Money and Power

Money and power attract each other. For at least the past few thousand years, people with power have used it to get rich and people with money have used it to buy power. How you feel about this ancient state of affairs determines how you feel about the campaign finance debate in America. If you just shrug your shoulders about the coziness of money and power and think nothing can be done about it, you are unlikely to be interested in writing lots of regulations to determine how money can be spent in elections. If you regard the political influence of money as a great evil, akin to giving rich people five votes for each vote a poor person gets, and therefore akin to giving white people five votes for every vote a Mexican gets, they you are probably a big advocate of "campaign finance reform." And you are probably outraged that the Supreme Court just struck down laws that limit what corporations and unions can spend to influence elections.

I find myself to be largely in the shoulder-shrugging camp. My view is that unless people are going to take an interest, find out the facts, and vote for the candidates who support what they themselves believe in, then nothing can be done to make the process fair and rational. And if people do those things, advertising doesn't matter. I also think that at least at the national level, if you can't raise the money necessary to compete you probably don't have the support base or the leadership skills to run the country.