UPDATE: Bill Richardson was cleared of any wrongdoing in this fund raising scandal and we wanted to briefly comment on it and also resurrect this post, which to this day remains one of our most read blogs ever.
As I commented in response to some of your reader’s comments below, the point was never to drag Gov. Richardson through the mud. Indeed, considering his eventual vindication, it re-emphasizes the point that if we had a system of public financing, no politician would ever face erroneous charges such as this.
Money muddies the water, both for the good public servant and the bad politician , and anyone we force to raise private campaign cash we are asking them to prostitute their opinions on the altar of political expediency. And we get the system we deserve because of it.
Original Post: Jan 5, 2009
I’ve heard it said that churches are supposed to make bad men good and good men better. Our campaign finance system seems to do the opposite: make good men bad and bad men worse (ie, Governors Richardson and Blagojevich, respectively). As far back as Socrates, outside observers have noticed the corruptive influence of money on public policy. Our public servants worshiping at the altar of campaign donations is sure path to hell for most of us. But the fact that we force them to do so by not providing a public financing system begs the question: Are we getting what we deserve?
As Richardson withdraws his name for consideration of being Commerce Secretary, more and more details are coming out about his ethical problems. Did he take campaign donations that changed his votes? Possibly, or at least there’s enough of an ethical cloud there that no one can know for sure.
And that’s the problem with how we finance our campaigns. No one can ever be truly sure that their Legislators, Representatives, Senators, Mayors, Governors, or Presidents are taking a position because of the merits of the proposals themselves, or because someone with deep pockets convinced them that’s how they should vote. The same can be said of incoming Senatorial appointee Roland Burris. It’s surely not his fault that Blagojevich is a slimeball, but the public just can’t be certain that he was appointed based on his merits alone and not because Blagojevich had some ulterior motive.
The only way to remove all doubt is by supporting public financing. We can only hope during this next Congress that we see some real leadership on this issue so that We the People can know that we are, indeed, still the ones in charge of our government and not the other way around.
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Let’s hold the tar and feathers for Governor Richardson until after the grand jury issues its report. Though additional controls may be merited, one might only look to the election of Senator Obama to show that sometimes private donations lead to the right choice. I only hope that the President-elect DOES feel beholden to the vast amounts of American’s who contributed to his campaign in even the lowliest of amounts.
The Obama campaign is the exception and not the rule. Almost never will down ticket candidates get the kind of financial support from “regular citizens” necessary to make them beholden to the broader public interest. And even when that happens, how many such office holders will represent the most meritorious ideas (the point of the blog post) instead of the interests and perspectives of their particular group of citizen contributors? Obama is a rare case indeed insofar as he has stated again and again that he will be a President for all Americans, not just those who supported him.
I agree with John Jay.
Nice positioning of “possibly,” tho. Reminds me of the time I listened to the street preacher who asked if Jesus was gay… “possibly,” he said. But without any evidence or indications. Just a bunch of garbage smear.
My hopes is that Richardson never did anything unethical. Let’s certainly hold off the tar and feathers– I don’t want to smear Richardson. I want to save him.
My point is though, that we will never be completely certain all politicians are on the up and up until we have public financing.
BTW, only 44% of Obama’s donations came from donations under $1000. Unprecedented? Absolutely. Free of taint? Not completely.
I guess that I just don’t agree that a donation over $1,000 is predisposed to “taint” as you imply.
No, $1000 probably doesn’t “taint”– what does is the influence of bundlers, who raise money at the maximum from industry donors, etc, and Obama raised $63 million through various bundlers. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/bundlers.php?id=N00009638
Are their reasons only that they really, really, REALLY like Obama and have lots of rich friends, like the biggest bundler, Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks, or do they have a political agenda. Hard to know.
The one thing we can know is that public financing means no influence from money.
it’s crazy what Blagojevich has gotten away with already… he’s an international embarrassment
[...] January 7, 2009 by Andy Wilson Originally posted at TexasVox.org: [...]
Peace and Prosperity… Shame and Folly!!!
eh. cognitively )