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jack3566Why should Obama accept public funding?
What is the difference in these two scenarios?
1) Taxes collected from citizens who willingly give $3 on tax forms are used to send out fliers, have people canvass neighborhoods, play television commercials, and essentially tell professional quality lies that the country will be better off with one candidate over another.
2) Individuals give $20, $50, or even $2300 to a candidate of their own free will because they believe what a candidate is telling them and want to spread these lies so other people can hear them too.
Me, I understand that you shouldn’t believe everything you see on TV and I also believe that a fool and his money are easily parted which is why I leave the space empty when it asks me “Would you like to support the general elections with a donation of $3?” Honestly, I probably would donate if the space read “Would you like to give $3 to support third party candidates, who although have no chance of winning, will provide many good soundclips of embarrassing the establishment parties by speaking truth to the issues that our two party system has failed to address.”
Maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else feel embarassment for this loser who stands there and complains about how its so unfair that this young whippersnapper won’t accept public funding just because he can get more money without it?
Filed under: Politics
Amazing how important it was to not allow the big spenders to ‘buy elections’ while the Dems were losing out on the big dollar corporate type donation trough. But now they’ve got both feet in, lapping it up, It’s suddenly ‘why should it be limited to public money’?
Obama’s the biggest hypocrite in this area, taking in huge donations from the individuals, while lambasting those same individual’s PACs and ‘corporate money’ (sorry, no candidate can take anything from corporations, per se). Biq Oil, Pharmaceuticals, lawyers, etc. etc.; Obama just stuffs it all in.
The two-party dynasty does not wish to be disturbed. They have legislatively created a monopoly on power that is insurmountable. The only solution is a third-party competitor that will call these traitors on their bull. If competition is a necessity in a free market economy, why wouldn’t it work in the political arena. Oh wait, it would work, that is why they prevent it from emerging.
Johnny; money’s not the biggest part of it. Perot’s independent run was not money short. It’s effective, stable organization, focused on a long-term goal. Current third parties are too fragmented, too short-term, too driven by a personality, too single-issue driven. They are very intolerant of differences of opinion and refuse to set compromises internally. Until that changes, we stuck with the two parties.
And even if a third party truly begins to rise, one of the other two will tend to adopt just enough of the policies to suck critical mass out before it becomes truly competitive.
I agree. While we may complain about the two parties’ collective failure to address issue X, no third party has made a legitimate, organized bid for the white house that did not just address X, but Y, Z and everything else.
Money helps. Perot got into the presidential debates and won a substantial amount of votes. Is a libertarian, green , or Independent party candidate had that kind of money, he’d probably be taken seriously, even if he didn’t win.
I also think a true third party would need to establish itself overtime and not rely on a single person or a single campaign. If Perot had started the Big Eared Political Party and helped fund future candidates, his efforts might have yielded victories later down the road.
Bloomberg has a shot. I’m curious if he’ll ever take it.