I can’t help it: I love shadow-boxing with the California CMCE fight.  It’s just good practice on the off chance that we can get something done in this state (c’mon, Elliot!).  Here is an interesting take on the whole CMCE public campaign financing idea:

Times-Standard Online - Clean money, or election welfare?

?The question to ask is, what are the legitimate roles of government? What should government do that individuals or businesses can’t reasonably do for themselves?? Crawford said. ?Personally, I don’t think that government should go so far as to finance Advertisement campaigns.?

With due respect, the problem is precisely that there are a few people far more capable of financing an election than the rest of us, and that’s exactly what they are doing. . .  at our expense.  Moreover, consider this: you pay a representative’s salary, you pay for his/her staff, you pay for his office and you even pay for his trips (albeit to a limited degree and assuming you don’t find out about the rest).  The one thing you do not pay for ~  the one thing that you relinquish all financial control over ~ is the part where you elect them.  How does that make any sense at all?

Face it: if you can’t raise $100-large to run a half-assed primary campaign in most states, you’re already out of the running.  If you can’t follow that up with a few more hundreds of thousands of dollars, you’re not going to win the primary, and a few more hundreds of thousands of dollars *might* win you the general election.  If money ~ not ideas, not character, not “values” ~ determines whom you get to vote for before you get a chance to vote, do you really live in a democracy?  Or do you live in a plutocracy?

Technorati Tags: Clean Money Clean Elections, Elections, Election reform

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