What is clean money anyway?

With increasing use of the Internet the public is made well aware of who and how much certain individuals and corporations donate their money. There are various websites that list campaign contributions such as this website. That website is one of many that includes a database that lists who contributed to any public officials campaign. There are even websites, like Public Campaign that advocate that candidate contributions should be “clean” in the sense that the candidates should be required to receive their money from legitimate sources and not from special interest groups.

I certainly believe that campaign money should be coming from legitimate sources and not the Mafia or anything but I hesitate to support Public Campaign’s efforts to prevent ‘special-interest groups’ from donating money. The term special interest group carries such a negative connotation. When a person thinks of an interest group they think of groups that represent oil such as PMI Oil. There are other organizations that are still classified under the name “special-interest group”, such as the Feminist Majority Foundation that represents women’s rights, the AFL-CIO that represent labor rights, and the National Education Association which is the national teacher’s union. These three major organizations have increased their support through the web and in turn have donated money to campaigns as well. If the Public Campaign were to be successful in removing this “special-interest” money from campaigns then that would mean ALL special interest groups, including the ones that speak on behalf of the people and not necessarily corporate interests.

The problem with campaign money is not interest groups donating money to the campaign per say but the fact that they do so in order to create puppets out of politicians. Interest groups donate to politicians in the hopes and the guarantee that these politicians will either introduce legislation that will have a positive outcome for the interest groups, or, will NOT introduce legislation that will hinder the interests of the group. Unfortunately, in America, money talks. If a group donates money then 9 times out of 10 their voice will be heard and the candidate they donate their money to will protect their interests.
It would be nice to have an election run solely on public funding and election in which the citizen’s interests are at the forefront of the election but it is almost naïve to think that this will ever occur. Eliminating special interest money from entering the campaign will only solve half of the problem. The other half is the fact that money, regardless of where is comes from, run America’s elections. Money equals attention in the media. Without money, a candidate cannot get any attention or time from the press, so what is a candidate supposed to do? They have to get money from somewhere and it is unfortunate that the money tends to come from large interest groups that may or may not be in the interest of the American people.

Ultimately, what needs to be reformed is not whether or not a candidate receives money from a special interest group but the fact that money makes our elections go round.

So, what does it mean?

According to new Gallup polls a significant portion of democrats will vote for McCain if their chosen candidate does not win the 2008 democratic nomination.

I found the results of the poll to be quite shocking and to be a little misleading. I highly doubt that die hard democrats would really vote for McCain if their chosen candidate didn’t make it on the ticket. Especially those democrats that are completely opposed to the Iraq war wouldn’t automatically vote for a war mongering McCain. It is also necessary to point out the fundamental flaw in any poll: There is a difference between what people say they will do and what they actually do. This poll is obviously very emotionally driven and is not necessarily an accurate representation on who people will vote for in 8 months. I’d be interested to see how old these voters were and for these results to be expanded upon.

Although the questions may be flawed and the entire poll may seem ridiculous, the implications of the polls results are interesting in both a positive a negative light:

Positive: The democratic candidates have formed a strong connection with their future? constituents. This connection seems to be on a greater personal level. In some ways this creates are more motivated and representative democracy. People have become passionate about their candidate and truly believe in the candidate’s message. This creates an “all or nothing” type of situation. A supporter wants their candidate to win and that is that. This could mean that Obama and Clinton feel more obligated to their supporters and this promotes more accountability to the candidates to actually do what they say they are going to do.

Negative: The poll proved that the Democratic Party has become increasingly dis-unified. Instead of focusing on the overall picture of a strong democratic party, the candidates haven’t wasted a minute bashing the other one. Each candidate has claimed they only want the best nominee to win the democratic ticket, but at what cost? The unification of the Democratic Party? If the democratic voters can be so easily swung now, then it will only get worse over the next few months. Soon people will feel disenfranchised from the entire party and not vote at all. If the Democrats don’t pull it together by August when they head the convention they’ll be headed face first down a steep cliff. While the democrats wage war on one another, the McCain camp gets to sit back and enjoy the view. Not only can he enjoy the view, but he can also use the fragility of the Democratic Party to his advantage. He can easily claim that Clinton or Obama should not be the next president because they could not even get their party together. The McCain camp doesn’t need to dig up any dirt on any of the candidates because the democrats are doing it for him! McCain has been given a head start on his presidential campaign and can use this time to focus on the larger picture of winning the 2008 election.

Does supporting one candidate mean you have to completely oppose the other especially if they are of the same party? And why does this seem to be the case in these polls? Clinton and Obama only have minimal difference but yet they appear to be completely opposite from one another. Perhaps these framed perceptions of the candidates have influenced people to think that they are much different than they actually are. The media has thrived on creating this war between Obama and Clinton and this might have been a reason why people feel so strongly about their candidate, and furthermore, why a democrat would be willing to “betray” their party and vote for McCain. You’d think there would have been a greater divide in the Republican party because McCain differed so much from the other candidates.

I wonder, if circumstances were different, if these same democrats who abandoned their party if their chosen candidate did not win the primary, would vote for Dick Cheney instead? If the answer is yes, then the Democratic Party is even worse shape than I thought.

New Source of Information?

Cablevision is offering a new ON DEMAND channel completely dedicated to the 2008 Elections. The best part about this? It’s free. This means at any time of the day you can play, pause, and rewind any of the short programs they have available.

The Channel is split up into two categories of political trivia and political playback which documents pivotal elections, such as the Bush/Gore election of 2000. Interestingly enough, this section titled Pivotal Playback originally aired on MSNBC. These small little tidbits of election information are only each about 1 minute long.

These small and straightforward segments are hardly informative and I’m not very sure what the purpose of having them in the first place. Perhaps they are to give some sort of background to voting? It would make more sense to provide a semi-interesting blurb on the election process rather than a 1 minute insight on past elections.

The Channel does provide two very short mini documentaries on voting and how to get involved even at a local level.

The first 10 minute video is a presentation on the organization called Democracy Matters. This organization seeks to increase student participation in the voting process. Their prime goal is to promote “clean elections” which are elections based not on private funding but rather the core issues that people care about. Democracy Matters believes that removing private money from elections will increase voter turnout. Essentially, they believe people are turned off from voting because candidates are primarily focused on raising this money rather than answering the needs of the people. Once the private money is removed the average individual will not feel disenfranchised from the system.

The second, and the most interesting short documentary which was also about 10 minutes long, was about Project Vote Smart which is an organization who’s aim is to supply voters with information and to make this information easily accessible to voters. Members of this organization compile a list of canidates biographical information, voting records, campaign contributors, issue positions, a performance evaluation, and their speeches and public statements. This organization puts all of this information on a database on their website. At anytime a candidate can find out how Barack Obama, John McCain, or Hillary Clinton voted on a particular issue as well as their local congressman.

What I found to be the most interesting about this particular organization is that it was deeply commited to providing this information to voters. This information, although may appear to be easy to find, really isn’t and this organization helps to change that. So often we, as voters, are stuck watching news programs or reading news bits that fail to focus on important issues, but will not hesitate to ask what type of underwear Obama wears. It’s refreshing to see a service that supplies useful and relevant information.

It is pretty obvious that the purpose for Cablvision’s free channel is to attract young voters. Young people consistently fail to show up at the polls so this was a prime opportunity to get young people involved. The channel gives good information on being an informed voter but lacks any information about the current candidates.

It would be beneficial to give some sort on brief insight to each candidate. Perhaps Cablevision could document candidate’s views on popular issues (health care, education, the economy, etc.) Without knowing more about the candidates the channel does not achieve its purpose of getting the youth to vote. If people do not know who or what the candidates are then there isn’t a way for them to make an informed decision. Some may say that in order to get candidate information, people could/should watch the regular news. But let’s be honest here, people don’t want to do any extra research.

In fact, the major news stations don’t even cover candidate’s stance on issues either. If Cablevision is going to have a channel called Elections ‘O8 then it would be necessary for them to include something relevant to the upcoming elections and that would include candidate profiles.
Another beneficial item that the channel should include would be a brief wrap up of key debates. On major new channels, reporters do not wrap up debates they simply give their own spin on it and focus on trivial things such as body language or how “_____ connected with the audience”. Instead, the channel could focus on what the candidate said and organize it in such a way that would be beneficial to the audience. Instead of listening for a few hours on CNN or FOX News and getting different versions of what the candidate said the channel could simply make a shortened 5-10 minute video on what was said.

It’ll be interesting to see how this channel develops as the election proceeds and how many people actually take advantage of what the channel has to offer.