Barack Obama and Campaign Finance
On June 19th, Bacack Obama announced he would not participate in the public-financing system for the general election. The reasoning behind the decision is that while the public-financing was intended to limit the money spent in a campaign, it contains loop-holes that allow unlimited spending by groups not directly associated with the candidates. These loop-holes have been exploited in previous elections and would likely be exploited in this one too.
Campaign finance is corrupting our system of government. It transforms it from a democracy to an auction. The public-financing system does little to solve the problem. The problem is the cost of running and the system does not come close to providing enough money to cover those constantly rising costs. I doubt it ever could.
But there is a solution available. The weakness to the solution is that it must be implemented by those already elected and it is not in their best interest to do so. Perhaps, this is where Obama could make a difference.
The majority of money spent by any campaign goes for television advertising. I discussed this in my article “Reducing Corruption in Politics” in February 2007. The courts have upheld that campaign contributions are linked to protected speech making it impractical to limit them. So, if money is the problem, and we can not limit the money, what can we do? We can reduce the value of the money. I don’t mean the way the administration has reduced the value of our savings by causing the dollar to be devalued. I am referring to the supply versus demand equation for television advertising.
Campaigns can never buy enough TV time. As they get more money, they start bidding up the cost of their 15 and 30 second spots. What if they were given all the time they could use for free? For what would they need those hundreds of millions dollars?
I propose that during election season (to be defined), the broadcast television stations be required, as part of their licenses (yes, compensation may be required), to give each major candidate (more than 2) a single 5 minute block of time each hour and an additional thirty minute block of time each week. Then candidates would have the time to talk in paragraphs – not sound bites – and explain their positions on real issues – not just counter each others attacks. They would not be beholden to their big contributers, just the voters.
The worst that could happen is that Americans rediscover books.