The Essence Of Politics
Deborah Venable
10/20/06
I’ve
heard a lot of talk lately bemoaning the McCain-Feingold legislation signed into law in March of
2002. It usually happens when we get
this close to an election. While many
conservatives with a head on their shoulders fought that awful breach of first
Amendment rights when is was argued through Congress, it still managed to pass
a Republican Congress and be signed into law by a Republican president. Many influential liberal voices sang the
same tune against the legislation, albeit a bit off-key. It wasn’t the first time that law was aimed
at restrictions on the financing of campaigns.
Just look at what happened after Watergate - the Federal Election Commission and before that, the Federal Election Campaign Act.
The
Campaign Finance Reform Act, as it was erroneously named, put monetary
restrictions on who could say what about whom, when and where no matter
why.
Almost
immediately the law was challenged for Constitutionality and upheld by the
Supreme Court with a 5-4 decision in December of 2003.
This
and all other legislation that seeks to limit the effects of the wallet on
elections in this country will probably always pass muster in the court of
public opinion, and then continue to be shot full of holes and repaired time
and again regardless of how much of the Constitution gets shredded in the
process. It is hard to imagine at this
time how we can ever fixed the flawed system of paying for the exorbitant
expense of political campaigns.
Publicly funded campaigns are heavily touted as the permanent fix for
financing campaigns without the influence of wealthy individuals and
corporations. This one smells to me
simply because funding comes in the form of confiscated tax payer dollars and
doled out through government bureaucracy.
Some
years ago, during another election cycle, I wrote a piece devoted to the
subject of influence and money in politics.
It fits today as well as it did then:
Let’s get big money out of politics! That seems to be the war cry of the campaign finance reform
crowd. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Sounds real good if it wasn’t such total
crock! What is “big money” anyway? Could we call Microsoft money “big
money”? I mean Bill Gates is still the
richest man in the world, isn’t he? Is
his money “bigger” than, let’s say, Joe Blow’s down the street who owns a
little barbershop and employs three other barbers? Are we all watching to see what and whom Bill gates spends his
money on so we will know how to spend ours?
Or, perhaps, would we be more inclined to the influence of our friendly
barber, Joe, whom we speak with on a regular basis as he skillfully whacks away
at those pesky nose hairs?
“So, Joe, who are you gonna vote for next month?” you ask in
between the snip, snip, snip.
“Well, sir,” Joe begins as he pauses in mid-snip and laughs a
nervous little laugh.
“There ain’t a damned one of ‘em worth a hill of beans, but I
reckon that there Simon Feller’d probably be the best bet not to make things
worse here in Californy.”
“How’s that, Joe?” you ask with a little sneeze.
“Just don’t trust none of ‘em much, so I pick the lesser of the
evils,” he says.
As you give a nod of approval to that handsome face in the mirror,
pay Joe and walk out the door, you realize that Joe just put into simple words
the essence of politics.
How do you suppose Joe narrowed down his choices and came up with
the “lesser of the evils?” Perhaps he
is all the candidates’ favorite barber?
Sure. That’s it. He knows all these guys personally – they
all come to him and get that special snip, snip that only he can give
them. They ask his opinion on world
affairs and he tells them. Then they
all tip him and leave. Maybe that
“Simon feller’s” tip is a little bigger than the rest? Would that make him the “lesser of the
evils?”
If we got THAT “big money” out of politics, old Joe wouldn’t know
whom to vote for I guess, huh?
Well, you know what? I’ll
bet Joe isn’t any of the candidates’ barber.
I’ll bet they wouldn’t know him from Adam, nor would he know anything
about them except for what he’s heard, read or seen in the media. Now, there’s your “big tipper,” folks! There is the real “big money” that everybody
wants out of politics. Or do they
really?
Back in the old horse and buggy days of real town meetings – not
the kind conducted on stage by the local PBS station or the alphabet networks –
the kind that folks hauled their well-behaved kids off to so they could learn
first hand how government works, there was a two way street between the
politicians and the people. Even the
press of those days maintained the pavement in good working order on both sides
of that street. Then, I guess, “big
money” got involved and the pavement on the people’s side got potholed! Pretty soon, that big money bought “one way
street” signs and proceeded to keep a constant flow of traffic coming AT the
people – not FROM them, except in the form of hopped up polls that have been
carefully formulated to “accurately” depict exactly what’s on our minds. Nice.
Oh, the politicians still get on the planes and trains and buses
and go out stumping occasionally, so they can “take their message to the
people” and “listen,” (AKA Hillary politics), to the people they are supposed
to represent. But they “reach” a very
small percentage of the people that way.
Meanwhile, “big money” is hard at work fashioning a message based on
whichever way the wind is blowing at the time, and getting it out in force –
the force of the media.
Let’s get big money out of politics, folks!
Personally, I have always thought that we should get ALL money out
of politics. That would sure make the
profession a lot less attractive to charlatans, now wouldn’t it? It would also go a long way toward
re-establishing a “free” press.
As long as there are both money and power in politics, the money will ALWAYS direct the power! If we want REAL campaign finance reform, we must stop making politics so lucrative. How do we do that? Well, we can start by making politics the part-time job it should be. If government were not the BIG BUSINESS that it has become, it would not need full time politicians making BIG MONEY to ram government down our throats. The consent of the governed has faded into a bad joke as we try to maintain a government made up of the “lesser of the evils.”
Okay,
so that was my take a few years ago.
Now, here we are again and I don’t see that much has changed. Big media remains the main conduit between
the people and the politicians relying on their votes, and the road is little
better than a one-way street – always heavily potholed on our side.
If
you are a registered member of a political party, you still get hounded to
“help” with monetary donations. The
bulk of those donations are needed to buy commercial advertising – usually
designed to smear the other guy and over-glamorize yours. Who makes out and benefits most from your
donated dollars? Truth be told, a well
informed electorate shouldn’t need to be blasted with condescending, expensive
advertisements in the final weeks before an election, but most just don’t
bother to pay attention or to go out of their way to research the candidates –
so these ads DO matter. I’ll ask my
standard old question once again – whose fault is that?
Campaign
Finance Reform indeed!
The
grand old sport of finger pointing is going on all over the media, (both the
new and the old media), and every prediction is being made with little thought
to anything but affecting the eventual outcome of this election. (No thought to the damage to national
security, the economy, or our fragile culture.) We’ve heard every issue from the war to immigration to gas prices
being touted as the ONE BIGGY that will drive the results.
Everybody
is forgetting the only thing that has ever mattered for a very long time
now. People are a lot less apt to vote
FOR anyone or anything any more, choosing instead to vote AGAINST those they
hate most. But the veteran voters have
not forgotten the essence of politics, and that is what will carry this
election. When the day after rolls around
and precincts are still scrambling to count the “close” races, that final count
will depend on what the majority of voters thought was the lesser of the
evils. Those who stay home tend to
cinch it for worst evil. It has been
that way for a very long time.