How ‘big money’brought corruptionback to presidentialpolitics.
Are Public Election Funds Becoming A Thing Of The Past?By Cliff Montgomery – Jan. 23rd, 2007America‘s public financing system for presidential campaigns, a post-Watergate initiative hailed for decades as the chief way to rid presidential politics of the corrupting influence of big money, may now be a thing of the past.Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), is the first candidate since the start of the program in 1976 to forgo the public financing system for both the primary and the general election, due to the spending limits that come with the federal money–and due to her confidence that she can raise far more than what the system provides.That’s saying something. The public system would provide candidates with roughly $150 million for the 2008 presidential primaries and general election.Like Steve Forbes and George W. Bush, who had previously used their access to big money to forgo funding during their primary runs, Sen. Clinton’s move further ensures that candidates participating in the public system will be working at a significant disadvantage.And they are hardly the only ones. Those involved in the Republican primary campaign of Senator John McCain (R-AZ) say that the man who made his name by trying to clean up the influence of big money on politics is singing a different tune and taking from all big wallets now that he is a presidential candidate.And according to the New York Times, McCain has recently removed his name as a co-sponsor of a bill to expand the presidential public financing program.Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), has already decided to forgo public financing for the primaries. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), the biggest rival to Sen. Clinton for the Democratic nomination, declined to comment to the Times on his campaign plans, as did the spokesmen for several other candidates.In 2004, President Bush and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, each opted out of the system for the presidential primaries–and for each the results were staggering.Bush alone raised some $270 million; Kerry about $235 million. This revealed that major-party candidates could raise far more from predominately wealthy private donors than from the public system.“The 2008 race will be the longest and most expensive presidential election in American history,” Michael E. Toner, a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, told the Times.“Top-tier candidates are going to have to raise $100 million by the end of 2007 to be a serious candidate,” added Toner.Such rejections of public financing may spell the death of a system once welcomed as a guarantee of a more democratic government. And it’s a shame.It has proven itself to be a worthy system. In 1986, a decade after the first publicly financed presidential election, a bipartisan commission headed by former Democratic Party chief Robert Strauss and Melvin R. Laird, the Republicansecretary of defense under Richard Nixon, gave a glowing review of the public system’s results.“Public financing of presidential elections has clearly proved its worth in opening up the process, reducing the influence of individuals and groups, and virtually ending corruption in presidential election finance.”But almost from its inception, those who were backed by wealthy supporters began looking for ways to outmaneuver the ‘end of corruption’. By the mid-1980s, candidates from both parties were circumventing the spending limits by raising unlimited “soft money” donations to party committees from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals.In 2002, Congress changed the campaign finance laws to ban soft money contributions to party committees, and donors turned instead to so-called 527 groups, which could still spend unlimited contributions.For Sen. Clinton and other 2008 candidates, deciding this early to turn down public financing means that they can immediately begin building two war chests–one for the primary and one for the general election. Candidates can raise twice as much from each individual donor: $2,100 for the primary and $2,100 for the general, for a total of $4,200.It also means that presidential candidates will be more beholden than ever to the so-called bundlers–often lobbyists–who solicit donations from various supporters, then present them to campaigns in a lump sum. In 2004, President Bush honored his biggest bundlers by calling them Pioneers and Rangers. They raised $100,000 or $200,000, respectively.During the 2006 election, the top issue Americans cited for voting Democrat was the hope that the party long out of power might end the growing corruption in government, fueled to a great extent by big money.The recent ethics rules passed by the new Congress were powerful affirmations of that trust. But allowing a Democratic presidential candidate to kill much of the system they were supposed to save is a poor finish.
