Should We Have A Billion Dollar U.S. Presidential Campaign?

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

Should We Have A Billion Dollar U.S. Presidential Campaign?
(posted with permission) from: http://sane-ramblings.blogspot.com/2011/04/billion-dollar-us-presidential-campaign.html

President Obama launched the most expensive Presidential campaign in U.S. history. To pay for it, he held the first of many private meetings with wealthy and corporate donors, all of those meetings off-limits to the news media, which cover only "public events."

To compete, his biggest Republican opponent must raise close to or even exceed a billion dollars and will also conduct these private meetings. Congressmen of both major political parties do the same thing, raising far smaller amounts.

This bodes badly for America's democracy and explains why after the financial system nearly collapsed in 2008-09, giant companies, many of which caused the crisis got massive bailouts at taxpayer expense. It also explains why no-one has been held accountable for wrongdoing. Instead, it's business as usual and the Mt. Everest size bonuses never stopped, even when paid for by the taxpayer.

As the military industrial complex is a very generous campaign donor to both political parties, it explains why the money flows so heavily to it in gargantuan contracts, why it can afford to employ directly or indirectly millions of people and why we are in three wars, with more likely to come.

No other nation in the world allows this political madness. Elsewhere, campaigns are brief and usually paid for in whole or in large part by taxpayers, with specific limits placed on cost and on ad buys. We can have this too if only we as Americans unite and raise our voices to demand it. After all this is our nation, not just the nation of those who corrupt it by writing big checks to political office holders they end up controlling.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. HELL NO.

[Turbineguy]

2. If you consider how much

George W Bush cost, a billion dollars seems a paltry sum indeed.

[randr]

3. Remember where most of the money goes

The same stream media that brings you the continuing saga of a country in meltdown.
No vested interest there to speak of.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. No, but that require that we end the incredible

corruption of the political system.

[Donnachaidh]

5. If they can raise that much for a campaign -- WHY can't they do it for the poor?

It's f*cking obscene.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

15. Yes it is.

If we can raise money for this campaign, we should be able to raise it to help the poor. But the poor don’t pay a staggering rate of return on the money given to them.

[Freddie Stubbs]

18. The US spends far more than $1 billion per year on the poor

[Vincardog]

6. Considering that most of that money is spent benefiting the very parasitic corporations that are

the base of the problems in our country.

NO

[Cali_Democrat]

7. Nope

It's disgraceful that our "democracy" has come to this.

[OhioChick]

8. No n/t

[Snoutport]

9. or re-titled: how much money should rupert murdoch make off the election?

the media gets all that money, paid for by the democratic process, and then uses it to undermine the democratic process.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

16. The author responds...

You’re right, Fox and the other corporate media wallow in this campaign money, which builds earnings which raises stock prices and then they, most notably Fox and GE, use their stock in part to acquire other media companies. Through campaign contributions they buy FCC approval to add those media companies into their empire and then are even more in control of what they cover or don’t cover, as they spin the news. Hence we need WikiLeaks to tell us what is really going on in the U.S. and in the Middle East and Al Jazeera to inform us on the Middle East as well.

[FrenchieCat]

10. The president launched his re-election campaign......

whether it "is" the most expensive, that's speculative and is factually untrue. Might it become the most expense campaign? Certainly....but I would wager that those folks using Citizens United as their cover will give as much if not more to his Republican counterpart.

But it's great to post an article that implies that somehow this is Obama's doing, and Obama's campaign only, and on and on. It's convenient to look at things upside down and then ask why folks are standing on their heads.....

But yeah...money in politics is and has never been a good thing, ever....not just now, although I suggest that the Supreme Court decision made things much worse, not so much this President.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

13. This is not the Obama bashing thread you are looking for...

Are there Obama bashing threads here, on DU? I've never seen one. But seriously, this is a political system problem that needs a remedy - because money corrupts everything it touches.

[Myrina]

11. Both parties should be limited to $500. Seriously.

Can the flashy bullshit and just tell me what you're about and why. Period.

[Shagbark Hickory]

12. Yes! What Myrina just said!

[crickets]

14. NO. It's obscene. -nt

[ecstatic]

17. No, we should have govt funded elections, but the Fairness Doctrine

must be enabled and private groups would have to be put in check somehow (as far as misleading TV ads). The problem right now is that 99% of the media is right wing, so they already have a 500million dollar advantage.