Clean Campaigns Continued

Demos's post below about the need for clean campaigns got be thinking to this sad story I saw a couple days back about the one time champion of election finance reform John McCain. It seems Senator McCain recently signed up a key member of Tom DeLay's money laundering operation to be a senior advisor. I gave McCain $10 in 2000 in support of his campaign finance reform position and to help give him a fighting chance at the Republican nomination. I find it very sad watching the Senator today as he seems willing to sell his soul to get the current corrupt Republican establishments support for a 2008 Presidential run.

My take on campaign finance reform is that the only thing that will truly change the system is a change in the donor culture. If more regular people gave money in exchange for politicians fighting for the people then politicians will be less dependent on big money special interest donors. I know some will say that more donors will just push up the amounts of money spent by candidates, but I think that when we get to the point where the money available from normal people who care about the issues is substantially more that the money available from businesses seeing special deals and corporate welfare, then politicians will go where they can both get the money and not alienate votes. This in the end will lead politicians to choose to be fund by average people rather than special interests. And yes I know it will always be easier for a politician to get one $2000 contribution than one hundred $20 contributions, but if we had a culture where most voters thought it was worth $20 to get good people elected and would be willing to give it to candidates online when they do good things and thus reward good behavior, then it will become easier to get the one hundred $20 contributions and we can change politicians behavior.