Monday, March 15, 2004
Politics of Feeling are Killing Democracy
Patrick Basham on Campaign-Finance Reform on National Review Online: "Proponents of campaign-finance regulations, led by Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), had promised that we'd see less costly, less-negative campaigns better managed by the two major parties. The restrictions on free speech pushed by McCain et al were intended to reduce the power of independent political groups and special interests and return it to the candidates and their parties.
However, now that McCain-style campaign-finance regulation is a reality, the millions that may be spent on unregulated anti-Bush advertising illustrates what the campaign-finance cure-all has in fact produced. The parties and the presidential candidates have lost control of their own campaigns as a result of the soft-money ban.
Who's in the driver's seat? Special-interest groups, corporations, and labor unions who have retained previously donated soft-money funds. Prior soft-money contributions from wealthy individuals are flowing to independent campaign organizations instead of their previous destination, the national parties.
These "527 committees," named after a section of the IRS code, are exempted from the new campaign-finance regulations, most importantly the soft-money ban.
Ironically, the channeling of donations and advertising through non-party organizations will increase the number of these groups and the proliferation of non-party micro-campaigns. A large number of these campaigns will perform a series of one-off advertising attacks in specific races. These hit-and-run operations will all occur completely outside the control, but not the purview, of individual campaigns and the national parties.
The unintended and unforeseen consequences of the latest constraints on political speech serve only to further the journey of American political campaigning down a path seemingly anathema to the stated desires of the leading campaign-finance regulators. Perhaps it is time to stop looking to regulations to save our political system?"
Regulation is bad in politics; one doesn't want speech regulated, but that's what this is! The First Amendment is dying, and its ailment is the way in which people seem to have to use feeling when deciding how to vote, instead of their minds.
However, now that McCain-style campaign-finance regulation is a reality, the millions that may be spent on unregulated anti-Bush advertising illustrates what the campaign-finance cure-all has in fact produced. The parties and the presidential candidates have lost control of their own campaigns as a result of the soft-money ban.
Who's in the driver's seat? Special-interest groups, corporations, and labor unions who have retained previously donated soft-money funds. Prior soft-money contributions from wealthy individuals are flowing to independent campaign organizations instead of their previous destination, the national parties.
These "527 committees," named after a section of the IRS code, are exempted from the new campaign-finance regulations, most importantly the soft-money ban.
Ironically, the channeling of donations and advertising through non-party organizations will increase the number of these groups and the proliferation of non-party micro-campaigns. A large number of these campaigns will perform a series of one-off advertising attacks in specific races. These hit-and-run operations will all occur completely outside the control, but not the purview, of individual campaigns and the national parties.
The unintended and unforeseen consequences of the latest constraints on political speech serve only to further the journey of American political campaigning down a path seemingly anathema to the stated desires of the leading campaign-finance regulators. Perhaps it is time to stop looking to regulations to save our political system?"
Regulation is bad in politics; one doesn't want speech regulated, but that's what this is! The First Amendment is dying, and its ailment is the way in which people seem to have to use feeling when deciding how to vote, instead of their minds.
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