Campaign+spending+editorial

May the Richest Man Win Kyle Fisher-Hertz If it were free to run for President, how many candidates would there be? 10,000? 100,000? What would be holding people back from trying to reach our country’s peak political status if not the exorbitant price of campaigning? Not a lot; but this will likely never be an issue faced by the American public. According to chairman of the Federal Elections Commission, Michael Toner, the two final candidates in the 2008 election will spend roughly $500,000,000 each. This seems a tad high for a sizable majority of our population, and so the presidential race is narrowed down to the rich and the richer.

Would it not make equal, if not more sense to weed out the unintelligent instead of the poor from the presidential race? Why not give every potential candidate a series of rigorous academic tests and only allow the top 50 scorers to run for president? Wouldn’t intelligence seem a more relevant qualification than independent wealth? But I suppose that wouldn’t be a good idea either. After all, if that were the means by which candidates were selected, we certainly never would have seen George W. get out of the starting gate. Wait, did I say this was a bad idea?

I understand that a field full of brainiacs would not provide the ideal selection for potential presidents, but neither does an array of rich people, and a change must be made. The current Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, has set a record for most political ads run at this point in the election with over 11,000, having spent roughly $8.6 million on ads alone to date. What does it mean that the man willing to invest the most money in getting his face on our television sets is the man with the most support? Are we really that predictable?

Whatever it says about our country, it certainly speaks to the candidates as to the importance of campaign ads. It is estimated that in 2008, $3,000,000,000, will be spent on political advertising, $800,000,000 of that coming from the presidential election (CNN.com). Again, this makes it nearly impossible for anyone but the super-wealthy to stand a fighting chance.

There is public funding available to any serious presidential candidate who chooses to accept it, yet few do. Public funding during the primary election comes in the form of the government matching donations of no more than $250 at a time up to a $21,000,000 maximum, provided the candidate does not exceed a $50,000,000 national spending limit and adheres to preset state spending limits. Clearly, these guidelines would handicap any candidate today considering the exorbitant amount spent campaigning. John Edwards is the only current candidate to accept public funding, and he trails both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama by a significant margin in the Democratic Race.

Edwards urged Clinton and Obama to follow his lead and accept public funding. Clinton did not comment publicly on the request, and Obama said he would be willing to if the Republican candidates also agreed. But the bottom line is, today’s presidential candidates are so independently wealthy and receive so much economic support from lobbyists and private parties, that agreeing to the terms of public funding would severely hurt one’s chances.

So what’s the solution? Make ‘em. Require candidates to abide by the rules of public funding and level the playing field. Not only would this severely decrease the influence of lobbyists, but it would force candidates to cut back on their ad spending and rely more heavily on their performance in the debates and their ability to articulate their ideas during press conferences. The rich will still own the presidency, there’s no way around that, but let’s at least give them all an equally unfair advantage over the poor people.