This week the GOP presidential primary began in earnest, and frankly I could care less. It's clear to me that whether we elect Barack or Mitt in 2012, the true reform America needs will remain squarely out of the political discourse. Indeed it is the toxic beneficence of large moneyed interests (mainly corporations, political parties and unions) that most greatly affects elected officials' platforms and voting behavior before, during and, most acutely, after the campaign season. And yet it has not been spoken of in the 2012 election circus.
I suppose one can't be surprised as there's no partisan card to be played when it comes to campaign finance, but it still saddens me that no candidate has the gumption to speak one important truth: Our country's biggest problems were not created, nor can they be resolved, by a particular political figure, party, or ideology. Our representative democracy has been bastardized by private money that supports both political parties during the campaign season, and then reaps the rewards of favoritism throughout the legislating and governing process. Therefore no matter who wins the White House or the Congress in 2012, Washington's will continue to disregard the Citizen's interests because our electoral and governing system is fundamentally corrupted by private money.
When former congressmen like Rep. Eric Fingerhut say that our campaign finance system has "a serious and profound impact on not only the issues that are considered in Congress, but also on the outcomes of those issues," it's high time that someone somewhere suggest that campaign finance may be one of the chief reasons why we have the most unpopular and dysfunctional (like Married with Children/Charlie Sheen/Ford Pinto dysfunctional) Congress on record. Seventy percent of Americans, whether liberal, conservative, independent or apathetic, correctly believe that campaign contributions from moneyed interests affect how public officials vote. But no one has brought this up to any candidates......yet.
How politicians attempt to square that circle would be, if nothing else, an epically farcical demonstration of prevarications, and the charade has already started. Not one to play second fiddle, President Obama has decided on a populist platform for his re-election bid while aiming to raise $1 billion in campaign funds (from whom exactly? Most Americans are broke) and taking more money from the banking industry than any other candidate running for office. Piling on the irony, Obama chose to launch his campaign in Osawatomie, Kansas as homage to Teddy Roosevelt's New Nationalism platform of 1910, the main theme of which was an attack on business interests' control of our government. Barack bet that, following the lead of his campaign's press release, any publicity garnered would just focus on the whole populism thing and omit any reference to Roosevelt's vitriolic lambasting of the industrialists attempts to steer government policy. BO was right.
Here's the good news: The American People will win the fight against privately financed elections when we decide to pick it, because Tea Partiers and Occupiers are in agreement on the corrupting influence of money in politics. The other political half is actually the whole on this issue, and we simply need to come together and demand change.
In fact, Occupy Wall Street has forged this path by speaking the truth about money's corrupting influence in Washington, so all Americans should be disturbed by the national crackdown on Occupy Movement that was coordinated by Homeland Security. In reality, Officer John Pike pepper-spraying non-violent protesters on the UC - Davis campus is not unlike police water hosing blacks in the South or Egyptians marching in the street against their own dictator. Something about our country is fundamentally wrong and the Occupiers are simply telling it like it is. Any American who wishes to see good governance return to Washington would do well to follow suit as an Occupier, Tea Partier or otherwise.
When the other half becomes the whole in a society, things change. No one running for president is on our side when it comes to limiting money's influence on government - thankfully that won't matter in the end. When the right, left and center come to realize that they are on the same side, together we will force change upon the fallow government.
So what are we waiting for?
| Romney | Santorum | Gingrich | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delegates | 1.19 Thousand | 265 | 138 | |
| Fundraising | $76 M | $16 M | $21 M | |
| Intrade | $9.60 | $0.07 | $0.02 | |
| 530 K | 200 K | 1.5 M |
Just showing up once every four years to vote for a president isn't going to win anything. You vote with every penny you spend, every friend you make, and every thing you put in your body.