They could tell the candidate whatever they want! In fact, I plan to tell my candidate that I personally donated $10 million and that I'd like to be the chairman of the Bureau of Copper Mining on Indian Reservations. :lol: I can't believe you don't see the flaw in your reasoning here! There would be no proof of money donated or what amounts so fat cat donors and you and I would all be reduced to a mere lobbyist for our special interest. "OK, Red, we'll get back to you." I said Cparso's public funds notion was one approach and then suggested that confidential funds was another. Confidentiality of contributions was the issue we were discussing and it involves private donations only. That was a good answer, but it was for some other question. Again you evade, "Do you favor special patronage favors in return for large contributions?".
I don't agree. Dan Rather sure got regulated, and the government didn't have to do that. People can hold the media accountable for their ethics, but I admit many if not most folks prefer a tabloid-type story vs. an issues based any day. They are the ones who would flunk the voter iq test. Maybe not such a bad idea after all. The money should be limited, though. No tv, radio, or print ads at all would help. If someone is dumb enough to base their vote on a 30 second add.....back to the iq test again.
the only solution is that people learn to vote for the best candidate, which they probably wont do, but that is ok, democracy is not a perfect system. but it works well enough for us to mostly bumble our way through our lives relatively happy, so i am not worried. i am not so unhappy with the bush administration. they lower taxes, they fight the war. if that means they are bought, then i say bought is good.
I mean regulated in that, I think there are already laws for equal air time for candidates, and there would have to be more laws perhaps to showing a debate and allowing a certain amount of time for each feasible candidate.
Or limit the schedule. In Britain elections run for 16 weeks and candidates are prohibited from campaigning before that time. It would save $million of wasted money and divisive rhetoric as well. US campaigns are way too long. In this age of telecommunications, the primary election system and the electoral college are especially outdated and wasteful.
In some instances good, but in others this is not always the best course of action. If my neighbor steals my dog, I wouldn't go shoot the dog. The logical approach would be to take the dog back.
But there are ways to make the process better, and that's what we are discussing. So try adding something.
That would help, but it would have to be in conjunction with something else, because otherwise it would be the same amount of crap - crammed into a smaller time frame.
Equal time is only equal if I can afford to buy as much as you I think, which supports limiting funds, or as I prefer, doing away with ads. As for debates and interviews, viewer demand would drive that. If the public was not saturated with stupid advertisements and a drawn out campaign process, I think more people would tune in, which would allow for better ratings and more advertising dollars for the tv and radio stations, so they would be motivated to provide this service to the public.
thats nice, but i think it is pretty obvious that people who donated large sums of money could prove it to their candidate, no matter how hard you tried to keep them from being able to. it is pretty damn easy to prove things like that. there is a thing that banks use, called checks, and they have records of who you wrote them to. you can use these records to prove to people that you paid them. what are you advocating, a drop box in the desert where people are forced to wear masks and drop sacks of hundred dollar bills before they are killed and dismembered and dropped in the ocean? money is traceable. dont be dumb. if a politician wants to favor a certain policy, i either like it or i dont, regardless of who paid for it. if companies pay politicians to favor policies i like, then its fine with me. if they are getting paid to favor bad policy, then i dont like it. but i judge policy independent of whether it was paid for or not.
