Money Talks in Political Campaigns
Posted on 24 June 2008 by Michael Callaway
I can not help but have the AC/DC song, “Money Talk” in my head watching the political conversation this week. For those of you not about to rock, let me salute you and quote for you the verse in particular. “Come on, come on, love me for the money, come on, come on, listen to the money talk.”
The question of course is what role should finance have on a political campaign? The concern being that if a large industry funds your campaign, then you as a candidate will somehow be beholden to that industry for future funds. If you do something that they do not like then you run the risk of losing that support. To combat this fear McCain/Feingold provides for complete Federal funding of a Presidential campaign if the candidate chooses it.
Of course, if you choose Federal funding you can not accept private donations and are capped at $85 million dollars for a Presidential campaign. While that sounds like a lot of money, this year’s election will probably be the most expensive in history. Should someone take the deal when the potential of more money is available? Would you?
Obama said that he would accept Federal funding of his Presidential campaign if he were the Democrat nominee. He said this long before he was ever the nominee and before the money came rolling in like a tidal wave. Now that he can raise a lot more then $85 million on his own, accepting Federal money does not look as appealing.
For someone looking for a different kind of politician this could make you sad, for someone looking for a realist, then there is hope. My concern was that if Barack Obama said something on the campaign trial and then became President he would feel like he HAD to do it. After all, that is what he had promised. That scared me to death because many of the things that he was promising I did not think he could do, my fear was he would keep at it anyway regardless of the outcome.
When I heard him say that we would renegotiate NAFTA to help workers I believed that is what he would do. Even though it could hurt a vital supply of US oil from Canada and hurt the reputation of the United States as a nation that backs out of agreements. When he said that he would pull troops out of Iraq with in a set time frame my concern is that he would do it no matter what the current evidence at the time would indicate is the right thing to do. I had grave trepidations that he really would negotiate with leaders of nations that are bent on our destruction and the destruction of key allies.
After all, that is what he said, and unlike other politicians, who promise one thing and then do another, he is a different kind of politician and yes we can. While I respect the idea of being a man of your word, if the words that are coming out of your mouth are wrong, I am OK with you doing something different. My anxiety came from the thought that this different kind of politician may not do that.
I do not have this fear anymore, because when presented with the opportunity to stick with his word and take $85 million or do the practical, pragmatic and political thing and take a whole lot more, he choose door number two. I feel so much better knowing that we will not have a different kind of politician but the same kind that we have come to know and love all these years.
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