, "low cost" compared to the rates paid by regular commercial advertisers.

The provision is usually just referred to by it's short name -- Lowest Unit Rate -- basically, politicians buy comparable time at a rate equal to the lowest rate any advertiser received in the past year.

Honestly, while many broadcasters do enjoy the consistent sales during political seasons, I'd say that as often as not, they'd just as soon not deal with the hassles that the L.U.R. rule creates (by handcuffing them in negotiating with regular clients, by draining inventory that was marketable at a much higher rate to other advertisers, etc)

[Glengoyne]

I have always felt the money=speech ruling completely missed the boat. The most significant difference is that I don't have as much money as the NRA, the Labor Unions, or any number of immensely wealthy politically active individuals. So, while my speech is free, it isn't equal. Politics in this country are essentially a system of legalized bribery. Until that changes our tax money will be spent where the lobbyists point. I think the seventeenth amendment is nearly as short-sighted as the eighteenth. If senators didn't have to worry about garnering reelection, I would hope they would be more likely to act in the interest of their constituents and the republic as a whole.

[QuikSand]

This has been an unusually difficult-to-follow "debate" but I'll offer this thought:

-If you say that the right to advocate for the candidate of your choice is not protected speech, you are saying that the government has the right to curtail it

-That means that you seek to have the government deciding what people can and cannot say, based on the potential political content in the message

-That doesn't sound so hot to me


I'm not a fan of the way electoral politics work right now. People (even those who choose to vote) act on lowest-common-denominator principles, and monied interests certainly weild enormous power in fueling media-based campaigns that largely exclude voices that are outside the "inner circle" of policitians-feeding-interests-feeding-politicians.

But publicly financing campaigns and squelching other political speech has an overtone that doesn't sit too well with me.

[Peregrine]

Actually Peregrine, media outlets licensed & regulated by the government already provide "low cost" airtime to political candidates for federal offices. That is, "low cost" compared to the rates paid by regular commercial advertisers.

The provision is usually just referred to by it's short name -- Lowest Unit Rate -- basically, politicians buy comparable time at a rate equal to the lowest rate any advertiser received in the past year.

Interesting Jon, I didn't know that. Well, I figured there was SOME system in place, but didn't know how tightly it was regulated or followed.

[wheels]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Actually Peregrine, media outlets licensed & regulated by the government already provide "low cost" airtime to political candidates for federal offices. That is, "low cost" compared to the rates paid by regular commercial advertisers.

The provision is usually just referred to by it's short name -- Lowest Unit Rate -- basically, politicians buy comparable time at a rate equal to the lowest rate any advertiser received in the past year.

Honestly, while many broadcasters do enjoy the consistent sales during political seasons, I'd say that as often as not, they'd just as soon not deal with the hassles that the L.U.R. rule creates (by handcuffing them in negotiating with regular clients, by draining inventory that was marketable at a much higher rate to other advertisers, etc)

the fact remains that the airwaves are a public good. the broadcasters make their money by via public's privilege of giving them permission to do so; they don't have a right to it. in addition to profits, broadcasters must serve the public interest through a good they don't even own.

broadcasters, on the whole, are not hurting for money. they're just being consolidated. fewer voices yet.

i'm curoius what the lowest rate an advertiser pays? is it really a small amount, or just a little less than what high-priced advertisers pay? is it low enough to eliminate a considerable barrier to entry for candidates to speak about their platforms?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by wheels

via public's privilege of giving them permission to do so; they don't have a right to it.

Well, in fairness, they weren't "given" permission, they bought & paid for that permission (through the bid-and-allocation & application process).

i'm curoius what the lowest rate an advertiser pays? is it really a small amount, or just a little less than what high-priced advertisers pay?

That, of course, varies with market size. There can be significant swings in cost/spot for an OTO (One-Time-Only) client vs a 52-week-a-year client. Negotiated rates could be as much as 50% lower than those from the official rate card (think of that as "buying-off-the-rack"). So yes, in that sense, the difference between "the going rate" and "lowest unit rate" can be quite substantial.

That said, ain't none of it what I'd call "cheap" either, at least not in times when any meaningful number of people will see/hear it.

[Butter]

Your poll choice and the ensuing debate are 2 totally separate issues.

[Butter]

Dola

Maybe not "totally" separate, but separate.

[Tigercat]

Despite court rulings, its ridiculous to say the use of money equals free speach. Money can't equal "free" anything. Money is issued and insured by the Government. This gives the Government the ability to reasonably control the flow of it, especially where it relates to other matters of Government. In today's modern society we take for granted too often that money is not completly ours and a contract with the Government. Now if you want to donate silver and gold to candidates untill they can fill Fort Knox, that seems like a right to property issue, have fun!

[ice4277]

We could do away with a lot of these squabbles if you all would just elect me as Supreme Ruler of Everything. Nobody ever listens to me though

[Fritz]

Originally Posted by wheels

broadcasters, on the whole, are not hurting for money.

When I see a line like this it destroys whatever else I have been reading.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Fritz

How many parties do you think can afford all the baloons you need just to have a primary convention?

The Libs tried having each person bring one baloon to their Muncie, Indiana covention, but half the people did want to (which a-okay with the libs) and half of the others said they would rather go to New Orleans and look at titties (which is okay too).

Where do I sign up?