Regulating the money contributed to election campaigns, Campaign Finance Reform, is a failed approach. Can the problem be approached from the cost side? Rather than trying to limit contributions, wouldn't it be more effective to cut the costs?
People used to complain about the old Convention system of selecting Presidential candidates. It didn’t seem particularly democratic because the process was controlled by professional politicians. When the final decisions were being made, the mass of Americans were not participating. The Conventions were like high stakes poker games with delegate votes as chips. And those votes were bought and sold in secret deals between politicians. The old poker game bred corruption, and we didn’t care for it.
So we instituted a system of State Primary elections. I don’t think we can say that the current system is better or worse in terms of results - we’ve elected good and bad Presidents both ways. But the Primary system, as we’ve implemented it, is enormously expensive and prolonged. As a result, the wealthiest class of Americans has disproportionate influence, their money corrupts politics and government. Our system is now more oligarchic than democratic because we have accepted the notion that a Presidential campaign is subservient to a business model.
For the cable news networks, their revenues rely on the the election cycles. Just as retailers need Christmas, cable news needs election campaigns. The bigger the audience watching the election news - and interviews, and “in-depth” analyses, and pundits, and popularity graphs, and election maps - the more money the media charge for airtime. Their charges rise continually until the November elections. The financial icing on the cake is the money spent by the Presidential Campaigns themselves to advertise the candidates in both the Primaries and the General Elections. Airtime is auctioned off to the highest bidder. A similar process takes place in every TV newsroom in every local outlet from coast to coast. And the rates go up every cycle. In other words, as bad as it is now, it can only get worse.
That’s the financial logic of the marketplace. That’s the financial logic of electing Presidents. On the premise that free enterprise is a greater good than democracy itself, we have allowed an industry to grow while our once wonderful democracy has all but disappeared. The Primary system has given us moribund government that determines policy in order to maintain status quo, the interests of the richest advertisers.
The system influences all the contests for Governors, Senators, and Congressional Representative because the nominees are also chosen during the Primaries. The pursuit of money preoccupies our legislators, as they devote increasing proportions of their energy to fund raising for the election cycles. Soon, they will not even pretend that they are legislating. If we want good government, this has got to stop.
Is it legally possible to limit the length of time required to complete the process? Every day we chop from the process reduces the costs. Every reduction in cost diminishes the influence of the wealthy. The political parties and the States regulate the primaries. Can the Federal government impose constraints on them? For example, why couldn't the Federal Government enact legislation that would restrict all Primary elections to a limited time frame, perhaps a week in the Springtime of an election year?
And then, as some enlightened democracies do, we could restrict the time frame for political advertising. In many countries, it is illegal to air a political advertisement until a few weeks before elections. Not only would that drive cost from the process, it would enhance the quality of our lives by reducing the intrusions of the candidates into our personal space via the media.
Proposals to regulate State Primaries would doubtless face powerful opposition from the media and the oligarchs, probably on 10th Amendment grounds. I think it could be be argued that, since Federal officials are selected by the Primaries, the Federal Government has jurisdiction. I'll leave it to the lawyers to offer their opinions.
By cutting costs, we'd soon see an improvement in the quality of government. Everybody wins except the relatively few people with election industry jobs. They’ll have to suck it up for the good of everyone else.