Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
Are you sick, disgusted, tired and aggravated by the continual humdrum of attack ads that we're seeing. They seem inescapable.
Who do we blame for this pox on our electoral system?
-- The framers of the Constitution, who didn't have the foresight to anticipate things like TV, the seemingly unlimited amounts of money that special interests are willing to spend to get their candidate elected, the political advisors to the candidates who advise the effectiveness of negative or attack advertising?
--The conservatives on the Supreme Court who reversed the Citizens United case from a federal appeals court on a straight vote along ideological lines?
--Or maybe the candidates themselves for approving the attack advertising through their silence?
I don't know who's to blame, maybe all of the above. But it seems that the cat is now out of the bag. The Citizens United decision will forever change political campaigning for the benefit of wealthy special interests and to the detriment of individual voters.
I don't know how much more of this I can take--and here's five more months to go!
One thing is for sure...whichever candidate is elected will be hated, distrusted and openly resisted by a little less than half the people in the country. And we'll expect him to "lead"? Not possible in my opinion.
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I'd love to blame the Supreme Court for the damned super pacs. But I can't. The power of the Court and it's ability to check and balance cannot be exercised by restricting it to a narrow, traditional interpretation of the Constitution. The maddening decisions, very often decided by a single vote, on expected 'party' lines can't really be the problem either. This delightfully frustrating situation has existed since the 1790's. And the pendulum keeps swinging.
For once, we can't blame the politicians either. Survival depends on matching the opponent's war chest. The 'good news' is maybe there's no such thing as too much exposure. What's false will be reported by the opposition, then clarified by the candidate, then clarified by the opposition... kind of like siting in a barber chair where there are mirrors front and back. Crazy, but this is probably better than heading down to the trading post in Cheyenne and voting for some guy named Calvin Coolidge whom you couldn't pick out of a lineup.
Also 'good' is that all the big money comes out of the pockets of obscenely wealthy folks and goes straight into the economy. That's a lot better than still sitting in Cayman accounts. (The exception here is for those obscenely wealthy folks who also own TV stations in swing states.)
So I guess I will direct my energy to something more important than supporting a Constitutional amendment to limit campaign financing.