Posted by Bruce Bourgoine who blogs at
Kennebec Blues and Dirigo Blue.
Outlaw campaign financing.
Campaign financing hires consultants that add no value to creating informed voters. Most consultants are about "angles" of managing messages rather than "direct" engagement on issues. It is largely packaging that we receive.
Television advertising’s condensed nature of emotive persuasion is a disservice to civil discourse and democracy. Paid advertising on successor technologies will eventually be just as or more manipulative.
Election spending as the core driver of voter decision making can elect winners by false premise or it can engage in character assassination to base elections on determining losers.
Marketing efficiency in an election often dictates negativity as the best investment.
Donation restrictions always create loopholes to be exploited later. Well financed interests hire the resources necessary to figure out workarounds. The cash keeps flowing; the influences stay in place.
Fundraising denies connection with candidates and officeholders to those who cannot afford sizable donations. It is a form of payment for access, segments donors by class, and insulates candidates from real voices.
One’s own private wealth ought not to purchase an office.
The development of many new small donor based efforts are admirable but this simply translates into the ever present class/corporate clash. The big money interests may be pushed occasionally back but they will eventually and unfairly win.
Free speech is not the same as purchased speech. Free speech is enhanced by an equally weighed guarantee of free speech in elections that exists because campaign financing is against the law.
Completely volunteer campaigns would change the entire dynamics of voter persuasion and citizen participation in multiple ways that would enhance democracy. Outcomes of elections contested by volunteer campaigns would be more reflective of citizen aspirations and create authentic mandates for elected officials.