Casey Tompkins recently sent me this web site giving detailed info on political campaign contributions, ranking them by state, county, and zip code, and also by individual candidates. It's sort of interesting. The problem being that it's pretty much worthless.
Worthless? Yes. Thanks to recent legal "reforms," the info on the above page has no real meaning, because it doesn't include tens of millions of dollars that will be spent on these candidates--money most people will never hear about. Which is to say that favoritism and cronyism will be as big a part of politics as ever, but it's all more shadowy and elusive and hard to pin down now.
For example: Bush currently plans on being outspent by Democrats next year, due to the tens of millions being poured in to efforts to unseat him. Most of that money will be spent by a handful of billionaires who don't like him, and by trade unions which run their own "independent" campaigns. Even more money will be spent by "grass roots" organizations who are mostly-unknown, unelected, and unaccountable organizations with names like "Move On."
Bush is counting on his own huge grass-roots support to counter all that--and although I'm not aware of the big "independent" organizations who'll be supporting him, I'm quite sure they exist, or will soon. In either case, none of that money will show up in any public indexes that voters can check for themselves.
To be clear, it's not that such groups have no right to do what they're doing. Also, since I have never seen much reason to think that money wins elections, I suppose I shouldn't be angry about this. But the recent campaign finance "reforms" reduce accountability, increase the influence of the super-wealthy, and increase the chances for corruption. They also bewilder voters, and can only lead to greater voter cynicism.
Shame on George Bush for ever signing such a stupid law. Shame on Congressional Democrats (and Republicans like John McCain) for putting him in a position to sign it.
Without a doubt, GW should not have signed that law - he should have veto'd it and taken the editorial ire and risked McCain bolting the Party (McCain belongs as an Independent, anyways).
Only the chattering classes in DC and NYC gave a damn about CFR - and a few highly hypocritical spinmeisters of the liberal pursuassion. Veto, let 'em howl, and move on...ah, well; I see what the calculation was - sign, and let the USSC toss nearly all of it out. This will happen, more than likely; but better to just veto the bad law.
But Dean! Of course money wins elections. The candidate uses money to buy commercials, the sheeple always vote for the candidate whose commercial they see most frequently. That's why republicans always win, because they're the party of the rich. That and their conspiracies to deny blacks and poor people votes. And their lies! Their horrible filthy lies that brainwash all of the public except me. So all of those reasons are why republicans beat democrats. That's why we need campaign finance reform, so that the two or three republicans can't buy the presidency again over the $1 and $2 sent in by the other 281,421,904 to 281,421,903 people, who are all democrats and oppressed! The republicans only win by buying the elections. Free mumia! Bush == Hitler! No Blood for Oil!
I'm sorry, I know that that didn't contribute to a worthwhile discussion. I just couldn't help myself.
Oh, well. Maybe in a few years these reforms can be swept away by another set of reforms.
And on the plus side, maybe the independent campaigns to keep Bush from being elected will be so far from the center that they will have the opposite effect to the one intended. Of course they're probably going to be highly coordinated, but there's always hope, isn't there?
ctl,
More than likely it will start to look like a scatter-shot attempt by varied monied malcontents to derail the President...
Remember, this will be 2004 - we've got Fox, the Washington Times and the 'net to work with; there's no way that special interest groups are going to be able to set the debate, nor will they be able to hide whats going on.
Oh, sure, reports about Soros wont fill up the front pages of the NY Times and Rather sure in hell ain't gonna lead his newscast with them...but, then again, the people who still use the NY Times for news are the Bush-hating choir. The people who will vote for Bush or who are possible to vote for Bush will be watching Fox next year.
Mark, I disagree, many of the people who might vote for Bush would still read the NY Times, they wouldn't rely on it exclusively, but they probably wouldn't rely exclusively on Fox either. Most of America isn't that polarized, thinking that America is that polarized is why barely half the eligable Americans voted in 2000.
Also money does buy ads, and with enough ads the debate can be poisoned, although it might be beyond control.
I think money has an effect on elections, if not to the degree it's normally credited with. However, I think it has a big corrupting effect on politicians, through all the ways it's spent. And the more people vote for a specific elected office, the more effect money has on the election of officials, thus the more it can corrupt the officals in office.
CFR doesn't address this, as dean says all it does is make it harder to track the money. It is truely American to spend money and effort in a way you think will improve your life. The way to deal with this is to have power wielded at the lowest level at which the people reasonably affected by the decision all have a say in the election. That make it easier for the people voting to understand the decision made, thus meaning it takes less money to get elected, so the money has a lesser effect on politics, and to have a nationwide effect you need to deal with many more elected officials. Also it is easier to find a reliable comparison, or for people to just move away when something does go wrong.
Nice!