A Question for You, Mr./Ms. President

The Huffington Post and OffTheBus are proud co-sponsors of 10Questions.com.

Over at 10questions.com, a new video featuring a diverse group of citizens asks the presidential candidates to answer the following question: "Would you support a Fair Elections system that provides public money to candidates who agree to spending limits and who give up all big contributions?

It's a question that any would-be president certainly has all the expertise needed to answer. All of them are entrenched right now in the fabled "wealth primary," where the candidate who raises the most cash from wealthy campaign contributors is considered the front runner before a single vote is cast.

Already the 2008 presidential candidates have raised $420 million in just nine months of fundraising, according to opensecrets.org. Experts are saying that the eventual nominees will need to raise $500 million apiece to be competitive--more than has ever been raised before.

In sharp contrast, just yesterday in New Jersey, in the three districts where candidates were eligible to participate in the state's pilot Fair and Clean Elections, or full public financing program, all of the winning candidates ran using the system. After raising their small qualifying contributions, these candidates did not raise another dime in private money.

New Jersey is not the only place to see success with a program bringing full public financing to elections. Clean Elections is law for some or all state offices in seven states and two cities. In October, in the first test of the new Clean Elections program in Connecticut, both candidates for a special election participated in the system.

In Maine, where the program has been in place since 2000, 84 percent of the state legislature is made of elected officials who ran and won under this system. In Arizona, where Clean Elections has also been the law for three election cycles, nine out of 11 statewide officials--including Governor Janet Napolitano--ran and won under Clean Elections.

10questions.com, as its name implies, will send the ten questions that get the most votes to the presidential candidates to answer by video. Voting ends on November 14. It's time the presidential candidates all went on record on this issue so central to campaigning today.

Comments

[MPeter]

No, not all of them. Obama's campaign is being funded and fueled by ordinary americans, many of them single mothers doing two or more jobs for minimum wage, students being paid minimum wage for part-tim work and seniors who actually take their contributions from their retirement check plus a few well-to-do americab\ns--but all of them determined to help Obama bring about a fairer, gentler anhd more honest American govenment. You gotta respect that. Obama 08.

[TuffPosh]

I describe what's wrong with 10Q - and provide a much better alternative - here:

http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/007180.html

Of course, if you assume that the NYT and MSNBC don't want any difficult questions to be asked, it all makes sense.

[sbgypsy]

We already have voluntary public funding: John Edwards is the only one this time around to use it. What we really need is MANDATORY PUBLIC FUNDING - AND NO CONTRIBUTIONS AT ALL, BY ANYONE.

[hopeless277]

Money is the root of corruption. Money is the root of campaigns. No wonder politics is so corrupt. The only question I would have would be:

Candidate, do you swear on the lives of your children that you WILL propose and FIGHT FOR public financing of ALL federal elections? Yes or no, please, no equivicaing.