My ideas for practical campaign finance reform
Obviously, one of the biggest issues in our country is the fact that you need ungodly amounts of money to be a feasible candidate for president, all but cutting lower and middle class people off from running for high office. Also, money allows an unfair ability for the wealthy to pick their candidates by glutting their campaigns with cash to drown out their opponents with ads. There has to be a way to bring equity back to our election process, and here are a few suggestions I have to do so:
1--utilize a centralized website to inform people of the candidates. This website would be a .gov provided by the government and will be maintained by a new nonpartisan federal agency.
a) On this website, candidates will have a free forum to show their platforms as well as make arguments against their opponents; they can link to studies to back up their arguments.
b) They can also post video messages, but all videos must be produced with the help of campaign volunteers--no outside money allowed.
c) On independent message boards linked to on the main page of this website, candidates or their authorized surrogates can debate issues; the public can read these boards, but cannot respond.
d) The public can submit questions which will be added to an OKCupid-style questionnaire by the domain master, which candidates or their surrogates can respond to in essay-style answers.
2--mandated by the FCC as a condition of using the public airwaves, all broadcast stations must provide equal time to candidates at the expense of the broadcast station. These adds must be simple and produced by the broadcasting affiliate closest to the candidate's home base; the stations will be provided with some subsidies by the federal government.
3) Also mandated by the FCC, broadcast stations must provide time for a certain number of primary and presidential debates. The practical expenses for these debates will come from non-profit organizations and subsidies from the federal government.
Comments? Any other ideas?
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