2001-03-18 - 11:30 p.m.

Political Finance Reform

While driving around with Lily today I had the car radio on, tuned to National Public Radio. There was a lengthy article on All Things Considered about political campaign finance reform. Arizona senator and former presidential candidate John McCain has put forward a bill to ban "soft money." That is he wants to prohibit the political parties from using money on specific candidates that was gathered for general party usage. I think I have that right.

Why this "soft money" is bad, supposedly, is because it allows big contributors to sidestep the contribution limits to individual campaigns.

The people fighting this bill are saying that limiting rich people's political contributions is infringing on their right to free speech, like they talk out of their checkbooks. I'd think this was funny, if I didn't consider real free speech so precious.

Of course what is funny about this is that the politicians themselves are in charge of deciding how this regulation works. It's like putting the Cookie Monster in charge of the cookie jar. I'm sure that the politicians will put on a great show about this before the reform bill dies its pre-determined death.

Neither Lily or I are terribly interested in this issue, and it's for pretty much the same reason. We figure that if one source of money is cut off, they'll just find another.

I thought I was cynical about politicians, but I have nothing on Lily. She just casually assumes that they all are corrupt. She says that most people her age feel the same way. Since I was born before Watergate, there is some vestigial sense of shame that can occasionally be aroused by the antics of our elected officials. Lily, on the other hand, can never be disappointed because she automatically assumes the worst. Maybe she's the smart one.

Several years ago I remember reading an article on the Japanese political system, describing how corruption is almost built into the Japanese style of government. Members of the Diet, the Japanese parliament, are expected to spend a lot of yen on gifts and parties for their constituents, but the salaries for Diet members are not high. Therefore either the candidates have to be wealthy to start with, or they have to get massive donations. The Japanese people always seem to be shocked when they find out someone is corrupt, but they still expect the lavish spending form the candidates.

I think it�s the same way here, to some extent. Political campaigns are so expensive that well-heeled backers are just about required if you want to get elected.

So today, while I was listening to the debate on campaign finance reform, I came up with a wonderful idea. Instead of trying to regulate the money coming in, which seems to be impossible, I think that all politicians should be required to wear jumpsuits with the logos of the companies that have paid them money, just like NASCAR drivers do. That way, instead of doing all this investigation on a candidate, all you have to do is look at him or her to know where they stand. You can look at one candidate and say "Hmmm. That guy is a tool of Big Tobacco." Or "Hey, my guy likes Oreos!"

Well, it's an idea.