Re: Stopping the buying of candidates

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 11:32 AM 10/24/96 +0000, Matthew J. Miszewski wrote:
>> While I have worked through essentially none of the details, if the system 
>> can be implemented well enough, all this kind of information will be 
blinded 
>> into oblivion.  Donations won't be tallied individually, and news of their 
>> arrival will be disguised, possibly by limiting the size that is credited 
to 
>> the candidate per day and thus in effect splitting up a donation to make it 
>> "arrive" over a period of a week or two.  Only overall totals will be 
>> reported, possibly rounded to only two significant figures, and even then 
>> possibly only on a weekly basis.   
>
>Politicians need money to pay bills.  If you are cutting off all 
>prediction of money appearing (which is impossible unless you get rid 
>of all special interests) no campaign can ever have the ability to 
>plan. 

No, I didn't say I was "cutting off all prediction of money appearing."   
But it would be a long shot from having particular donor's names associated 
with particular dollar figures.  And, the system would simply have to 
adjust.  Campaigns would have to adjust their spending to match the current 
realities, and donors would have to recognize that they're going to have to 
donate a bit earlier to accomodate the delay.


>This is a major part of all campaigns.  Resistance to this 
>will be high (not that this wasnt expected.)
>
>> >> The candidate still gets the money, of course, and the contributor is 
still 
>> >> free to both donate and speak...separately.  The thing that's been cut 
off 
>> >> is the association between the money and the speech...which is exactly 
what 
>> >> the problem is, isn't it?
>> >
>> >See above for why the connection is not.
>> 
>> Try again.  Rather than trying to prove that a system won't work, why not 
>> help develop one that will?
>
>Why don't you run for office.  I did.  Reality, after all, is far 
>better than theory.

I'd prefer doing something far more...uh...permanent than to merely REPLACE 
officeholders.


>> But "vote delivery" can't be proven, or even demonstrated with a strong 
>> degree of assurance.  
>
>Every candidate ever endorsed by the Firefighters Union in my town 
>have been absolutely elected.  Looking at the firefighters voting 
>records and matching with their addresses shows a distinct pattern of 
>voting in almost every election. 

"Firefighter's voting records"?  I _thought_ we had a secret ballot in this 
country.  Maybe you're from some  town that I don't know about!

Besides, what you're saying can be considered a bit of self-fulfilling 
prophecy.  Some cities ALWAYS vote one way, or another.  Over time, public 
employees simply adjust their politics to match their wallets, etc.  
Remember, these are PUBLIC employees after all, which really just means the 
employeees of the thugs who get into office.  It does not serve their 
interests to go against the winning candidate.  If, one year, the party 
normally out of office appears to be winning, the Firefighters will simply 
adjust their politics accordingly.  Simple.

> They have sufficient numbers to win every time.

Whichever candidate wins, "has sufficient numbers to win."  Tell me 
something else I don't know.


>> What I consider wrong is that government affects way too large a fraction 
of 
>> our lives, without apparent Constitutional justification.  If the 
government 
>> at all levels were only, say, 1/10th of its current size, there would be 
>> much less motivation for corruption.  
>
>Power currupts.  Not size of governement. 

Size of government is evidence of the size of the corruption.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com