It takes a Thief....

[lars573]

Would you prefer our parliamentary dictatorship? If a party gets a comfortable enough majority, they can push through just about anything which falls short of causing a revolution. No namby pambying over compromises here, just make sure one doesn't get so unpopular that one loses the next election. Until then, anything goes.

I know I do. Considering the alternatives.

[a completely inoffensive name]

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[KukriKhan]

Three words:

term

lim

its

For every office. And I'm beginning to wonder if we outta elect our Supremes too.

Three more words:

Spend

ing

caps.

For election campaigns. You can raise a gazillion bucks, to prove your popularity, and for citizens to express their preference through their wallets, but...

you can only spend X amount, maximum, however you want. All contributions and expenditures reportable to the FEC (or State or County equivalent), and displayed prominently on the web, updated daily. If we can't eliminate campaign-contribution influence (as we tried to in the 70's), let's at least shine the bright light of publicity on it, so we know who our public employees are beholden to.

[Lemur]

Kukri, that's not money, that's free speech. Why do you hate monetary freedom?

[Gregoshi]

Kukri, that's not money, that's free speech. Why do you hate monetary freedom?

'Cuz that's government buy the people but not for the people. And since money talks, it ain't free speech, but just a vote for change.

[a completely inoffensive name]

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[Pannonian]

Three more words:

Spend

ing

caps.

For election campaigns. You can raise a gazillion bucks, to prove your popularity, and for citizens to express their preference through their wallets, but...

you can only spend X amount, maximum, however you want. All contributions and expenditures reportable to the FEC (or State or County equivalent), and displayed prominently on the web, updated daily. If we can't eliminate campaign-contribution influence (as we tried to in the 70's), let's at least shine the bright light of publicity on it, so we know who our public employees are beholden to.

Have you ever thought that the ruling party is neither blue nor red, but green?

[KukriKhan]

So: spending caps are more objectionable than term limits?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

For election campaigns. You can raise a gazillion bucks, to prove your popularity, and for citizens to express their preference through their wallets, but...

you can only spend X amount, maximum, however you want. All contributions and expenditures reportable to the FEC (or State or County equivalent), and displayed prominently on the web, updated daily. If we can't eliminate campaign-contribution influence (as we tried to in the 70's), let's at least shine the bright light of publicity on it, so we know who our public employees are beholden to.

This would be good to have, but the "X amount" will have to be high, otherwise it will be impossible for unknown candidates to overcome those with name recognition. We'd end up with bush-clinton-bush-clinton etc.

[a completely inoffensive name]

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[a completely inoffensive name]

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[Sasaki Kojiro]

Why is it that instead of tackling the problem, people seem to want to change their own government in order to fit around the problem?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...s_Constitution

[a completely inoffensive name]

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[Xiahou]

This would be good to have, but the "X amount" will have to be high, otherwise it will be impossible for unknown candidates to overcome those with name recognition. We'd end up with bush-clinton-bush-clinton etc.

Not only name recognition, but pork. Once they're in, the politicians can do all the vote buying they want and they don't even have to raise money- they have access to the government coffers.

Kukri, that's not money, that's free speech. Why do you hate monetary freedom?

It is free speech.

I also don't like the idea of term limits- but I really don't like the idea of career politicians either. Id rather the voters throw them out of office, but that doesn't seem to happen much....

How about we start our reforms by repealing the 17th Amendment.

[Husar]

If you want equal voting chances, you have to switch to a communist democracy, and no, i don't mean communist aristocracy or dictatorship like the ones we have seen.
But as long as you have capitalism you will always have some ricvh and some poor candidate and the rich candidate will always win as long as all theclever capitalists vote for whoever gives them more posters to look at.

That is the truth from your friendly neighbothood Husar, deal with it!

[Lemur]

But as long as you have capitalism you will always have some ricvh and some poor candidate and the rich candidate will always win as long as all theclever capitalists vote for whoever gives them more posters to look at.

Dude, the late 1800s called and they want their rhetoric back.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Okay, for an order of Belgian-style fried potatoes with may, answer me this:

"When, exactly, was it EVER possible to keep money and politics separate?"

I've got lots of fingers left for counting, because I've used NONE to tote up any examples thus far. The two elements are inseparable. Money influences politics and politics influences money.


Therefore:

I'd say let anyone contribute what they want and to whom. If you can buy a pol, that's up to you. However, I'd add one legal caveat. ALL donations must be reported in detail by doner, donee, date, & amount. If they're bought, at least I know by whom. Heck, I may even think its worthwhile. Make the penalties for HIDING this information catastrophic to the persons hiding the info.

[Husar]

Dude, the late 1800s called and they want their rhetoric back.

Well, that was a nice picture but if you look closely, I also said somethiong against people who apparently vote for whoever has his posters everywhere, quite frankly, it sounds like most voters are dumb sheeple when you read this thread. Either you guys are wrong or there is a desperate need for more education, or maybe an IQ limit below which people are not allowed to vote anymore.
Just make an amendment to the constitution that bans people with IQs lower than 100 from voting
then we can have threads and supreme court rulings about which IQ test is the least partisan.

[Major Robert Dump]

I'm all for complete and total freedom to donate as much to whoever whenever as long as:

1: it is your money to donate

2: it is reported

And by reported I don't mean a little website run by Senators Obama and Coburn that about .005% of the population visits, I mean the FEC needs to make this information recent, availalable and in-your face and essentially needs to turn into an IRS-like entity to make sure the money matches the donors etc. The information needs to be pushed on people, not just available when they ask. It needs to be pushed on media, and it needs to be REQUIRED that the accurately media report it. Think the National Weather Service severe storm warnings that radio and TV must break to when the signal goes out. Think large 3rd page advertisements in every newspaper say, monday wednesday and sunday. In fact, the print, internet and television "ads" would be designed by the FEC so no one was intentionally or unintentionally leaving out info and the same info was reported everywhere you look.

and yes, dear conservatives, that does entail the FEC become bigger government with more staff and more money and more power. it would be a mix of less regulation on the donor-reciever end, and more regulation in reporting practices.

The main problem would be finding a way to staff and appoint people to this agency that didn't put all power in the hands of the president or a House committee. Maybe it could be done from the state level up, i dunno.

[LittleGrizzly]

How about a system where 50% of your political donation has to go to less well funded candidates to kind of level up the playing field...

The main problem is i was imagining this within the 2 party system, it gets a bit more complicated once you get onto 3rd parties and the like, it could work though and it would take away some of the advantage of handing out favours for campaign funds...

[Major Robert Dump]

How about a system where 50% of your political donation has to go to less well funded candidates to kind of level up the playing field...

The main problem is i was imagining this within the 2 party system, it gets a bit more complicated once you get onto 3rd parties and the like, it could work though and it would take away some of the advantage of handing out favours for campaign funds...

won't work, because then we'd be funding EZ Million, Al Sharpton and Pat Buchanan every election.

[LittleGrizzly]

Sure the nuts get a little funding... but in compensation so do the half decent candidates who get drowned out by the richer ones... EZ sounds like some kind of rapper of something...

I usually lean towards state funding as i loath the practice of policy for cash, but i know you americans really don't like spending money... so i figured the easiest way would be to force the rich candidates to share some of thier resources with the less well funded ones...

Unless your worried that the crazy candidates with a little funding could win...i suspect they would just show thier crazyness to a wider audience...

[a completely inoffensive name]

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[LittleGrizzly]

I think the best way would be a series of national debates, the tv companys would show them out of thier own interest, you could even have them go a little in depth with a debate for each subject, one for foriegn policy one for economy ect. or maybe more than one for important issues...

This would be a decent amount of advertising for each candidate and would not be needed to be paid for... maybe even putting more attention on policy differences

[a completely inoffensive name]

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