“The Internal Revenue Service has an approval rating of 40% and we [Congress] are at 9%. BP at the height of the oil spill was at 16%. More people support the United States becoming communist... at 11% than approve of the job we are doing! … I guess we can take some comfort that Fidel Castro is at 5%.” Senator Michael Bennet on the floor of the Senate, November 2011.
For the last twenty years, I have talked with people who are thinking about running for political office. I asked all of them if they were planning to accept money from special interest groups. In my mind that was the key. This special interest purchase of influence with campaign dollars is the biggest problem facing our American democracy.
This purchase is wicked for two reasons. First, these transactions result in policies that aren’t the best for the people. And since we are talking about a system that is supposed to be democratic in nature, this is a tragic flaw. Yet perhaps even more importantly, the purchase brings dishonesty into the system. Candidates who accept these contributions are forced to pretend that big financial interests have no special influence over the process, when for the vast majority of Americans saying that these interests do not get something for their money is a patent absurdity. The dishonesty causes cynicism and a form of despair among those who only want the majority’s will to prevail.
So to get back to my meetings with these candidates, they will frequently say something like this. “Ken, I hear where you are coming from and I agree that the way we fund campaigns is not good, but I feel I need the money to get elected and the important thing is that I get elected, because then I can start to make change based on my positive values.” In their mind, the most important thing is for them to get elected, because they feel that only once they have gotten elected can they help make change. However, in my mind the important thing is to start to wean the political process off this special interest money. And this applies both to my party, the Democrats, and the Republicans.
So we talk past each other. Those who are in the world where the battle is to have a majority of their party in office cannot see this other struggle that is bigger and more important. I think they are playing a small game, and they think I am from Mars.
It really is quite a striking phenomenon. We are both speaking English. We are both familiar with the election process. Yet they live in a world where the important thing is to win, and l am proposing that it is actually more important how you win. A win with special interest money supports a dysfunctional status quo, and a win without it begins to crack the Big Money - elected official devil’s bargain.
There is a vast infrastructure of support for my opponents in this argument. It’s basically all the money in the world and everything that money can buy (talk radio and television advertising, political consultants, lobbyists, think tanks, the political parties). They create this reality where all that matters is whether Congress has a majority of Democrats or Republicans, and whether the next President is a Democrat or Republican.
This is a false reality and the American people are starting to get it. It is why a Congress, with one house held by each party, has single digit approval ratings. The tipping point is near.
When an issue reaches a critical mass, people power beats money power.
Sincerely,
Ken Gordon
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