On April 14 at an Iowa community college, Hillary Clinton declared that campaign finance reform will be one of the “four big fights” of her presidential campaign:
I want to be the champion who goes to bat for Americans …
We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment.
And maybe she means it! Maybe she’ll get elected and battle every second of her presidency to make sure the billionaires and hedge funders now backing her never have any influence in politics ever again. Maybe.
But before you set your heart on that, here are the three last winning Democratic presidents and their platforms, all saying pretty much exactly the same thing.
Barack Obama, November 2007:
I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. … They will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am President.
Democratic Party platform, 2008:
We support campaign finance reform to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests, including public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time.
Bill Clinton accepting the Democratic nomination, August 1996:
We’ve come a long way. We’ve got one more thing to do. Will you help me get campaign finance reform in the next four years?
Democratic Party platform, 1996:
… Elections have become so expensive that big money can sometimes drown out the voices of ordinary voters — who should always speak the loudest …
It is time to take the reins of democracy away from big money and put them back in the hands of the American people, where they belong.
“Putting People First,” Clinton campaign brochure, 1992:
We will … [e]nact strong campaign reform legislation that caps spending on Congressional campaigns: slashes political action committee (PAC) contributions to the individual legal limit of $1,000; and lowers the cost of air time so that TV becomes an instrumentation of education, not a weapon of political assassination.
Democratic Party platform, 1992:
It’s time to reform the campaign finance system, to get big money out of our politics and let the people back in. We must limit overall campaign spending and limit the disproportionate and excessive role of PACs.
Jimmy Carter, accepting the Democratic nomination, July 1976:
Too often unholy, self-perpetuating alliances have been formed between money and politics, and the average citizen has been held at arm’s length.
Democratic Party platform, 1976:
The Democratic Party has led the fight to take the presidency off the auction block by championing the public financing of presidential elections. The public has responded with enthusiastic use of the $1 income tax checkoff. Similar steps must now be taken for congressional candidates. We call for legislative action to provide for partial public financing on a matching basis of the congressional elections, and the exploration of further reforms to insure the integrity of the electoral process.
Legally speaking, of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
(This post is from our blog: Unofficial Sources.)
Photo Illustration: Obama: Joe Raedle/Getty; Carter: AP; Hillary Clinton: Bill Clinton: Alex Brandon/AP; Money: Shutterstock
Don’t they fail to make changes in part because Americans drop the ball after the election? What leverage could one politician have and what pressure would that politician feel, (even the POTUS, who may or may not believe their campaign promises) to follow through on a promise to change the entire system that will fight a massive reduction in pay from their most special interests, for a population that doesn’t seem to care about it after the election?
They know it doesn’t matter what they say about it. Even if HRC is elected and appoints 2 justices who ‘may’ overturn the 2 poisonous decisions, how long will it take? What will be left by then of our country? Revolution won’t work. The stupid, bigoted, salivating gun nuts have us in their sights. America is toast. I only hope we don’t destroy humanity with our nukes.
This was a good read…the real reason behind your failures in life are more down to your frame of mind that anything else you’ve probably considered before, have a read of this http://www.moneymod.com/the-millionaires-brain-review/ on this site, I was sceptical at first, but having tried it out, I can tell you that your mind is a very powerful thing
Democrats truly believe in campaign finance reform – for Republicans.
Ah, the Utopian ideal of removing money from politics. The more power the politicians have, the more pressure there is to buy their influence. To think that this pressure can be overcome by passing laws is about as reasonable as believing that, say, we can get people to stop using drugs by passing laws against it. It will always happen, either above-board through open campaign and PAC contributions, or under the table with suitcases full of cash and patronage jobs after political retirement.
Yes, there are a few “true believers” on all sides – Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders are probably as close as you’ll get to examples in this election cycle – but they represent a statistically insignificant fraction of their faction, perhaps a third of a percent at best. They can talk a lot but they have no real power over any of this. Anything they want must be horse-traded for, and all of the horses are owned by those who have been bought and sold by other means. This happens in every government, from the so-called democratic republics of the west to the communist regimes of the east. You can choose to structure your political approach in harmony with this natural law or against it, but if you go against it you will simply be run over so easily that your protestations won’t even be noticed.
Great article! Clinton’s campaign is financed unscrupulously so of course she won’t reform campaign finance. There is a candidate who’s financing his campaign legitimately though, and that’s Bernie Sanders. Any citizen of the USA who cares about this issue should join the democratic party and vote for him in the primary.
I think television reform is needed more than campaign finance reform. There should be a minimum of 3 different parties represented at each Presidential debate. TV stations should be restricted to x amount of hours of airtime total per candidate (I mean talking head time–like one hour max per candidate, no more than that for Bush on Fox or Clinton on MSNBC). There should be restrictions on ads, and free ads as some of those liars in the article mention.
Without this it doesn’t matter if the big money candidates have $10 million to spend or $10 billion. The media will still only talk about them, and debates will only feature the GOP and the Dem candidate. If Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein suddenly had $1 billion would they suddenly be featured more by the pundits (excepting the news that they suddenly have $1 billion in campaign money)? Of course not.
I think education reform is needed more than campaign finance reform as it is the laughable low intelligence and the downright stupidity of your brain dead Ameican electorate that has and continues to be America’s downfall…”period end of story”…as the clown in the White House would say.
I, frankly, don’t believe her a bit. She wouldn’t have a chance unless she had veto proof majorities in both the House and the Senate – but even with that – her and her family have so benefited from the revolving doors there’s very little chance she means a drop of this claim (and with the GOP in control of both the House and Senate has absolutely no way of making it occur even if she wanted to).
Gotta love that quote from President Obama: “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. … They will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am President.”
Looks like he forgot all that when he crossed the steps to the White House. He appointed a former lobbyist for Raytheon to Deputy Sec Defense just 3 days in (2009). He appointed the former CEO of the cable lobbying organization (and former CEO of the wireless industry lobbying group) to be in charge of the FCC (that regulates those industries) and those are just the tip of the ice berg. He had appointed over 119 by the middle of 2013.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obama-administration-packed-with-lobbyists-he-vowed-not-to-hire/article/2533397
And just think … the Clintons in particular have talked about campaign reform – during election years – going back to 1992.
Then the moment the election is done, they dont talk about it anymore, and theyve been open for business nonstop for 30 years now.
They have to be one the sleaziest and most dishonest of the oligarch dynasties.
Im so tired of their (politicians) lies. There is no other term that applies because they are lying. Every person I know signs a contract when hired. Politicians have to do it too. Code of conduct, their duties (campaign pledges) and consequences (loss of elected position and trial for defrauding the people) for breaching the contract.
“…past performance is no guarantee of future results” should we worded as “…words are no guarantee of deeds”
As always, love your blog with all its humour…..
ALSO, the way you bring readers’ attention to other articles that are MUST READ!
As far as the politicians are concerned, the day I believe anything they say, THAT will be the day……
“Maybe she’ll get elected and battle every second of her presidency to make sure the billionaires and hedge funders now backing her never have any influence in politics ever again.”
“past performance is no guarantee of future results.”
Love the humor! Jon is right. A candidate who rails against big money in politics while funding a campaign on exactly that, is not the candidate you want.
Guess it depends on what one considers worthwhile!
Don’t worry.
Bernie Sanders will take a strong stand against the billionaires…until he loses and then supports them.
He’s been around a long time and takes very little interest in billionaires and vice versa (since his projects often would help the average citizen).
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8666215/bernie-sanders-ideas
Nonetheless, Bernie has promised a flip-flop on this issue.
As an honest and true man, and as he has promised, he will abandon the interests of the people in his support of the billionaires.
After the billionaires whip Bernie, he will come back whimpering like an abused dog, licking the hands that beat him, leading his pack back into the fold. He will have earned the mocking ridicule he will have receive from them in his defeat.
Only as an independent can Bernie come back as an attack dog, biting the hand that beat him, extracting a price from them in making their victory over him a Pyrrhic victory.
Only by extracting a price from the billionaire parties can any party of the left earn a modicum of grudging respect from the Democratic Party for their issues.
Bernie must become a class warrior: principled, and not a poser.
I think Bernie has more history of principled action than Hillary or O’Malley or all the republicans combined. But I can’t stand his Israel policy.
+1 for Wall Street boilerplate at the end.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, which lipstick should I put on porcine candidacy?
Democracy, as Spengler noted, is the “Rule of Money”. To remove money from politics, it would be necessary to eliminate democracy. Some may find the cure worse than the disease.
The people who complain are those who have found themselves priced out of the market. One reason for the rising flood of political spending is the flow of foreign money into US politics. But eliminating this would reduce America’s global reach and influence. There are costs to empire, but also benefits. So in this case too, many who propose a cure might not like how it plays out.
Countries not ruled by money generally aren’t worth very much.
“To remove money from politics, it would be necessary to eliminate democracy.”
Would you explain why?
In a democracy, people are free to advocate their ideas. Money is what purchases the platform. If you are able to sell those ideas, anyone seeking a popular mandate will be required to endorse them. Campaign financing is just the small visible tip of that process – 9/10ths of it are hidden below the waterline.
As you travel away from a system which can be described as democracy, the opinions of individual citizens matter less. Therefore it becomes less necessary to spend money trying to influence them.
So then how do we explain England, very much a democracy, where the entire campaign for national government was limited to only five weeks and no advertising was allowed on television?
Because, as I stated, the money spent on campaigns is only a tiny piece of the effort to influence the voters. How has Britain’s upper class retained its titles, land, wealth and privileges? In a rational universe you would expect the people to have swept all that away. But there is a virtual industry in Britain that focuses attention on its past glory and empire, creating a nostalgic link to the institutions of the past – including the class system. The media, social organizations, and cultural events generally serve to promote this view and thus help maintain the current system.
In the UK, the government directly funds the BBC and so doesn’t need as long a political campaign to instill the proper political attitudes in the citizenry (or subjects as they are known in Britain).