By: Mary Mostert, Analsyt, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
October 16, 2000
With all the discussion about Campaign Finance Reform, which revolves around the money raised and spent by candidates, almost no discussion takes place about where all those millions of dollars eventually end up. Contrary to the media's handling of this issue, all that "special interest" money that they talk about does not end up in the pockets of candidates. It mostly ends up in the pockets of the media and admen.
Once upon a time the people around a candidate or an elected official were almost always people who shared their political views. That is no longer the case. The candidate "handlers" today, tend to be "professional" political handlers who are hired for their "expertise" in the technical aspects of running a political campaign. Their last client may well have been someone from the opposing party.
Two points have been pounded into the public's head about Campaign Finance. First, it is controlled by "special interests" who, it turns out, is anyone with a strong opinion about an issue. It may be Concerned Women of America, or it may be the Airline industry, but the goal of the "reformers" is the stop the concerned folk from getting too involved in the campaign.
Sen. McCain introduced a bill in 1997 which would limit spending in Senatorial elections to $250,000. Would that, do you suppose, enable the voting public to have MORE accurate information about candidates than they have when $1,000,000 or more is spent by a Senatorial candidate? Not likely.
The proposed "solution" to that problem would be free TV broadcast time and public financing. Would either of those allow the voting public more access to the candidates and their views? Or, perhaps, would the public just be subjected to more "debates" where media personalities ask loaded questions designed, in large part, to favor their candidate?
Al Gore, says:
"I will fight for the bipartisan McCain-Feingold reform proposal that will ban unlimited contributions to national parties and regulate campaign activities by outside groups. I will also continue fighting for other reforms that can help reduce the skyrocketing costs of campaigns-such as free or reduced rates for TV advertising."
This campaign finance reform issue has been around a long time. In fact, the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which was amended in 1974, placed a limit on the amount of money a candidate could spend, which is the core of the McCain-Feingold view of Campaign Finance Reform. Two years later, in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional stating:
(b) The First Amendment requires the invalidation of the Act's independent expenditure ceiling, its limitation on a candidate's expenditures from his own personal funds, and its ceilings on over-all campaign expenditures, since those provisions place substantial and direct restrictions on the ability of candidates, citizens, and associations to engage in protected political expression, restrictions that the First Amendment cannot tolerate.
The worst abuses of EXISTING campaign finance law, including a ban on foreign money, took place in 1996 in Clinton-Gore campaign finance in such events as Gore's Buddhist Temple caper for which Maria Hsia was convicted in March 2000. Yet, Al Gore has gotten a lot of free publicity by claiming he would "reform" the laws he didn't abide by.
On the other hand, Governor Bush, who believes full disclosure of the names of contributors would do a great deal in stopping the abuse that has become an issue in recent years. With that in mind, he has not waited for new laws, but has been voluntarily posting all contributions he has received on his Website http://www.georgewbush.com/DonorSearch.asp. His Website states:
To ensure that individuals control the political process, he has proposed banning corporations and unions from giving so-called "soft" money to political parties. He also supports "paycheck protection" to prevent unions from spending members' dues on politics without their permission. At the same time, Governor Bush will preserve the First Amendment right of individuals and groups - from the Sierra Club to the Christian Coalition - to express their views on issues.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) says on his campaign website http://www.orrinhatch.org: that he "believes true campaign finance reform begins with every candidate, in providing full disclosure of both individual campaign contributors and of political action committees (PACs) and also is disclosing the names of his contributors.
For all the conversation about campaign finance reform, there is certainly no sign of it in ANY of the Democrat campaigns I've checked out. If actions speak louder than words, the behavior of key Democrats would indicate that none of them actually are speaking on the issue. In the New York Senate race, the New York Times reported Friday, Hillary Clinton obtained, and used 1,400 names from a list of people who were to receive invitations to the White House last December. A spokesman for Hillary's campaign for the U.S. Senate, Howard Wolfson, said that the "White House visitor list was inadvertently mixed in with Hillary's Clinton's campaign lists. 'It happened once - it should not have happened - and it will not happen again."
Of course, it only NEEDED to happen once for them to get, use and keep the 1400 names. Hillary's opponent, Rip Rick Lazio, http://www.lazio.com has charged that Hillary, like Bill, has rewarded political donors with invitations to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom and has also used other government resources in her Senate campaign. Lazio said of the latest campaign finance impropriety: "Those lists, like the Lincoln Bedroom, belong to the American taxpayers, and Mrs. Clinton is treating them like her personal property."
The New York senate race is amazingly close, according to the Zogby poll, with Hillary 4 points ahead, but with 8% of the voters still undecided. Lazio is using his website as a media source, posting news daily. The undecideds are being wooed with a unique interactive website that is a good example of how candidates can use the Internet to talk directly to the online portion of their constituency with daily updates and local information for voters.
Several 1998 races were decided by candidate websites, such as that of Jesse Ventura of Minnesota. For the year 2000, there will be more races in which surprise endings may develop due in large part to effective websites. In close races, the candidate websites, which give voters the opportunity to hear or read a candidate's complete message, something that rarely happens when candidates have to depend on news bytes or paid advertising, can be the sleeper in this election. In both the presidential race, which is close with 8-10% of the electorate still undecided and in congressional and gubernatorial races candidate websites may very well be the margin of victory.
Bill Federer at http://www.federer.org/ who is running a close race against Dick Gephardt, who would become speaker of the House should the Democrats win, believes the race is the "most important in America." Certainly, should Gephardt lose, it would be the most embarrassing race for the Democrats in America. In 1998, Federer kept Gephardt's victory to 55% when almost all Republican and Democrat incumbents were getting 66-80% of the votes in their districts.
Congressman Tom Campbell, a Stamford University professor, http://www.campbell.org/comparison/ of California who is running against Senator Diane Feinstein has developed a fascinating comparison list between his, and Sen. Feinstein's positions on a variety of issues, from taxes, to campaign finances, to Kosovo, to a balanced budget to an issue most candidates are avoiding - impeachment. He states:
"Sen. FEINSTEIN said she had been shocked, misled, and lied to by President Clinton. Nonetheless, she then voted to acquit him. Several months later, she invited President Clinton to host a major fundraiser for her, netting hundreds of thousands of dollars."Cong. CAMPBELL read all the evidence and the defense prepared by the President's attorneys. He received phone calls from Members of the President's Cabinet, Hollywood stars, and Silicon Valley industrialists (none of whom claimed to have read the evidence), asking him not to vote to impeach. Nevertheless, CAMPBELL followed the law, the same law for the powerful as for the weak."
Derek Smith, http://www.smith4congress.com/, in a tight race with Jim Matheson, the son of a popular Democrat governor in Utah, is running in the Salt Lake City area that often elects Democrats and the National Democrat leadership has put quite a bit of money and effort into winning the 2nd District back. In conservative Utah, still angry at the cavalier manner in which President Clinton ignored the people of the state in declaring a large deposit of environmentally friendly coal worth billions of dollars a "monument" there currently are NO Democrats in the Utah congressional delegation. Matheson, like other Democrat candidates in Utah, has carefully avoided mentioning his party affiliation in TV ads or signs.
Jesse Thomas of Colorado at http://www.runjesserun.org. Jesse Thomas is a black conservative, and "the great, great, great grandson of a slave and the son of a sharecropper." He is running in a district that usually goes to liberal, white Democrats. Jesse has a unique message about "dreams" and "bridging the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It will be an interesting race to watch.
Ken Payne in California's 5th District, http://www.kenpayne.org/, wants to replace Rep. Robert Matsui whom he calls "a Washington insider and career politician with a representative that is native to Sacramento." Payne or his staff has done some extensive research into Matsui's voting record and come up with "101 Matsui Mistakes" such as "#38, Opposed prohiting the sale of sexual material to minors, #50 Voted to increase the gasoline tax by 30%, #76-voted against reducing the national debt, #96 Voted against campaign finance reform ."
Campaign finance reform, which seems to be discussed in Washington, but not addressed effectively, appears to be taking place through political websites not only could greatly reduce the amount of money needed by candidates, but also provide a much greater information base about the candidates. Candidate websites could bring back the direct contact between candidates and their constituencies which has been lost in recent years. One website, http://www.ecccentral.com, which has been introduced this election year seeks to reform the campaign finance culture with millions of Americans choosing this direct access method by budgeting for interactive democracy. It notes:
This election is a battle for the soul of America and we intend to win... Join us!To win this battle we must elect a conservative working majority in the House of Representatives. Because every congressman's vote is equal, all of us must be concerned about electing conservatives to Congress-no matter where we live or what district they represent. You can help do that by creating a family budget for politics to help deserving conservative candidates. The kind of America our children and grandchildren will inherit depends upon the outcome of this election.
While that concept has not been a major factor in this election, it very well may be by the year 2004. However, as more and more voters realize that they can access direct information on candidate websites those undecided voters could very well make up their minds by doing 15-20 minutes of research to compare the candidates' OWN WORDS on their websites. Even in poorly done and neglected candidate websites, and there are many of those, the personalities and the stand on the issues of the various candidates come through.
Unfortunately, it seems that most of the candidates have not yet realized that, as 50,000 Americans a week are accessing the Internet for the first time, their website has actually become part of the information age media. They need to treat their websites as if they WERE media and post their comments and positions on their websites the same time they issue press releases. This is the year when a good website can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
To access the candidates in your state go to: http://www.originalsources.com/Candidates/statepolitics.html
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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