I guess I do want to be inspired
By Thoreau
You know, I have been quite wary of the whole Obama phenomenon of “I’m going to bring change, because change is good, and I’m different, and I haven’t been here that long, and it will all be a change!” I want action over rhetoric.
But thinking on the issues facing us, I guess that in a way I do want some inspirational appeals. Let me explain:
We’re all familiar with the basic problem in Congress: A significant majority of the Dem caucus votes the right way on matters of war and civil liberties, and yet bad bills pass because a minority of that caucus (you can argue that the minority isn’t very big, but it’s big enough) votes the wrong way. We debate here whether the caucus should install different leaders, whether a committee chair should do something, whether a different procedural tactic should have been used, etc. But the bottom line is that a minority of the Democratic caucus is working with the GOP minority to let bad things happen. Whether or not the rest of the Dem caucus should be blamed for sins of omission, that’s the fundamental fact.
But there’s another issue here: Fundamentally, we are the country that is failing to stop this stuff. We can debate some other time what else we could/should do. Whatever the case on that, this isn’t just about 535 people in Congress plus 2 in the Executive branch. They ostensibly act with our consent, and while consent and the nature of elected government involves all sorts of philosophical issues (especially from a libertarian perspective) there are more people who play a part in this than just the 537 elected officials in DC.
So what do I want? I guess I want the majority of elected Dems to do more than just show up and vote the right way on the final vote, and even do more than do the right procedural maneuvers before the final vote. Given the stakes here, I guess I want them to stand up and raise hell. I want them to say “Enough is enough.” If they lack the numbers to stop this, well, then they need to announce what’s going on here. They need to stand up and announce that very bad things are happening and will continue to happen unless the American people hold the other elected officials accountable. They need to announce that a significant fraction of their caucus (large or small, it’s large enough to matter) are wolves in sheeps’ clothing, and that the other caucus is rotten to the core, and that if the American people do not demand something better then these very bad things will go on.
Maybe nothing good will come from this moment of clarity, this airing of outrage and appeal for action. Maybe the American people will yawn. I’m not willing to bet that there’s a virtuous “Silent Majority” that will come out and fix everything if the men in suits in DC just ask them to. But what I do know is that the people who are able to get in front of cameras need to do more than cast the right vote. There are serious issues here, and they need to use the bully pulpit to identify the stakes. They’ve tried to negotiate and maneuver with their colleagues and it has not worked. Now they need to appeal to somebody beyond the 535 in Congress.
And if that fails? If they ask for outrage and no outrage materializes? Well, then we’ll know that there are no places left to turn, and that the coalition running the place really does reflect the majority (or at least the apathy of the majority). That won’t make it legitimate (calm down, Leonard, I’m well aware of all the problems with majority rule) but it will identify the root of the problem. It will also give us a final answer on whether “more and better Democrats” is a viable strategy. The only way to get “more and better Democrats” into a majority position is if there’s a majority that actively supports something better.
So, I’d like to see the people who are able to get in front of the cameras make the final appeal for whatever it is that they claim to believe in, and let’s see if the support materializes. I don’t know if it will, but I do know that we need to find out, one way or the other.
Comment by joe —
February 12, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
I think there’s a shorter line between Barack Obama and stopping that minority of Democrats from siding with the Republicans.
The President is the most powerful figure in our political system, as well as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. These two factors give him significant sway in setting the agenda and framing the issues.
Democrats sell out scary-bad-guy issues because of a boomer-era presumption of political weakness. A president who is good on these issues and a skilled politician can change the agenda are frame issues in a more civil-liberties-friendly direction, and change the political calculus facing Democrats in Congress.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
joe, at some point they must do the same thing that the American people must do: They must move beyond fear. For too many Americans it is fear of a foreign menace, and for too many elected Democrats it is fear of being called weak. As long as they are governed by fear, they shall be helpless in the face of those who are governed by greed for power.
It may be that there is simply no way for them to negotiate towards the necessary number of votes. Fine. Then they must use their access to cameras and as a group (not just one or two figures easily dismissed as “fringe”) call on the American people to strengthen their hand. If they say nothing while this occurs, then they might not be blamed but they will certainly not be remembered for their courage.
I’m not sure that enough of us will respond, but those with access to cameras have to try. Otherwise, our fate is set.
Comment by joe —
February 12, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
I don’t think that expecting professional politicians to “move beyond fear” of losing their seats is going to pay off very well as a strategy for change. We’re talking about people who subvert everything to winning elections. And, quite frankly, if you lose an election for being too “soft” on civil liberties, you’re probably losing it to someone who is “hard” on civil liberties.
As long as these stances are political losers, we’re going to have a Congress that won’t take them up. I agree that our side needs to play offense, and take a pro-freedom message to the public, and make the Republicans defend themselves. My point is that it takes the White House to control the debate that way.
Comment by Barry —
February 12, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
BTW, the libertarians here should occasionally hand out on Making Light, to get an idea of the sheer anger of liberals at their (our) leadership.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
Then the legislature is largely powerless to affect the course of the country and we’re right on the border between a republic and a monarchy (rule of one).
Maybe you’re right.
Let me ask you this: If there’s no recourse to be sought from the legislature (yes, I know, the Senate wiretap bill hasn’t made it past the conference committee yet, the House version could still be sent, but I’m not holding my breath) then why should we bother to vote for Dems for the legislative branch?
Comment by mds —
February 12, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
Yeah, ’cause they wouldn’t be able to get hand outs from libertarian blogs.
Thank you! Try the veal.
Anyway, Barry, I do hang out at Making Light, liberal that I am. I’ve also expressed my signature profane juvenile anger at “our” leadership in more than one comment thread here. My question remains, though: Now what? Primary Dan Lipinski some more? Back a Harry Reid challenger? Do takebacks on all our efforts to get Webb and McCaskill and Whitehouse and Casey elected? Replace Chuck Schumer with Teresa Nielsen Hayden? (Okay, I could actually get behind that one.) We’ve been ringing Congressional Democrats’ phones off the hook on issue after issue, and our response is floor votes and press releases that tell their own base to fuck off and die, because what are we gonna do, vote for Republicans? Well, at this point, I’m busy spitting out the feathers from Eric-the-.5b-Brand Crow Helpings, because what difference would it make? “I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed.”
Or, what Thoreau said. Why elect Democrats to Congress if they’re not going to uphold their oaths, either?
Comment by Barry —
February 12, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
Ya know, MDS, if I had the f*cking answers, I’d probably be on a tropical island paradise somewhere, enjoying my wealth and my harem.
Sorry, I’m going to go off as an *hole here again, so please skip if offended:
It’s really rich to hear some libertarians go to this extreme. The only accomplishments which liberatrianism has to its credit are some work in making Republicanism sound kewl, before the majority of them ripped off their “Don’t Tread on Me” t-shirts for Bush Brown shirts. Well, and fooling people into believing that Federalist Society guys were working for freedom.
Oh, and the partial deregulation of some industries (although the telco’s seem to be laughing all the way to the bank on that one).
It’s only on the internet (and DC-area think tanks) that libertarianism is even something that people have heard of – heck, it looks like Ron Paul’s appeal was due as much to hatin’ on the Evul BlackJewishHispanic Banking/Blue Helmet UN Conspiracy of Furrinizm as for being anti-war.
Just in case you haven’t figured this out yet:
1) As Jim Henley said, most of the world is a Red State. People are tribal, don’t like foreigners, define foreigners as ‘not from around here’, and their feelings range from not really caring about them to actively hating on them and enjoying their deaths. Sophisticated trading/merchant metropolises are islands in this red world sea. The idea that you can walk down the street and see all sorts of strange stuff on a daily basis is a call to arms and oppression for a huge chunk of the people of this world, not a demonstration of prosperity and diversity.
2) Being Red Staters, most of the world’s people don’t really mind oppressive government that much, as long as they don’t feel directly threatened by it (today). Watching Daddy State beat the f*ck out of (other) people is something that a lot of people don’t mind, even in the USA. Or perhaps especially in the USA, because we’re used to being in the position to beat on others.
3) Being Red Staters, a lot of people cling to the idea that we can’t fail if we just swing a bigger bat harder. Failing would make them feel bad about themselves, and they don’t like that (like the rest of us). They’ve also got a mass media which seems surprisingly unliberal at key times, which reinforces this idea. Note how many elite MSM pundits who supported the Iraq War in 2002-03 are still on those same bully pulpits.
4) The g-d rich and powerful like this, so long as they can mostly control it. They generally profit from wars and xenophobia; they luuuuuuuuuuuuv railing up the Reddies against Intelekshuals, even if the G-D R&P would count as Intelekshuals, when view up close – like when having the fabled beer with people. The occasional losses on Dubai port deals are tolerable, and they frequently win on the long term, through lobbyists, what they don’t win in the short term, in public (see immigration).
5) A lot of peoople are evil. I think of my extended family; most of them are person-for-person far better people than I; but they can be lead into so much evil so easily. Evil grows best in the hearts of good, solid people.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
Yes. You’re right. Many (no, not all, calm down, noble exceptions) libertarians were, for a long time, part of the Coalition of the Kool-Aid.
And maybe, just maybe, we have learned something from that affiliation. When a coalition says “Look, we will curb the excesses of the state, we just need consolidated power to do it, and before we get there we can’t afford to stand in the way of any excesses” we get suspicious. It’s not like this is the first time we’ve heard something like that.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…you don’t get fooled again!
Comment by Leonard —
February 12, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Thoreau, you’re chasing your tail. Oh, maybe we could get Mo/Better Dems(tm) for an election, or two. Or maybe we can get Ronner/Pauler Repubs(tm). For an election. (Arguably, we did in 1994.) But so what? That’s like saying we can get fiscal responsibility for an election or two. We probably could, with enough effort from enough people. But why, oh why, would people do that? These are our precious lives we’re talking about here, to be pissed away in bloody politics? Lord, no.
And even if millions of people somehow did become selfless, and decide that a life devoted to endless committee meetings, thankless phone calls, and standing on street corners talking to hostile strangers was just what they all needed… then, when they inevitably burned out on it, politics as normal would return.
As for the root of the problem, it is the system itself. I know I’ve mentioned this before here, but it bears repeating: in democracy, good law is a public good; thus it is underproduced. The good news is the American people deserve better law and government than we get. The bad news is we cannot get it.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
I’m moving in your direction, Leonard.
Comment by Timothy —
February 12, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
Then why did HillaryCare fail, joe?
Comment by TGGP —
February 12, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
Fundamentally, we are the country that is failing to stop this stuff.
Your libertarian card is revoked.
I think you might be confusing Obama with the Dodd. They’re both senators, right? Personally, I only get inspired by the Marvin Heemeyer types.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
That’s OK. I didn’t like paying membership dues.
I’ll just free-ride off you guys, and use the label anyway to bask in your coolness.
Seriously, yeah, I guess I phrased that poorly. I guess my point was that we can’t blame this entirely on 537 elected officials and their willing employees. There are other forces to consider. If good ideas are deemed insane then sane people will not push them. The press and other elite institutions certainly play a part in determining what ideas will be acceptable, but the public (in whatever sense we can talk about “the public” in a meaningful way) also plays a role.
We can’t blame the entire thing on 537 elected officials, federal employees, some campaign donors, and a few editorial boards. The responses of the public (or at least certain segments of the public) also affect whether certain ideas are even entertained.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
February 12, 2008 @ 6:11 pm
I’m not sure what point you think you’re making, here.
We’re the fringe weirdos, you’re the mainstream supporter of the dominant party in the legislature elected in the face of broad public discontent with the minority party and the president. What’s the relevance of our inability to get what we want to your party’s institutional disinterest in doing the key things you and the American public want it to do?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
February 12, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
…And you know, I understand folks being angry at their party screwing them over. I don’t enjoy that honest people more worried about their country than their party have been eating crow over what Team Blue’s done since the election. I’ve eaten much nastier crow this decade, so I’m the last person able to say “told you so” to any of them.
But we all need to eat the crow when it’s dished up for us. For some of us, that involves stepping beyond being a Blue partisan and worrying about bigger results than getting more Blues in office and existing Blues re-elected.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
In all fairness, there are some good people who really think that the Blues are still the best means to a good end. And the dangerous thing about that lie is that, like all dangerous lies, it’s partly true: There is indeed a good faction among the Blues. It is indeed true that if enough from that good faction were elected they could do good things.
The problems are:
1) Evidence shows that this good faction does not enjoy the upper hand in the party.
2) Even if that good faction got the upper hand, would they be corrupted?
3) There are plenty of bad Dems (be they actively bad or merely passive) who can masquerade as something better.
These factors come together to make supporting Blues a very dubious strategy. But until people see that, they’ll continue to believe that supporting Blues is the right strategy and those of us who urge against it are at best dupes and at worst secret Reds.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
Oh, and I know joe’s response: The dynamics will change, and the Dems won’t have to play defense if one of their own has the White House. That’s probably true, but the Blue contenders for the White House are the guy who mused on attacking Pakistan and the woman who said that she sees the US staying in Iraq for at least 10 more years.
Moreover, if during this time in “opposition” the upper hand in Team Blue was held by “serious” people who would never actually oppose anything in a meaningful way, are we really to believe that the better faction in the party will be the one that gets the key jobs in the next administration?
The dynamic can change under a Dem President to the extent that they no longer have to play according to terms dictated by the GOP. But the evidence suggests that the past several years have weakened their better faction and strengthened their worse faction. It’s by no means obvious that they will change course to a meaningful extent.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
Finally, the point about how change can only happen if the Dems get consolidated power is a scary one. It’s not like we’ve never heard this story before…
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
February 12, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
What bothers me is when people dismiss the very idea of political inspiration because of practicalities. I’m not dismissing the practicalities – I mean, they’re where we live. But I also firmly believe that a diet of too much cynicism actually makes the problem worse, because it leads to overly facile dismissal of opportunities on the margin. a lot of libertarians like to say “utopia is not an option” and then act as if anything but the worst available is utopian. It’s not. It’s not foolish to want better. It’s no more foolish to look for a grand vision that’s actually worth having for a political action than it is for a social or economic one. Sure, it has to be tested when it’s time to commit or not, but the principle is a sound one no matter how rare it may be in practice, and if we lose any capacity for hope or disappointment, we take one step closer to being the sort of pure sociopath that occupies the VP’s office, for whom nothing but the purest naked self interest is real.
I like being around people who are more human than that.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
February 12, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
It’s of a piece with the “our country only works when Dems are in charge” one.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
February 12, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
I really don’t know, Bruce. When it comes to Obama, I’m still hopeful – which means I have a quiet dread that any minute now, he’ll change his tune on habeas corpus, torture, and the war. If that happens, I have no idea what I’m doing on election day…but it wouldn’t be voting for anyone currently offered.
And yeah, wanting to be able to vote for Obama is an attempt for something on the margin…but I can’t fight off the suspicion that I’m wildly deluding myself about that margin actually existing. And I can’t deny that much of what people like to call hope is just a refusal to admit choosing the wrong path or to abandon a wrong path. I’ve been there; I had a Hell of a lot of hope for some time that the war in Iraq wouldn’t turn into the disaster clearer-eyed people told me it would.
Bluntly, I’d classify my supporting any major candidate as not obviously hugely wiser than Charlie Brown in trusting Lucy with the football. I can’t not try one more time this year, but I can’t feel down on anyone who doesn’t want to take a flying leap.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
February 12, 2008 @ 8:49 pm
Hey, skepticism is important too. I’m just saying that I think Thoreau’s onto something important that can easily get crushed in rival efforts to prove the size of one’s intellectual manhood.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 8:57 pm
What important thing am I on to? I find myself on a journey in the general direction of IOZ and/or Leonard.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
February 12, 2008 @ 9:20 pm
Wanting to be inspired. What that want itself inspires you to do is another matter entirely, and probably one with a lot of worthwhile answers.
Comment by R. Rosenbaum —
February 12, 2008 @ 10:46 pm
The problem with this line of discrediting Obama (I know that’s not what you’re doing, but you know what I mean) is that it mistakes “rhetoric” for “empty rhetoric,” claiming all examples of the former must necessarily be party to the latter. That just ain’t so.
Comment by pseudonymous in nc —
February 13, 2008 @ 12:31 am
the bottom line is that a minority of the Democratic caucus is working with the GOP minority to let bad things happen.
A big issue here, especially in the Senate, is that a large country with dispersed interests leads to states with concentrations of said interests. Senators represent their states, and need large campaign budgets, even though they only come up every six years. So the Dem Senate caucus can usually have at least a half-dozen members scraped off a bill, or watering down a bill, because their states are beholden to Big Ag, Big Debt, Big Banking et al.
Divided government now means divided-and-conquered government. So, libertarian-minded types, how about some campaign finance reform?
Comment by Thoreau —
February 13, 2008 @ 2:19 am
So, person who wants to play “gotcha!” with libertarians, how is McCain-Feingold working out? And what would you want to do differently?
Comment by mds —
February 13, 2008 @ 9:26 am
Pretty lousily, the way John “Keating” McCain intended, since he was actually trying to target traditional Democratic funding while leaving Republican-dominated bundled sources of money largely intact. Which is why he was stamping his foot about 527s in 2004, since it was too easy to route around the damage and restore the status quo. I’m still not sure what Feingold was hoping to accomplish.
Whoa, that’s a hard one, lemme solve some partial differential equations… Public financing of elections. The fact that “free speech” is now measured in dollar units, and that ADM therefore has billions of times more representation that I do, is an abomination. Take the suitcases of campaign cash out of the picture, and go the Duke Cunningham route if you want to buy a Congressman. I know that Antonin Scalia makes compelling arguments that wealth equals speech, when he’s not enthusiastically endorsing torture as constitutional, but I remain unswayed.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 13, 2008 @ 10:23 am
FWIW, I actually agree that free speech shouldn’t be measured in dollars, and that giving a bunch of cash to a politician’s campaign (by direct or indirect channels) isn’t just speech. If those were the only relevant points to be made about campaign finance, I’d be wholly in favor of CFR.
What I look at is the fact that McCain-Feingold, apparently an exercise in good intentions, failed to flush significant amounts of money out of campaigns, but did increase the complexity facing those who want to run more issue-oriented ads (a point raised by the ACLU, not just Richard Mellon Scaife).
I’m not necessarily averse to public financing of campaigns, given the relatively small amount of money involved relative to the rest of the federal budget, but I’m not an optimist about that idea either.
I proposed something else to reduce the cost of elections last year (in a nutshell, shorter campaign seasons by moving primaries closer to the election, and regular and open debates for all candidates on the ballot), but I’m having a hard time finding it right now.
Comment by Leonard —
February 13, 2008 @ 10:31 am
Wealth is not speech. But important forms of speech require wealth. Thus to regulate gifts of wealth in politics is to abridge free speech.
Any regulation of peaceful individual action, including giving money to politicians, is a violation of free speech. Very simple.
Personally, I think there’s a colorable argument that corps could be totally disallowed from giving money to politicians. Although they do proxy rights of shareholders (and thus might be presumed to have rights), they are given special privileges by the state. But then, so are unions, and many other corporate entities. I’d certainly advocate creating corporate forms that don’t get any special privileges, and which therefore can act without regulation in terms of speech.
What it always comes down to is where there’s wills there’s ways — and there are on both sides, the politicians getting and corps giving. This is strictly a function of political power, which the politicians have. The only way to sustainably reduce the amount of money in politics is to reduce the power of politicians — and that means liberty. So long as we continue on the current course of soft socialism, we’ll continue to get more and more money in politics. We seem to be trending now towards a system when only rich people can be high political candidates.
Comment by mds —
February 13, 2008 @ 11:07 am
So the laws against bribery that caught Duke Cunningham are violations of the First Amendment. And the grand majesty of this position is that rich and poor alike are permitted to own as many members of Congress as they can. Yeah, I see how individual liberty is maximized that way. Good thing it’s so simple.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 13, 2008 @ 11:41 am
Leonard, this is one of those issues that can’t be reduced to simple principle. Yes, getting your speech heard via distribution channels requires money. But there’s definitely an element of bribery there as well. The bribery and the free speech are intertwined, and while I’m generally going to defer to liberty and let 10 guilty bribe-takers go free for one innocent speaker and all that, I don’t think it’s quite so simple that we can just say “Eh, anything goes” and leave it at that.
I think it’s a fool’s errand to try to eliminate the nexus between money and power. However, we can at least reduce the significance of this nexus in elections if we do 2 things:
1) Hold primaries closer to the general election. The shorter the campaign, the cheaper it is.
2) Hold frequent and publicly-sponsored debates that are open to all candidates on the ballot. Yes, yes, I know, spending a cent of public money is bad, but this is small potatoes, and it’s part of the necessary process of holding elections. And of course other outlets would be free to hold whatever debates they want to hold and invite or not invite whoever, blah blah. But this way every candidate would have some guaranteed access to an open venue.
It wouldn’t eliminate the junction between money and power, but it would at least somewhat reduce the electoral consequences.
Whether this is a substitute for, or complement to other campaign finance laws is a separate matter. I’m conflicted on other aspects of campaign finance, because it isn’t as easy as Leonard claims but the principles that he mentions are real.
Comment by mds —
February 13, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
Okay, I could get behind the Thoreau Plan(TM). If we look at other western representative democracies (with the caveat that they’re a bunch of wicked socialists), we see that official campaigning rarely begins eighteen months before an election. Meanwhile, we’re probably going to have people forming 2012 exploratory committees this November. What if candidates weren’t forced to spend big gobs of money for months? I don’t see how it’s superior to say “no” to publicly-funded candidates when our alternative has millionaires funded by millionaires, or candidates who have to be for sale in order to get and stay elected.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 13, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
I guess I don’t object all that strongly to public financing of candidates, except that I’m not sure how much it will solve. So the treasury gives each candidate a reasonable campaign budget. Well, if some individual or organization with a lot of money wants to support him, they can still run their own ads. Unless you strictly regulate those ads. And that bothers me. I don’t hold any illusion that it’s purely an act of free speech, but there’s still a significant free speech component there. So I’m very uncomfortable going down that road. There are balances to strike, but they’re difficult balances, and in the end I think any balance that respects the principles at stake will leave a ton of loopholes, so what’s the point?
I’d rather reduce the cost of campaigns.
Now, I know what standard libertoid answer #1 is on all this: Reduce the power of the state, and there will be less incentive to spend money influencing the state. The problem with that approach is that (1) even the decision to not have state involvement in a matter is a decision with winners and losers, and so there will be money at stake and people trying to influence that decision and (2) governments of every size and scope and type have traditionally been magnets for people with money seeking an advantage of some sort.
Reducing the cost of elections won’t eliminate these issues, but it seems to be one angle that we might actually be able to address without either abridging free speech or engaging in a futile effort to sever the ties between money and power.
Comment by Barry —
February 13, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
Comment by mds —
“Okay, I could get behind the Thoreau Plan(TM). If we look at other western representative democracies (with the caveat that they’re a bunch of wicked socialists), we see that official campaigning rarely begins eighteen months before an election.”
D*mn, you’re smart. Or at least not foolish like the rest of us here.
There *are* other countries. We should learn from their examples.
Comment by Leonard —
February 13, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
No. Congress, or any other corporate body, is free to make bylaws about what its officers can or cannot do. It does not violate anyone’s rights if, say, General Motors disallows its CEO from taking money from outsiders. The CEO can take it or leave it. But GM cannot make rules that apply to outsiders.
Now, I suppose that many campaign finance laws may be seen as regulations only of politicians. That is, the law which states “each American may give a candidate only $2300 per election”, can be seen as saying “each candidate may only accept $2300 from an individual, and must try fairly hard to prevent multiple giving”, or something like that. But (a), that’s not how the law is written. And (b), there are many limits and penalties which simply cannot be shoehorned into the concept of limiting politicians. For example there are overall limits on how much individuals are allowed to give. And there are penalties in the law for violation by individuals. See the wiki page for more.
Overall, though, I will concede that saying it is “very simple” was overstated. There’s some subtleties here.
Comment by joe —
February 13, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
thoreau,
If there’s no recourse to be sought from the legislature (yes, I know, the Senate wiretap bill hasn’t made it past the conference committee yet, the House version could still be sent, but I’m not holding my breath) then why should we bother to vote for Dems for the legislative branch?
Because it takes both branches to really make a difference in this area.
Comment by joe —
February 13, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
For some of us, that involves stepping beyond being a Blue partisan and worrying about bigger results than getting more Blues in office and existing Blues re-elected.
And that’s why all of the liberals blogs are crowing – not eating it, serving it – about Donna Edwards’ victory over Al Wynn in the primary.
The slogas is “More AND BETTER Democrats.”
Comment by joe —
February 13, 2008 @ 5:44 pm
the guy who mused on attacking Pakistan
If you don’t see a difference between going after Osama bin Laden and occupying Iraq for decades, I’m not sure what to tell you. No wonder nothing is ever good enough.
Comment by joe —
February 13, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
The Senate just voted (along party lines, of course) to ban waterboarding. Following the lead of the House, which also voted along party lines to ban waterboarding.
Not that a Democratic majority makes a difference or anything.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
February 14, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
To me, such plans fall down at “each candidate” and “reasonable…budget”. Are we going to fund the campaign of a Ron Paul (much less Mr. Elsie ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzOOP of the Silly Party) as much as we’ll fund the campaigns of a McCain or a Clinton? The simple, honest, practical answer is no, whatever body is in charge certainly won’t, and it probably often deny any funding to anyone not mainstream enough. The converse, as shown by the trends in “campaign finance reform”, is that any political speech that actually costs money to share – and which doesn’t come from those public funds – will be criminal.
I don’t see what benefit we’re supposed to get out of such an arrangement that’s worth the problems. I don’t even really see the supposed benefit of keeping large amounts of money out of campaigns. All those other countries still have serious problems with rent-seeking and the like.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
February 14, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
IHT:
Apparently, with a little Red help, the Blue majority can very, very occasionally do the right thing. Kudos to those 51 senators.
(…Who, notably, don’t include that shitheel McCain, who immediately piped up that his opposition to “extreme methods” didn’t really include water-boarding.)
Comment by Eric the .5b —
February 14, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
Sorry, that is McCain’s opposition to banning “extra measures”, which are apparently more valuable than actually banning water-boarding and other torture would be in his mind.