Buying Elections: Free-Market or Fascism?

For nearly all major sports in the US there is a salary cap to prevent teams from monopolizing great athletes and thus tipping the favor in their direction. Baseball, however, has no salary cap. Their mega-star athletes receive the highest payments (not including private endorsements with companies) of any sport or athlete in the game.In a similar way, private donations, either from individuals, companies, or organizations, come streaming in for their favorite candidates during election time. Is this good, bad, or neither (as in, it is what it is)?I will attempt to lay out the pro and con arguments of campaign finance and the proposed campaign finance reform. Those in favor of capping the the total funding a candidate can receive believe that elections can essentially be bought. They argue, why should the President of the United States America be decided through money? To the operation of a well-designed campaign run costs many, many dollars and cents.By capping the amount a campaigner can receive, it helps to even the playing the field so that those running for office do so on the basis of their persuasive arguments.Those opposed to capping finance argue that by doing so it limits private people to give whatever amount to charity they desire. They argue, who's right is it to tell me I can't give as much money as I want to whomever I want?It should be noted that campaign finance reform is a non-partisan issue, as consertives and liberals both agree and disagree with the proposals.The question is not an easy one, and I for one am not fully persuaded by either argument as I feel both sides of the isle have good and bad arguments.Feel free to persuade me through argument.Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

---

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Why don't you take this discussion to the new forum?http://www.politicusmaximus.net/cgi-bin/dBoard.cgi

That' a good idea. I totally forgot that I had two posts started there. I see only Perdition has responded.I thought the new forum would have gotten a better response by now.

---

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

How does how much money they spend on their campaign determine who I am going to vote for? Getting elected relies on getting votes, not on making persuasive arguments. That sounds right in theory. I guess the question I would ask is: Do we need it?If not, then don't legislate it.

Because unless everyone in advertising lives in a magical fairytale world (which I'll admit often seems to be the case) advertising can affect peoples' behaviour, and the more money you have the more advertising you can buy. If you saturate a market/area with your propaganda and your opponent can't afford to get his propaganda out to the same extent then the chances are that more people will see and be influenced by his propaganda. If one party has more power in shaping the public's perceptions then that party obviously has an advantage. I find the concept that political parties are 'charities' hard to accept. It also seems naive to consider political parties so idealistic that they will not be swayed or influenced by the size of contributions. Of course they will give just as much weight to the concerns of a poor 60 year old woman who donates $50 as they will to a corporate leader who donates hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? If you think politics should be run by corporate business then I guess not. Although I would agree there is cause to doubt that this will be remedied by simply capping the funding a candidate can receive.TTFN,WK

I think you meant my propoganda I guess I just don't think that people are really influenced by that crap, but I don't know.I don't know anyone who was going to vote for Obama who would have been swayed in any way by anything McCain advertised, and visa versa.Although, for small or local ellections I'd bet that the effect is greater. Especially for candidates that we don't know wery much about in the first place. But then, how close are they comming to the proposed cap anyways? I don't see the elections as something where the playing field is leveled and the candidates are voted for on the arguments or merits alone. People might vote for a candidate simply for their position on just one issue, or because they like the way they look, or because they spent the most money in their campaign. Isn't that how its always been? Why? Oh I realize they're swayed by their contributors. The People are still voting though, aren't they? This is about elections. You could just set up a seperate fund that isn't for campaigning and then spend it on campaigning anyways.Maybe a spending limit would work better than a funding limit. ALthough, then too you could just spend it on "something else" even though you were spending it on campaigning.

I'm sorry, I should have clarified. You knowing how much somebody spends on a campaign wouldn't determine that. What I meant to say is, campaign money determines how much exposure the candidate receives. It determines how many cities and their campaign managers travel, how great their website is going to be, it funds campaign ads, it funds just about anything.The reason you don't know about the Green Party's candidates every election cycle is because they can't afford the exposure. That's a simple fact. The reason you knew about Obama and Mccain is because they had a ton of endorsements supplying the capital to fund their operations. Yes, but if no one ever hears your message, how will you ever get votes? Is it coincidence that almost no Green Party candidates have a platform? It's because they cannot generate enough revenue to get decent exposure to even be considered to get votes. That's we're trying to figure out during this debate.

---

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

I knew what you meant. I was asking how those things determine who I'm gonna vote for. I went further in my reply to WK:

quote:

---

I guess I just don't think that people are really influenced by that crap, but I don't know.

​

I don't know anyone who was going to vote for Obama who would have been swayed in any way by anything McCain advertised, and visa versa.

---

I knew of the Green Party. It'd be really easy for me to find out more. I don't hafta sit in front of the TV and wait for a campaign to reach me. I did consider them. I fall into the "doesn't want ot throw their vote away" crowd, although I am terribly too apathetic when it comes to voting. But I heard their message and I don't think that if they had more money and campaigned more, that I would have gotten anything more. You're gonna hafta take a position if we're debating.I don't think we need it. I don't think that capping the spending will have a enough effect on the campaign to have a significant effect on the peoples' votes. There's too much campaigning to make a dent into it. It not going to do anything, IMHO.Plus, even if we did have it, there'd be ways around it or under the table. Come one...this is politics Making laws like this on politics is like having a no splashing rule in the swimming pool.I guess they can go ahead and do it if it makes them feel better. Seems like a waste of effort to me.