OK, here it is, my great idea for campaign finance reform. I've been thinking about this for a while, but it really crystallized for me this morning while talking to my Dad on the phone. He just got back from San Salvador where he was on an Earthwatch research trip (studying coral reefs or some such, SCUBA and snorkeling work), and he said that one of the guys on his trip was a guy who lost an election in FL recently, state legislature I guess. He said the guy was really sincere, genuine, had great ideas, etc...But he was so disenchanted and probably won't run again b/c he said he spent ALL his time fundraising. He only talked to people at length who could get him money, and the local party officials told him who those people were, set up appointments for him, sent him on luncheons, put him on phone calls, even with donors out of state who would have an interest in having "their guy" in the FL House. People as far away as Seattle! (Microsoft) Shocked
He said it's all about money, and the money is almost ALL for TV.
So after my blood stopped boiling (and this was a Dem we're talking about, so it had nothing to do with my feeling sorry for a fellow conservative Wink ), it hit me...Why do candidates have to pay the same rates for ads that some product does? This is our democracy we're talking about, and the main way people hear the news about candidates is through this private enterprise known as television, and yet we are held hostage by that very business b/c they control who gets their message out from the git-go! Can you say conflict of interest much? It's to the point where only the very rich can run without spending all their time raising money, and that is NOT GOOD for us IMHO.
At the same time, the gov't regulates the airwaves on which these businesses send their programs (even though we all use cable, the Alphabet networks are licensed by the gov't still). So why not mandate that a requirement of licensing is a minimum amount of airtime for candidate ads for ALL candidates, period. And it should be a decent amount, and they should not be consigned to the 1 a.m. time slot or to six months out from the election either Evil or Very Mad
I'm still a free-marketeer so if they want to still sell air time to people who can afford to pay for more, OK, but they cannot give those people preference over the required air time spots. They cannot get better time slots or anything like that. All the paying customers can do is pay for time around those times, before or after, but not instead of. Anyone caught bending the rules loses their license to broadcast, period.
Same could work for radio.
And I think cable TV should be given an incentive to do the same somehow.
But the bottom line for me is that we cannot allow our election process to be reduced to the money game it has become b/c broadcasting and media have a lock on who gets to reach the rest of us with their message. If we allow this to continue, we are allowing the medium to be the message for real, and that scares me.
Posted by insomnomaniac at July 13, 2007 3:57 PM | TrackBack