Saturday, September 29, 2007
Campaign funds
Has anybody been paying attention to the coverage of the 2008 presidental race. I heard a few weeks ago that Barack Obama had broken the record for campaign contributions by a democratic presidental hopeful. This got me thinking about the state of our political system and when the amount of money a canidate could raise was directly responsible for their chances of winning. Why is it that we live in a democratic nation where people are so politically irreponsible that they can't get off their couch to find out the facts about the canidates they are voting for. This requires that canidates bring their ideas into every house in the form of advertisement which means they must pay for it which means somebody must donate to their campaign. Who are these benefactors? Well there are a lot of answers to that but most notably they are: Special intrest groups, lobbyists, big guns, big tabacco, the liquor industry, casinos, environmental groups, energy groups, big oil, the list goes on. All of these groups are not giving in the interest of the country they are giving in the interest of themselves and what is best for business. I'm not saying that our lazyness contributes directly to political corruption but it sure dosen't help that we want our canidates to be the best looking with the flashiest commercials in order to score our vote. Something to think about...
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2 comments:
You make a valid point and you gave the answer to the problem right there. People are interested only in themselves. If people had more to gain from it then they'd put more interest in it just like these major companies. Say the people are left with questions like: "If I find out more information about this politician, and still can't get them elected or stop them from being elected, and get the things I want done, what is the point?" When I went over to my newly independent sister's house she was worried about taxes and the rates of the electric company raising. A national level of awareness is a bit of a stretch but becoming more locally aware, now that is a profitable decision to make.
There are so many other things that candidates do in order to increase their chances of winning, having flashy commercials shouldn't be such a big deal. It is sad, but true that a good amount of U.S. citizens vote for a candidate of whom they have no knowledge. The commercials are just another way to rally supporters. And when people donate to specific candidate's campaigns, I'm sure a lot of the money goes to the actual campaign. That's how they're probably paying for those snazzy commercials. In fact, why say that the benefactors are 'special interest groups, lobbyists, big guns, big tobacco, the liquor industry, casinos, environmental groups, energy groups, and big oil?' Campaign contributions are just what the name implies, and if any of these groups are associated with a given candidate, I'm sure they would be contributing to the campaign, not taking the money for personal/business use.
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