Campaign Finance

Well, here's the thing. This was never supposed to be a problem. Democracies are meant to work with small groups of people. In the Constitution, most Americans, to say nothing of the slaves and Amerindians, could not vote. It was only land owners who were allowed to vote, presumably since they had the highest stake in the government to protect their property and investments.

Because they had an interest in their government, they would have taken it upon themselves to suss out which political candidates would best look after those interests and throw their support behind them. Campaign contributions were not necessary, because the electorate would be doing the most active shopping, having themselves the most active interest.

This is obviously a bit of an simplification, but it is illustrative.

As democracy became more and more inclusive to include non property owners, blacks, and women interests became more diffuse, and "casual voting" became more possible. Also, given the larger numbers of represented involved, personal distance from candidates became greater and greater over time such that "access" is something one must now buy with campaign money (rather than the old-fashioned pulling up a chair at the local diner).


But what are the campaign contributions for anyway? Well, advertising, mainly. Advertising for what? Advertising to bring the representatives' messages closer to the people who will be voting for them - the "casual voter." The "interested" voter, the modern day equivalent of the old landed aristocracy will have made their own selves aware of the issues and the candidates' positions. No "interested" voter pays any serious attention to political advertising, except to see how it will likely sway the "casual" masses in their man's favor.

But rather than blaming the inherent evils of campaign contribution themselves, we ought to do what we always ought to do in a democracy: blame the demos. We, the people, are the ones who create this condition by our sloth, our laziness, and by our casualness towards the political process. We actually expect to achieve an informed opinion through television advertisements, as if these mini-flicks weren't explicitly constructed to manipulate us. The real work of researching a candidate is not even bothered with, and, since the campaigners understand that, they tend to raise hordes of money to submit advertisements to the lazy public.

Over the years, scheme after scheme has been loudly proclaimed to limit campaign contributions - especially by those who have the greatest interest and are the least "casual." These have always amounted to nothing and will continue to into the future, no matter how many cries for "reform" we hear.

But there's another solution. Stop it altogether. Don't allow *any* campaign contributions - or more precisely, don't allow *any* campaign advertisements. If people want to know which pol to vote for, they can get off their asses and find out. They can talk to their friends, they can watch the news, they can search the web for voting records, they can even turn to citizen-sponsored activist groups to educate the public on behalf of certain candidates. But none of this can be done by advertising.

This will leave the casual voter out of the equation, or he/she will vote indiscriminately in a way that will be an electoral wash across the board.

On the politicians' side, the problem of access can be solved the same way: instead of lazily expecting corporations to show up on your door to hock their wares, do your own (or have your staff do) actual research as to what is best for your representatives.

No campaign contributions - no undue influence, no undue access. Let the responsibility lie on the voters and the pols to find out who is best for them And if they're too lazy to, then they get what other lazy people get- whatever they get. And the rest of us can get on with our work.