Blogger Response #15

Review of Sam Stein’s May 8th 2008 Blog:

Obama Floated Idea of Voluntarily Capping Donations:


We have once again a very quote-loaded blog for my blogger response tonight. This blog is about Barack Obama and John McCain and the idea that they would use public financing in the general election.

Dave Donnelly national campaign director At Public Campaign Action Fund said “McCain opted into the public financing system in the primary and then opted out, then has slammed Obama across the country for this pledge he signed. But Obama never signed a piece of paper saying he would be punished for violating his agreement. That's what McCain has signed and he has gotten a free ride on it. The bottom line is, America needs a reformer in the White House and Obama has proven he will be a reformer by the legislation he's sponsored and his record on the issue. And McCain has clearly backtracked.”

This blog is based on news that Obama has considered using public financing. Obama gave that idea by saying “We need to separate money from political influence. It's an experiment in open source politics…One thing that I am considering, and my advisers might not like this: I may limit campaign contribution amounts per person to less than the federal limit in the general election."

The blog shows the response of many people in favor of major campaign finance reform. Joan Claybrook, president of the good-government group Public Citizen said “"I still believe Obama ought to lead the way and take public funding for these elections… What he is saying here is that he is going to do something to try and walk down the middle. But it is not really walking down the middle. In the general, you either take it or you don't take it."

Obama has said that he would follow up on his promise if and only if John McCain agrees to adhere to his promise as well. As the quote above says John McCain has already cancelled a contract for public funding, so I doubt he will agree to it now. Obama spoke on how great a presidential election would be if everybody had access to the same amount of public funded cash. Obama said public finance “takes power away from PACs, from lobbyists. It takes power away also from institutional players. Endorsements from a governor might not mean as much as it once did. Endorsements from some of the traditional institutional players, even those that are part of the Democratic Party, may not mean as much. That is actually a healthy thing."

Sam Stein also found somebody who does not agree that Obama’s system would be a better one then the one we currently have. Josh Israel senior researcher for the Center for Public Integrity's Buying of the President said that public finance in Obama’s system would basically make the people of America a special interest group. Israel goes on to say that public finance was established to level the playing field in the election. A popular candidate would be able to get more citizens to pay for his election, and therefore would destroy the playing field. Though he is technically correct I completely disagree with Israel. The whole point of an election is to get people involved and get people to the polling booths. What gets people more involved then investing? Do you care how good the stock of Yahoo! does? The answer to that question should be only if you own stock in Yahoo!. Voters would be more likely to vote for somebody if they have an interest in him or her. A person who is popular would have a better playing field? Isn’t that the whole point? Yes, it is the point. Nobody’s special interest means more then the interests of the American people. If the American people are a special interest group then they should be the only one allowed to the party with the poorly cooked chicken.