Cam-pain Reform!

What kind of a political system would you create if you wanted to maximize Presidential candidates’ reliance on a continuing flow of massive campaign contributions from special interests – companies that might like, for example, special tax treatment to continue (big oil) or virtually no regulation of trading and dealing in toxic derivatives (hedge funds)? Well, for one thing, you most certainly want to increase the need for money to require candidates to grovel and promise well beyond the bounds of any pool of cash that might be generated by reasonable, voter-driven campaign contributions.

So one of the most important factors, to foster those special interests’ ability to buy votes, has to be a long primary season (more time to spend!). It’s only about three months from nominating conventions to the actual Presidential election, but it’s almost two years between the start of “exploratory committees” and other nascent fund-raising efforts – all focused on the primary schedule – to that same Election Day. Not to mention two solid years of distraction from actually dealing with the issues that concern us all – you just get to talk about it.

With Presidential primaries and caucuses scheduled eleven or more months prior to the election, candidates consumed with a series of “make or break” primaries (including that infamous “Super Tuesday”) and states jockeying to move up the dates of their primaries to increase their clout and confuse their parties, it all seems to be getting worse. I even wonder how much energy a victorious Presidential candidate has left, after a grueling two-year campaign schedule, to run the country?! This can’t be good for anyone, particularly not the nation herself. I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of the “never-ending” election. It will be over on Tuesday, thank God, but do we really ever want to go through this process again?

So keeping in mind the requirements for free speech in the First Amendment, we really do need to create some Constitutionally viable restrictions to protect the electoral process from dragging out so long that the only winners are the special interests with the ability to promote and create funding raising opportunities that literally take the choice away from the American people. We could just ban such financial activities. Or maybe candidates should be conclusively deemed to opt in to being a “write in” only candidate if they take money or create “exploratory committees” or gather future “commitments to contribute” more than 60 days prior to the first primary, and we require primaries to take place no earlier than January 1 of the year of the election in question. Shouldn’t we actually make April Fools’ Day the first permissible date for a primary or a caucus? That would at least be a tad more honest.

Anyway, the system is broken; it must be fixed. What do you think?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I already voted.