"Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge, Senator. Look at your account balance tomorrow. Never forget the National Association of Manufacturers was there for you" (Obviously a completely random selection 8-)
While I have worked through essentially none of the details, if the system can be implemented well enough, all this kind of information will be blinded into oblivion. Donations won't be tallied individually, and news of their arrival will be disguised, possibly by limiting the size that is credited to the candidate per day and thus in effect splitting up a donation to make it "arrive" over a period of a week or two. Only overall totals will be reported, possibly rounded to only two significant figures, and even then possibly only on a weekly basis.
Politicians need money to pay bills. If you are cutting off all prediction of money appearing (which is impossible unless you get rid of all special interests) no campaign can ever have the ability to plan. This is a major part of all campaigns. Resistance to this will be high (not that this wasnt expected.)
The candidate still gets the money, of course, and the contributor is still free to both donate and speak...separately. The thing that's been cut off is the association between the money and the speech...which is exactly what the problem is, isn't it?
See above for why the connection is not.
Try again. Rather than trying to prove that a system won't work, why not help develop one that will?
Why don't you run for office. I did. Reality, after all, is far better than theory.
But "vote delivery" can't be proven, or even demonstrated with a strong degree of assurance.
Every candidate ever endorsed by the Firefighters Union in my town have been absolutely elected. Looking at the firefighters voting records and matching with their addresses shows a distinct pattern of voting in almost every election. They have sufficient numbers to win every time.
What I consider wrong is that government affects way too large a fraction of our lives, without apparent Constitutional justification. If the government at all levels were only, say, 1/10th of its current size, there would be much less motivation for corruption.
Power currupts. Not size of governement. I agree we need to shrink our gov't a whole lot. I believe whole heartedly in the Constitution. I advocate the entire Bill of Rights. I also support meaningful campaign finance reform. But ya know what? I lost. Change doesn't depend on changing finance laws. Much as in nature, these people will always find a way around it. It depends on helping people empower themselves. Making them know their vote DOES count. People who want real reform should fight actively for it.
Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com
Matt ++++==============---------------------------- Matthew J. Miszewski |The information revolution has changed wealth: |intellectual capital is now far more important mjmiski@execpc.com |than money. -Walter Wriston ----------------------------==============++++