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RedditJuly 4th's Washington Post featured a front-page story about how campaign contributors heavily favored Democrats in the three-month period that ended last weekend, giving three dollars to the party's leading contenders for every two dollars they gave to the top Republican candidates.
Barack Obama was the big money primary winner--with 285,000 total contributors since January, exceeding the combined number of donors to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain.
While I think it's fascinating that Obama has had such success in raising money from small donors on the Internet--and see glimmers of democratization in how those small-$ donors are challenging the primacy of political finance's big guns of politics--I still question why the mainstream media seems to privilege the money primary at the expense of the ideas primary.
So what is to be done? On the money front, the New York Times counsels resuscitating matching public funds --"the once-popular tax assisted alternative that has been allowed to wither in recent years because of Congress's fixation on the power of private campaign money." But there is another alternative. Clean Money, Clean Elections--with legislation supporting this major and viable reform advancing now in both the Senate and the House. In the Senate, the Durbin-Specter Fair Elections Now Act (S 1285) and in the House, the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act of 2007 (HR 1614) both have impressive co-sponsors. On the House side, of the 40 co-sponsors, many are in significant leadership positions.
But it's not only inside the beltway. According to Public Campaign, which has been working for ten years to change the way America funds elections, the movement, outside of Washington, continues to grow. As Nick Nyhart, Public Campaign's longtime and tenacious President puts it, there's a vibrant and growing citizen-centered movement out there that reflects America's diverse communities. From the AFL-CIO, to the National Council of Churches, the Sierra Club, the Dolores Huerta Foundation and the NAACP --all have joined forces in support of Clean Money, Clean Elections and the legislation advancing it. MoveOn.org is also wholeheartedly behind the effort to enact reforms that have worked well in Arizona and Maine to the Congress.
What's hopeful, though not reflected in the breathless coverage of the candidates' fundraising totals, is that seven daily mainstream newspapers--including the Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, and the St.-Louis Post Dispatch--have specifically endorsed congressional public financing legislation. Moreover, the race at the local and state level to take out private money in favor of clean money is moving full force ahead.
Next time you read about the money primary, take a breath and go to publicampaign.org and find an alternative which will give ordinary people and voters a chance to have their voices and ideas listened to.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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As mentioned in previous posts on this topic, Clean Money legislation must be accompanied by efforts to restrict so-called "independent" campaigns from running ads during the election cycle. Otherwise you just shift the "dirty" money away from the candidate to "independent" campaigns on the candidate's behalf or against the candidate (remember Swift Boat).
Reasonable restrictions on "dirty money" free speech MUST be part of any serious effort to take dirty money out of politics!
Posted by Metteyya at 07/06/2007 @ 3:29pm
KAT, it's a slow news week.......And, the money primary is the only thing the media have to report......
It's all such folly until the primaries start, then it will get interesting.....
Posted by davebarlett at 07/06/2007 @ 4:14pm
KAT, it's a slow news week.
what crap. Bush commutes the sentence of one of his felons, and the country explodes in controversy?
nah, he ain't a pro. they would find a much better one if they were paying for it. Pontz neither. or Hapless and Mary. they jes ain't got the chops.
Posted by johannesrolf at 07/06/2007 @ 5:07pm
JR, you mean, the loony left explodes in controversy, don't you? I see you've taken to coming up with pet names for other posters.....imitation is the sincerest flattery......
Posted by davebarlett at 07/06/2007 @ 5:13pm
Posted by DAVEBARLETT 07/06/2007 @ 5:13pm | ignore this person
c'mon twit. check all the news publications, all the TV news shows, even Fox. you are clueless in addition to being vile. I have been posting here far longer than you, and imitating you? don't make me larf, I wouldn't sully my keyboard, you selfsatisfied, smug thug.
Posted by johannesrolf at 07/06/2007 @ 5:17pm
It's the same problem as lobbying. Our "Democracy" has devolved into one dollar = one vote. We no longer live in a democracy. It is now a fascist oligarchy.
Posted by welborn at 07/06/2007 @ 5:18pm
JR, I so enjoy toying with you. But, you make it so easy, so lets call a truce.
Posted by davebarlett at 07/06/2007 @ 5:24pm
Posted by DAVEBARLETT 07/06/2007 @ 5:24pm | ignore this person
notachance
Posted by johannesrolf at 07/06/2007 @ 5:26pm
JR, until later, then? time to go get the kid.....
Posted by davebarlett at 07/06/2007 @ 5:27pm
JR, until later, then? time to go get the kid.....
Posted by DAVEBARLETT 07/06/2007 @ 5:27pm | ignore this person
does he/she know who the father is? he/she doesn't look a bit like you. mmh.
Posted by johannesrolf at 07/06/2007 @ 5:36pm
to forestall any deserved criticism, I am able to say that the above was the last of my sniping with this poster. I realize this is a public forum.
Posted by johannesrolf at 07/06/2007 @ 5:53pm
this is the one progressive reform on which depend all other progressive dreams...
until achieved, all other victories will be not quite sweet, since the bones thrown out to the dogs (the 60 - 90 percent of citizens who support various progressive reforms) will be gnawed on, picked over, and when thrown by such as the neocons and aynranders, sucked dry of even the marrow.
one juicy meat dripping bone is the key. campaign finance reform.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 07/06/2007 @ 6:21pm
JR...GOTCHA!
As I said, you're making it too easy......
Posted by davebarlett at 07/06/2007 @ 6:22pm
JR...GOTCHA!
As I said, you're making it too easy......
Posted by DAVEBARLETT 07/06/2007 @ 6:22pm | ignore this person
gotcha what?
the bit about picking up the kid, strikes me as the human or humane thing you have posted here. therefore as one dad to the another, a truce it is.
the kid in question is a boy? a girl? age?
Posted by johannesrolf at 07/06/2007 @ 6:57pm
as the first human...
Posted by johannesrolf at 07/06/2007 @ 6:59pm
"the Durbin-Specter Fair Elections Now Act (S 1285) and in the House, the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act of 2007 (HR 1614)"
I'm willing to bet that neither pass the House and Senate (WELL before a Bush veto).
Posted by Mask at 07/06/2007 @ 7:59pm
clean elections baby. If you want to get the sleeze money out of politics, this is the way to do it.
and the best part is, after clean election legislation is passed the sleeze money is still allowed so there's no free speech issues.
it's just that after clean electiom laws are passed, no respectable american wants the sleeze money.
you gotta love it
Posted by Will C. at 07/07/2007 @ 01:48am
Clean election systems have the promise of changing our current system of rule by the money, to rule by the many.
The inability of our government to act according to the will of the people can only be restored if the people elected to office are no longer compromised by special interests.
Clean elections systems are already working in Arizona and Maine. These systems have made elections more competitive, fair and free candidates from spending most of their time fundraising.
Please support efforts at the local and state level to institute these campaign finance reforms.
If you go to : http://www.publicampaign.org/clean-facts, you can lookup up your state organization that is working on the clean election system. Please support these organizations as a way to improve our representative government.
Posted by bushtool at 07/07/2007 @ 4:36pm