My state legislature is about to consider a bill to implement a pilot program for the public financing of campaigns for local office.
This bill got me to pondering the potential downside of publicly financed elections, which I have not seen anyone else attempt to do. I asked myself the question: if you level the playing field in terms of campaign spending, what factors will determine the outcome of our elections?
Some possible answers on the flip...
Candidates with a great degree of name recognition have a strong advantage, to the extent that the main goal for a lesser known candidate's campaign is often to level the playing field in terms of simple name recognition.
Candidates with whom voters are already familiar also have another advantage. We might call this personality and position advantage, assuming voters like the candidate. Otherwise, it is a disadvantage.
The recent controversy over the potential nomination of Caroline Kennedy to fill Hillary's senate seat comes to mind, as does Hillary's own campaign for the Democratic nomination. Hillary was able to remain in the race in spite of her fundraising woes, probably because she didn't need to spend a lot of money educating voters about who she was or what she stood for.
I'm sure there are a number of other factors to be considered; these are just the first two that came to mind. Looking at just these two factors, it seems to me that, when you exclude the possibility of a mostly unknown candidate raising a ton of money to get their name and message out, the advantage goes to the rich and famous, the political elite, and incumbents.
Another potential consequence involves groups whose political influence is predicated largely on their ability to raise money for candidates. Public financing could leave these groups out in the political cold. Whether this is a pro or con is probably a matter of perspective.
At this point, I don't have any strong opinions about public financing, except that it seems to be a bandwagon that too many people seem eager to jump on without first evaluating both pros and cons, and this always makes me nervous. I am also inclined to think that the extent to which the pros outweigh the cons, and vice versa, may depend somewhat on which elections/offices you are talking about financing with public funding.
Perhaps some people here will offer some other perspectives on the matter.