Finally... Truth In Political Advertising!

Greetings.

I saw this ad on campus today and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap a pic and share it with you all. This might just be one of the first times I've ever seen truth in political advertising. On one hand, you've gotta commend the guy for being honest... I mean, now at least we all know in whose pocket the guy resides. On the other hand, though, I can't ignore the fact that this is exactly what's wrong with our political system here in the United States.

You can't win without a bunch of money in your corner. I was thinking about it earlier today, and I wondered what kind of chance a guy like me would have of running for office if I decided to purchase zero advertising. I am by no means a media or marketing expert, but I'm pretty sure they usually let you on the news networks for free - if you've got interesting enough ideas, that is - so I'd be counting on that to get my message out. Let's say I had some absolutely brilliant ideas for fixing my district, or even my state (I don't, by the way, but that's another blog). Even if I had all the answers and I appeared on all of the right news shows (and heck, let's even throw YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and all of the other free internet marketing in there), I would still need to travel around the state and meet people face to face in districts other than my own. I would have to do stump speeches and appear at all kinds of rallies and public events. And that, folks, costs a shitload of money. Way more than I would be able to come up with on my own.

So let's face it... In order to win, I would need to have campaign contributors. Now, again, lets assume that my ideas are REALLY good. There would be quite a few patriotic, concerned citizens who would want to chip in - I mean, look at all of the private individual contributions President Obama got in the 08' election - but even with those record breaking numbers, he needed corporate support as well. And again, there's the problem. Businesses typically don't invest money without expecting some kind of return. And let's not pretend like this is a new thing. It's been going on since we founded this country. I think that lately, however, it's just gotten to the point where the corporate lobbyists are so powerful, and their sphere of influence is so widespread, that they are literally the ones running things now. I could go on and on about health insurance companies, or oil tycoons, or telecommunications companies, or any number of gargantuan corporate beasts who are drinking the very marrow of our fair democratic republic, but you've all read me beating that horse before. The good news is... I have a solution. The bad news is... The system is already so corrupt that my solution would never work.

My solution: Set aside a specific portion of the federal, state, and local budgets to finance campaigns (I know, we kind of already do this). In my plan, however, we make that portion MUCH bigger, and we mandate that ALL travel expenses, advertising expenses, and staff salaries come out of that amount of money. Then, we outlaw ANY and ALL other monetary campaign contributions from the private sector - individual or corporation. What's that you say? But Reverend, if you do that, the corporations will just find a way around it by donating time and materials and other intangibles to campaigns. Well, we'll just put a monetary cap on all those other contributions, too. And, since the Supreme Court saw fit to essentially treat corporations like individuals in the matter of campaign finance, we will stick to that. Corporations will not be allowed to donate anything non-monetary (labor, materials, time, etc) valued over the current individual campaign contribution limits, which I believe are somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000.00. Notice I said "valued." That means that even if the corporations want to donate "volunteers," their contribution can't exceed a value of $3,000.00. So, now what you've got is a system in which everybody gets essentially the same amount of money, and Exxon Mobil can't contribute more than $3,000.00 worth of labor or materials to the cause.

My detractors will say that this spits in the face of free speech, but I say by making campaign finance a completely public enterprise, it is actually the best friend free speech could ever have. It would help to ensure that EVERYONE, regardless of how much money they have at their disposal, has an opportunity to be heard.

I am the Reverend Humpy and I have approved this message.