Should there be campaign finance and other political ad limitations?

[Yurt]

While political speech is one of our most treasured freedoms, it is becoming apparent that unlimited campaign spending, and now seemingly unlimited political ad spending by corps, unions or other groups, has created an atmosphere of 24/7 campaigning. we weren't even finished with obama's first year and already there is talk about who is the next gop presidential candidate. congressman, senators and even the president have to basically campaign their entire term instead of working more on the job they were hired to do. obama spent over half a billion dollars on his campaign.

should there be limits on everyone, candidates, corps, unions, political parties? would these limits stop what is seemingly an excessive amount of campaigning by all parties/candidates? and would this foster a more open and fair election system?

 

[AvgGuyIA]

No!

 

[Darkwind]

I personally think that no one, no thing and no organization/company should be allowed to give more then 100 dollars to any candidate. Including both Political parties.

Also, no candidate can give to himself more then 100 dollars. No loans, no withdraws from the old checking account. None of it.

As for political ads....that is speech and is open to anyone. But if you want to curb corporations...then you curb everything else. Including political parties AND GOVERNMENT! Government should never be allowed to advocate on its own behalf, ever.

 

[Darkwind]

You would also have to include the media. They cannot openly, privately or quietly advocate for any political candidate.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

You would also have to include the media. They cannot openly, privately or quietly advocate for any political candidate.

How would you decide what qualified as "quietly advocating"? How about "privately advocating"?

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Speech I'm all for.

I disagree with the precedent that money = speech.

 

[Darkwind]

You would also have to include the media. They cannot openly, privately or quietly advocate for any political candidate.

How would you decide what qualified as "quietly advocating"? How about "privately advocating"?

Anything that reported anything but provable facts with no embellishment. In other words, no editorializing.

 

[Ragnar]

No limits for anyone, full disclosure for everyone.

Money does not equal speech, but no limits on money for speech. (for the same reason there is no limit on money for rent or food or vacations or pet rocks) Money is just a tool and nothing more. Don't care if someone spends it for tv ads, NYT's full page ads, yardsigns or posterboard and magic markers for demonstrators.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

When the day comes that Congress is unpaid, part time work and they only meet once a month and pass one new law every 2 years or so, then yeah, limiting ads might make sense.

But as long as the federal Gubbamint is the biggest organization on the planet and consuming 28% of GDP...no fucking way we cap anything

 

[Yurt]

Speech I'm all for.

I disagree with the precedent that money = speech.

what precedent is that?

 

[Polk]

I personally think that no one, no thing and no organization/company should be allowed to give more then 100 dollars to any candidate. Including both Political parties.

Also, no candidate can give to himself more then 100 dollars. No loans, no withdraws from the old checking account. None of it.

As for political ads....that is speech and is open to anyone. But if you want to curb corporations...then you curb everything else. Including political parties AND GOVERNMENT! Government should never be allowed to advocate on its own behalf, ever.

That's pretty inconsistent. There really isn't a functional difference between spending done by campaigns and spending done on the behalf of campaigns.

 

[Yurt]

When the day comes that Congress is unpaid, part time work and they only meet once a month and pass one new law every 2 years or so, then yeah, limiting ads might make sense.

But as long as the federal Gubbamint is the biggest organization on the planet and consuming 28% of GDP...no fucking way we cap anything

i don't think political campaigns need to spend over half a billion dollars on a campaign....all candidates should have campaign ads and spending limited. more for national elections and less for local elections.

in my neck of the woods we had the highest campaign funds ever spent for a superior court judge a couple of years ago....it was in the millions, before this, no one ever spend more than a half a million dollars, its getting out of control and really, it doesn't give us any more information, IMO, it muddies the water

 

[Xenophon]

It always turns out badly and full of loop holes when they try to create such rules.

 

[Yurt]

It always turns out badly and full of loop holes when they try to create such rules.

thats because they really don't want the rules in the first place, they are just appeasing the voters with meadowmuffins

 

[Immanuel]

I think we should have a 24 hour cable channel (say channel 666) that provides free comedy... er, political discussions from all candidates free of charge. Put each ad or speech or what have you on a continual loop and let us go to that channel during the campaign and get the information from that channel exclusively. The channel can show debates and what have you related to the campaign from the time the first candidate throws his/her hat into the ring until the polls open.

I'm sure we'd all visit that channel to help us make up our mind several times during the campaign... wouldn't we?

Immie

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Speech I'm all for.

I disagree with the precedent that money = speech.

what precedent is that?

No precedent. I personally just don't agree with it.