In my novels (The Accidental President Trilogy) and in my May 4th post, I call for a Constitutional Amendment to regulate Campaign Finance. It says that a voter may give any amount of money (up to a Congressionally determined maximum) to any single candidate in any race to represent the voter (his or her Representative, Senator and Pres/VP ticket). There is no outside money. No PAC money. No SuperPAC money. No Dark Money from unnamed donors in 501(c)(4) PACs. Completely voter-financed.
After the 2010 Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates of previously illegal union, corporation and secret money (even from foreign nationals, nations and corporations) into any election, the system was gamed to the hilt in the Wisconsin recall election. This was the first possible opportunity to pour endless money into a campaign, and pour it did. The system was gamed to the hilt. What’s next? A SuperPAC with secret members funded by North Korea and Iran? Come on, people, wake up.
My thanks, I think, to Al Gore for saying we need a Constitutional Amendment to stop this. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77115.html Everyone knows he’s a liberal.Few people know me, and they know I am a raging moderate. Now if someone on the right will chime in, we can have a consensus that campaigns cannot be allowed to go to the highest bidder. That makes hookers of the candidates, johns of the contributors and fools of us all. But the right won’t chime in THIS time because it was they had more money in the race.
In the Wisconsin recall election, Gov. Walker survived a brutal fight, thanks in part to his outspending the competitor by a factor of 7. Most importantly, the “Dark Money” played a huge role on each side. Look at the stats here: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/06/wisconsin-walker-recall-money-stats
There are roughly 3.4 million voters. Roughly $66 million was spent in total.. THAT’S TWENTY BUCKS A VOTE. Most of the money was from outside the state.
Forget for a moment that this was seen as a union-busting vs. fiscal responsibility contest. Focus instead on whether YOU want twenty dollars a vote coming into your state for anything other than filling empty tax coffers.
The political right triumphed this time. But I can assure you that if a cause comes along where HUGE money on the LEFT (most of it from out-of-state) comes along, the right will be hollering for the same Constitutional Amendment.
A local election should be funded by locals. A state election should be funded by people in the state. A national election should be funded by the voters who can vote for a given candidate. How much more moderate, how much saner, how much more American can this be?
The only way to stop pornographic amounts of outside money from pimping elections is a Constitutional Amendment. Al Gore said it last night. Please, please, someone from the right say it also.Otherwise, you might as well put red lights on all government buildings. P.J. O’Rouke (from the right) will have been right.
We will have become a true Parliament of Whores.
