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Every candidate should have access to the same amount of money in their campaigns.  Once they reach the limit, no more spending.  And they are not allowed to fund their own campaigns or seek out additional donations.  Use the money wisely – when it's out, it's out.

No campaigning until one month before the election.  One month before primary, one month before general election.

JimPB said:

What changes (for the good, in your view) would you most like to occur in the political campaigns.  My top four are:

1. Candidates and all funders of political ads would be required to contribute a proportion of their advertising budget to adequately fund fact-checkers for ads, roto-calls, speeches and remarks, and to set aside an adequate reserve for giving corrections the same distribution and level of attention as the ad, roto-call, speech or remarks with the error(s).  

2.  Candidates should be subjected to frequent (ideally, daily) unconstrained questioning (with repeat questions encouraged until the candidates offers an answer the questioner deems responsive) by panels of randomly selected voters, with all such sessions recorded and posted to the internet.   (And with 1 above applying.) 

3.  ALL candidates, not just the nominees of the two major parties, should have equal access to any events that involve two or more candidates.  

1. This will just lead to conflicts over the fact-checkers facts, and claims of bias by them. The media are already our fact-checkers – have been for a long time.

2. That's not much different from what we have now. Anyone can ask them a question, by going to events or writing a letter or whatever. Doesn't mean they have to answer. We judge if their answers are adequate or not.

3. Waste of time. And you can't dictate who is invited to a private event.

Hey, the question was posed, it didn't specify whether they changes had to be constitutional or not.

dynaroo said:

Cate said:

Hey, the question was posed, it didn’t specify whether they changes had to be constitutional or not.

True. But you didn’t specify that the answer couldn’t be that it’s unconstitutional either.

Sure, you can amend the Constitution. But I’m extremely wary of someone who thinks the First Amendment is an obstruction to their desires, and wants to be the first in our history to amend any part of the Bill of Rights in order to take away some of our rights.

I think you might be minimizing the gravity of the problem. Sure, amending the Constitution is a serious matter. And sure, restrictions to our freedom of speech are to be evaluated with extreme skepticism. However, it seems patently obvious that the democracy that the Constitution was designed to bring into existence is under threat by the fact that those with more money get more influence. This is the opposite of a “level playing field” which politicians of all stripes and colors have been advocating forever.

It might be difficult to craft an effective yet sufficiently narrow amendment that would seek to eliminate the role that money plays in elections. But I don't think it's impossible and I do think that it's extremely important to take some action to try to reduce the ability of a small minority of plutocrats from setting the national agenda and national policies.

Cate said:

Hey, the question was posed, it didn’t specify whether they changes had to be constitutional or not.

Oh, in that case:

Send all liberals to North Korea and the Gaza strip.

dynaroo said:

speonjosh said:

dynaroo said:

Cate said:

Hey, the question was posed, it didn’t specify whether they changes had to be constitutional or not.

True. But you didn’t specify that the answer couldn’t be that it’s unconstitutional either.

Sure, you can amend the Constitution. But I’m extremely wary of someone who thinks the First Amendment is an obstruction to their desires, and wants to be the first in our history to amend any part of the Bill of Rights in order to take away some of our rights.

I think you might be minimizing the gravity of the problem. Sure, amending the Constitution is a serious matter. And sure, restrictions to our freedom of speech are to be evaluated with extreme skepticism. However, it seems patently obvious that the democracy that the Constitution was designed to bring into existence is under threat by the fact that those with more money get more influence. This is the opposite of a “level playing field” which politicians of all stripes and colors have been advocating forever.

It’s not the least bit obvious.

The voters control who is elected. They decide who has influence. If they keep electing whoever throws the most TV ads at them, that’s still their choice.

It might be difficult to craft an effective yet sufficiently narrow amendment that would seek to eliminate the role that money plays in elections. But I don’t think it’s impossible and I do think that it’s extremely important to take some action to try to reduce the ability of a small minority of plutocrats from setting the national agenda and national policies.

I’ve got a crazy idea! Let’s just not let them set the national agenda. Let’s go vote on election day for whomever we want.

Again, I think you may be minimizing the issue here. And sounding a bit naive at that.

Yes, there is no one in the voting booth with me or you or anyone else with a gun to our heads forcing us to vote one way or another. But our votes are but one part of the process. And they are arguably not even the most important part. After all, there are millions of us but only 535 senators and representatives. Far easier to influence 535 or really, just a subset, than the masses (although certainly influencing the masses is important and worthwhile as well.) And since it those 535 who control the purse strings, not us, then if I'm part of the 1% and want to climb even higher, I'm putting my money where it will do me the most good…..

However, it is inherently unjust for politicians to be in a position where corporations and other very wealthy individuals can offer them money and other perks so as to vote in a certain manner that benefits those with the money to a greater degree than it benefits anyone else.

Are you really suggesting that we simply never vote for anyone who is suscepible to this set of circumstances? Where are these paragons of virtue? And why should we accept a system in which the onus is on us rather than on those who wish to use their wealth to further enrich themselves?

Don't get me wrong, I don't wish to deny the responsibility of the voters / citizens. I just think there is every reason to believe that we live in a plutocracy and that this reality severely limits the ability of most individual voters / citizens to influence legislation and policy. Instead the influence goes to those with the money. Thus, to restore some degree of responsiveness to the people as a whole and bring the country back toward the democratic ideal that is articulated in the Constitution, it makes sense to amend that Constitution to remove the easy access to power that is currently given to those with money.

When you vote, instead of being a list of potential candidates, there should be choices A, B, C, D.  And then along with your ballet, is a list of yes or no questions that are deemed relevant and important to the election, and the answers that A B C and D gave to each.

You must vote based on who you think answered the issues in the ways you agree they should be answered, without knowing the politician's name or party.