Can Money Buy an Election

I don’t live in a political battleground state. I do however live in a state where our election was important nationally. During this time TV couldn’t be watched for 30 minutes without seeing several commercials that were paid for by various groups whom I had no idea who they were. Clearly they were not being paid for by either political party or candidate. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind special interest groups. I do believe that they have their place. That being said I do have a problem with a few extremely rich people buying campaign commercials and making it seem as though they represent a large group of people.  Recently I’ve discovered one group in particular called, “Concerned Taxpayers of America.”  They funded many commercials primarily in Oregon and Maryland during the 2010 election.

Concerned Taxpayers of America=2 rich guys

I have no doubt that there are many concerned taxpayers in America. Probably tens or hundreds of thousands. However, this group that put forth these commercials are paid for by a million dollars financed by Maryland businessman and the head of a New York hedge fund. Two people can start an organization. They can also buy commercials for a political campaign. The part I feel becomes complicated is the title that they gave to their organization. Maybe a more accurate title could be “Two Concerned Taxpayers of America.” The title is really misleading because it makes it seem as though many people donated and felt the way these commercials portrayed the information. As a concerned taxpayer of America I hardly feel represented by two individuals who happen to be millionaires. I also don’t know how much I trust their perception of what is right and what is wrong with a candidate or issue. Yes, a million dollars is a drop in the bucket in the billion dollar campaign budget in this country, but the point is that just because someone has a million dollars doesn’t mean that they should be able to do their own campaign commercials.

Reform

I think that they majority of people agree that we need campaign reform. Can I get an “Amen?” One way proposed to help with the campaign commercial reform is that broadcasters must identify an income source supplying 10% or more of the group’s financing. I think that campaign reform needs to g much, much deeper, but this would be a start. Quite frankly I would be thrilled with a regulation that stated no one could put any commercials on TV for political campaigns. I find that they are skewed and rarely give any real information about the issues or the candidates.

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