For the Umpteenth Time, the Democrat and Chronicle Fails to Get the Joke
Yesterday, I found myself trying to explain to my young son why you see lightning before you hear thunder. It did not go well. The complexities of the speed of light versus the speed of sound were apparently well over the head of my son. Thankfully, his intellectual capacity will increase in time, and as he becomes more mature and gains more experience, he will be able to understand abstract concepts and reason more like an adult.
I wish I had the same confidence regarding the chowder-heads who run the editorial page at the Democrat and Chronicle.
Today, the editors of the paper solemnly warn us that “Money can have dangerous influence on politics.” First off, I must say, thank you Captain Freaking Obvious. Those of us who are grownups know that money can have a dangerous influence on business, education, relationships, the national pastime (screw you Barry Bonds … and the owners who enabled him) and on almost any other thing on God’s green earth.
As to the substance of the piece, it raises concerns regarding millionaires like Jack Davis and Tom Golisano and the influence they exert because they can spend their own money on political campaigns.
First, I hate to break it to the naive folks in the newsroom, but most high-level politicians are millionaires. Second, further campaign finance reforms (backed by dunder-heads like the editorial board of the D&C) for will ensure that ONLY MILLIONAIRES WILL RUN FOR OFFICE.
This is not very complicated:
1. Campaign finance laws put restrictions on the amount of money that individuals (and businesses) can give to political campaigns. For congressional races, this limit is $2,300.
2. It costs upwards of several million dollars to run a successful congressional campaign. Between the TV ads, the bumper sticker printing costs, and the army of lawyers to ensure you are complying with all the rules, the races get very expensive very fast.
3. If you need to spend $3 Million for your race, you would need to convince 1300 people to write you checks for the maximum amount. And yes, that is just about as difficult as it sounds.
It is even harder if you are running against an incumbent. To the extent that people will write big checks for candidates, they want to write checks to the guy who is going to win. The guy challenging the incumbent elected official does not look like a good bet to most people. Worse, the people who would give you big support (that buddy of yours who became a dot com millionaire, that rich uncle who won the lotto, the crazy cat-lady down the street who will end up leaving all her money to her cats) are limited to giving you $2,300.
4. Accordingly, political parties now look for candidates who can spend their own money on campaigns. For example, in the Tom Reynolds district, two out of the three main candidates are self-funding millionaires. The only serious candidate who is not independently wealthy is democrat Jon Powers. But then again, he has spent the last two years of his life raising money for the race.
So where does that leave us? The strict campaign finance laws so cherished by the D&C have brought us to a state of affairs where incumbents have a HUGE advantage over their challengers. Worse, only self-funding millionaires (and people like Jon Powers who can devote years of their life to fundraising - doesn’t he have a job? or a family?) will run for office.
Perhaps someone should explain this to the editorial board of the D&C. Then again, I think I have a better chance of explaining string theory to my son than I do of convincing members of the liberal media elite that increased government regulation and involvement in ALMOST ANY PART OF LIFE invariably makes problems even worse.
3 Responses to “For the Umpteenth Time, the Democrat and Chronicle Fails to Get the Joke”
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Occam
Its human nature that people solve problems. Every roadbloack that is put up people will figure a way around.
When someone is successful in life like Chris Lee or Jack Davis they will want to continue to solve problems, in this case they see problems in government that most likely held them back.
I would much rather see Chris Lee be able to use his money and have time to relate to people than Jon Powers off to all corners of the country raising money, and having no time to look at local issues.
Tiberius:
I have no problem with millionaires running for office, and Chris Lee seems like a great candidate. I just want to avoid a system where only millionaires can afford to run for office.
The solution to this is really simple, but most politicians don’t have the spine to push for what needs to be done.
As you note, the big multi-million dollar costs of a campaign are mainly required for advertising on TV and radio. Last I looked, both required licenses from the government (via the FCC) to broadcast. And cable (while not a broadcast medium under FCC terms) uses the public right-of-ways for their lines. (You know, the publicly owned slots of land that your telephone poles sit on…) All should be required to give some free prime-time blocks to this.
Many countries have policies requiring several hours of prime-time programming to be set aside by all broadcasting companies in the months before an election. Each candidate then gets to debate and/or advertise with a certain number of blocks based on their petition list size before primaries, then based on their primary or sub-party election results.
If the US did this it would be much better off, vs having private groups funding “debates” that leave out major voices (not that I like Nader, but he should be in the debate, being a candidate on several state ballots.) Removing money from politics will never happen, but putting a limit on it can at least help.
Personally, I’d like to see rules against using ones own funds in a political race. It would bring everyone into an even playing field to some degree. Maybe then we’d see more focus on substance, vs the constant barrage of mud slinging being repeated over and over again.