Obama would make a good hold ’em poker player. He bluffed that he was going to use public financing, then came over the top by going all in with a river of money from small contributors. Veteran player McCain went with a conservative game, but had the short stack. He just couldn’t beat the young turk because all he held was a queen (Palin).
This article talks about how to fix the system. But is it worth it? Unless it becomes required — a Constitutional problem — can it be fixed to make it worth taking? What do you think of Obama’s supposedly upholding the ideals of it by only taking small contributor’s money? When Obama reneged, should McCain have too to give him a fighting chance in this media dominated world? Discuss.
After the most expensive presidential campaign in history, campaign finance reformers are trying to salvage the Watergate-era public financing system by proposing substantial changes.
A key passage in the proposed reforms would significantly boost the amounts of money candidates could receive from the taxpayer-backed system. Spending limits would be raised to reflect the modern-day costs of running for office.
Those figures have been adjusted only for inflation since 1974, and their inadequacy was a major reason that major candidates began shunning the system in the past two presidential campaigns.
In this year’s presidential primaries, for instance, candidates who accepted public funding were limited to spending $50 million for the entire nomination fight. Obama, who did not take public money, spent $30 million just in the month of January.
Other legislative changes the reformers will seek include banning joint fund-raising committees and shared advertising budgets between the national parties and their presidential nominees.
They also would require candidates to reveal the names of their bundlers and the amount that each of the surrogate fundraisers generates for the campaign.
Money corrupts. Power corrupts. Notoriety corrupts. Access to Media corrupts. Making the law corrupts.
Hit that Public Campaign Financing and you have half of one element of corruption addressed.
Then figure out how to distinguish between small town mayors and first term senators, between Joe the Plumber and Born Agains and HEY we could even move towards a multi-party parlimentary system.
McCain made two fatal executive decisions that cost him the elections. There is much discussion in religious circles that God herself, intervened and wanted Obama as president.
Fatal executive decisions.
(1) He picked tax payer money to fund his campaign and hoped Obama would do the same. This was to ‘level the playing field’. McCain could always rely on the GOP slime machine to generate enough cash to pollute the environment with Swift Boat and other slimebags.
(2) A doozy. In an irrational act of monumental proportions, he picked an idiot right winger that evidently looks good with lip gloss and was female. The problem was clear. The lip gloss could not mask the hollow interior.
Well, public financing is over for any future major candidate. No candidate will allow themselves to be sucker punched again. Obama has effectively killed this program.
Now if you want reform in Senate campaigns and a lot of the money that corrupts there, repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.
What do you think of Obama’s supposedly upholding the ideals of it by only taking small contributor’s money?
Obama took small contributors because he did not have to identify them. No one knows how many foreign, non-Americans contributed.
But when you look at his list of contributors, warning bells should be going off everywhere. Of course no one will have the nerve to investigate fraudulent contributors like:
Name: PRO, DOODAD
Works for: FDGFDGF
# of transactions: 1,044
Occupation: DFGFDG
Amount: $17,130.00 (in excess of the $2,300-per-person federal limit)
Here is Good Will’s information:
Name: WILL, GOOD
Works for: Loving
Occupation: you
# of transactions: 923
Occupation: DFGFDG
Amount: $10,450.00 (in excess of the $2,300-per-person federal limit)
Even contributors with blatant jibberish:
Name: Hbkjb, jkbkj
City: Jkbjnj
Works for: Kuman Bank [doesn’t exist]
Occupation: Balanon Jalalan
Amount: $1,077.23
And the list goes on and on…
Small contributors?
Obama had either the most ever, or second most, donors who maxed out their legal contributions.
You don’t get 3/4 of a billion in twenties.
Perception is always more important, right?
#2 – Neither of those cost him the election. Obama won with a populist message. Why is that so hard to understand?
The fundamental question being asked about using Public Finance is skewed but we the people take it for granted. To say that public finance is even an option should be a joke to those with some intellectual snap.
The logic is this: we the people will give some of our money taken in the form of taxes, for a potential leader & their opponents to run ads telling us how great they are or how rotten your opponent is. Then we the people vote for one of them. This person (who still only has their time invested; not money) will then get to help raise taxes thru new laws or disperse the general funds as they see fit – to include their own pay raises, pet projects and community efforts – to in essence, buy votes.
And all of this without any risk to themselves. Only an upside, no downside.
….kind of reminds you of the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac situation where people were getting $300K mortgages without jobs, references or credit worthiness.
And the power brokers then become unelected officials in the DNC & RNC when they have the say as to who can & can’t run for office with the D or R by their names.
#6
Obama’s message “I’m not GWB” was indeed more popular than McCain’s message “I’m not GWB.”
That’s basic first year poli-sci stuff.
There are numerous problems here:
You can’t tell a company how to run its business.
Thus, you can’t make them give free advertising for someone.
Thus, they get paid for that advertising.
The candidates need money to pay for that advertising.
So, equal air time enforcement is actually “state-controlled media.” Bad.
On the other hand, news channels profess to be unbiased. We all know this to be untrue and anybody who believes otherwise is a fool. Some of their largest advertising customers have also donated to the reps and dems. They damn sure don’t want a third party candidate getting equal air time because they might suck votes away from their own horse. The overt pressure these companies place on the media to ignore anyone not in the “two chosen parties” would bring down the moon.
This is where the link must be broken.
If you contribute to a campaign AND use the services of someone who has influence over the spreading of said campaign’s message, said campaign is really getting two payoffs for the price of one.
That is what needs to be fixed.
Obama didn’t raise small money donations. This Chicago pol who played poker games with lobbyists set up an elaborate scheme to raise money illegally. His online donation system had various security functions deliberately disabled. It did not reject donations from a foreign bank credit card. It did not check that the donor name is the same as the credit card name. It also didn’t even check the 3 digit code on the card. These are default items in the software.
Mary Biskup donated $175000 to the Obama campaign, but her credit card was never charged. Someone set up plenty of small donations in her name, all courtesy of the Obama fraud campaign.
Remember the main reason for Campaign Finance Reform was to reduce or eliminate the graft (I’ll scratch your back if you scratch my back) involved when taking large donations.
No matter what you say, taking large donations does obligate you to some very powerful people/lobbies. The Golden Rule, “He who has the gold makes the rules”.
So Obama took “small” donations. So what? when he is allowed to take 1,000 “small” donations from the same individual/organisation?…
Both McCain and Obama got in bed with someone(s). The difference between them being that McCain was doing some “R” rated, while Obama was “XXX”.
In other words, if anyone takes money from anywhere and in any amount such as Obama did, those names need to be fully disclosed. We want to know who Obama is in bed with. We do have the right to know who bought our President.
Even today, we still don’t know how much Chinese money the Clintons took, but we do know how much damage it did.
#6. James, you are in total denial why you lost. Fortunately for your party, they disagree with you and are regrouping to not make the same fatal mistakes again.
It is a party is disarray. If they could only get back to their original qualities of fiscal discipline and common moral decency will they be able to recover.
The challenge is, are they willing to dump the core constituents of racists, religious wingnutts and cater only to self serving big business money? That will be tough.
#12 Dallas said, “It is a party is disarray. If they could only get back to their original qualities of fiscal discipline and common moral decency will they be able to recover.”
Truth.
#3 @Paddy-O
dammit, why’d you have to go and say what i wanted to say? what’s gotten into you? you must be one of them real conservatives.
i would only add that in the future, if a candidate accepts donations via credit card, it must be stipulated by law that such transactions only be allowed by real credit cards, not the gift/pre-paid anonymous visas, so that there is an auditable paper trail.
given that e-commerce has this problem technically sorted (in large part) this should be no problem, assuming the political will is there.
We need FREE AIR TIME on Radio and TV for ALL THE CANDIDATES to level the playing field !!! As it is, thing swing back and forth between the BLUE MONEY PARTY AND THE RED MONEY PARTY !!! We need to hear MORE VOICES AND DISCUSSION OF MORE ISSUES and less MUD-SLINGING !!! But that would be TOO INTELLIGENT FOR AMERICA !!!
#14 grog said, “you must be one of them real conservatives.”
Yep, stopped supporting the GOP before ’04. I told Hastern & Cheney personally.
# 8 KevinL, the difference being that Obama’s message “I’m not GWB” was linked with HOPE, while McCain’s message “I’m not GWB. was linked with DISPAIR !!! NO CONTEST !!!
#17 JimD said, “the difference being that Obama’s message “I’m not GWB” was linked with HOPE, ”
Close. But is was more like “Hope of free stuff” if elected. McCain didn’t promise “Bread & Circus”.
That’s a problem now. There is no $ for free stuff for the masses unless you want a depression, (Hoover recession economics) so Obama is setting up Congress for a fail in 2 years.
1. Eliminate all public funding for campaigns and political parties.
2. Eliminate all restrictions on donations to campaigns and parties, but require full disclosure – names and $$ amounts.
3. Eliminate all tax credits for political donations – if you want a tax write-off, try a charity.
4. Eliminate lobbying – Senators and Congressmen can talk to their constituents – but if you’re not from the same state, you don’t get in the door.
#19 Chuck :
#1 Well Obama pretty much ensured no Pres candidate will use it in the future.
#2 Okay
#3 There are no “tax credits” for political donations anyway.
#4 #2 above pretty much eliminates the effectiveness of this item
Why would anyone want to spend >$700,000,000 for an office that pays $400,000/yr unless they can control much, much more than the $700M.
So rather than campaign finance reform, why not have budgetary finance reform where we the people add a Constitutional Amendment that states no deficit spending period, with an inflationary index, minus 1% to limit government growth driving inflation, added to the budget annually. Make the prize limited and you’ll limit the value, hence the cost of running to achieve that prize.
I need to open a window, these paint fumes are giving me a headache and I’m not thinking straight I guess.
The simple fact is, Obama gave his word and then broke it. He has no honor.
Iam appalled that most of you liberals are OK with that. He did not bluff anyone , he lied.
Must be the Clinton effdct.
Proposed campaign finance reform:
1. Eliminate all funds from any entity except registered voters. No corporations, no unions, no businesses, just the voters.
2. Eliminate restrictions on the amount a registered voter can donate. It’s my money, and I can used it as I see fit.
3. Remove all other regulations, tax laws, public funding, etc.
4. See what we get.
Or, we could just sell the presidency on ebay.
#8 – Yes, which is why how he won is so simple to explain.
#12 – Why I lost? I predicted an Obama win during the primaries, and stayed with it. I won, as usual.
Now as for why McCain lost, your post has no substance. Angry liberals not being able to accept that Obama won, and didn’t just wind up the President because of some other reason, shows what little faith the party’s base truly has in the man. Quite sad indeed.
However, your worship… as always… is noted.
#13 – One problem: The majority of the party is already there, so no change needs to happen. It’s the administration that got away from it.
#22 – He’s a politician: What does honor have to do with anything?
#23 – How about eliminating all funding across the board of “the top two political parties in votes”, which is how the laws are phrased these days. That would actually do something, and allow third parties to have a real chance.
I donated many thousands to Obama.
What I demand in return is the elimination of the Caps Lock key. Or swap it with F12.
JCD has it right on “No Agenda” It was no accident that the main stream media shilled for the candidate that was going to dump $1.6B into their coffers. Why would they say anything good about a guy who spent years pushing legislation to limit the amount of money spent on campaigns?
The only way to get rid of money is to make it unnecessary to raise money to win.
That means eliminate popular election of the president and have state legislators or Congress select the president in parliamentary style. The House itself should be expanded to several thousand members from 435 in order shrink the amount of money you need to run as a rep. Senators should go back to being elected by state houses.
Because these elections today require so much money to market candidates, we get the best democracy that money can buy.
#22: You guys really need to stop getting all your information from right wing radio and fox news.
Obama never pledged to take government financing. He did say he would IF a deal could be worked out with the McCain camp.
Meanwhile, McCain filed for public funding, and then withdrew. Apparently he filed for public funding so he could qualify for a loan, then backed out. Some have suggested this move was illegal (I’m not a lawyer), but whether or not he broke the law, this was ethically challenged. Obama would have been a fool to take public funding under these circumstances.
So how to fix it? How about we look across the pond to how the British do it:
Ban ALL politicial advertising, and require all TV networks to carry infomercials (8-10 minutes each) from ALL valid political parties.
By chance we were vacationing in England during one of the election cycles. The infomercials are about 8 minutes, and run in rotation during all time periods. That means the TV schedule is skewed a bit during this period, which I remember as two weeks before the election.
Advantages:
Takes the biggest financial burden (TV advertising) out of play. This drastically reduces the cost.
ALL bona-fide parties participate. Those of you who decry our two party system ought to see this as a big plus.
It encourages a focused message in these “infomercials” rather than attacks.
Disadvantages:
The public’s TV viewing requires adjustment during the two week run-up to the election.
I think it is at least worth a look.
Chris