Note: the tone of this piece addressing those who plan to vote for Stein over Obama despite voting for Obama in 2008 or previously supporting Obama due to a policy disagreement, not those who support Jill Stein unequivocally.
1. What leads one to believe that Stein can actually win the election? The Green Party is a known name, but has little influence, an existing scarred reputation concerning the Nader campaign in 2000 among most Democrats, almost no money on a relative level, no invitation to any debates involving the two major party Presidential candidates and does not have any current serving members in Congress. Remember the Electoral College is a significant disadvantage to Stein as in 1992 Ross Perot received over 18% of the popular vote, but received zero electoral votes, thus he was no closer to winning the election if he had never run at all. Very few Republicans and very few blacks are going to vote for her and being a woman puts her at a disadvantage with male voters in general, so how does she win? The sad fact is that the U.S. electorate demonstrates signs of a great level of disinterest and a single-issue mindset beholden to political parties despite the assurances of the media that the ranks of the ‘Independent’ voter are increasing.
On a side note those individuals who try to excuse the influence of Ralph Nader and the Green Party in Florida in 2000 by citing that a number of registered Democrats voted for Bush are being foolish. Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush had significantly different overall policy platforms; therefore, any Democrat voting for Bush, or for that matter any Republican voting for Gore, would be better characterized as an independent voter. Thus blaming ‘Democrats’ that voted for Bush is not accurate because those individuals stripped themselves of their affiliation to the Democratic Party when they voted for Bush due to serious confliction between his platform and the ideals of the Democratic Party.
2. To those who believe that voting for Stein is some issue of morality, a stake in the ground where one is tired of voting for individuals perceived as ‘the lesser of two evils’, there is only one thing to say… my goodness you all are selfish individuals. The simple fact is that whether or not you agree with what Obama has done in his presidency up to this point, to equate the predictable environmental negative consequences of a second term to the predictable environmental negative consequences of a Romney presidency is absolutely ridiculous.
Yes, Obama has been woefully pathetic regarding environmental issues, but too many are pigeonholing the issue of the environment to administering a price on carbon. Fostering an economic recovery with manageable federal government debt and a stable economy is essential to any plan of action to reduce carbon emissions because if the government cannot fund subsidies for various energy infrastructure deployment and research then one better hope Japan miraculously develops cold fusion (and shares it with the world). Does anyone think that private corporations will foot the entire bill for all needed future energy infrastructure? Under a Romney Presidency the following detrimental economic and environmental policies have a much higher probability of enactment due to either application of executive power or no threat of Presidential Veto:
- Almost zero chance of passing any type of carbon pricing system; (if ACES passed Obama would have signed it, think Romney would have?)
- War with Iran;
- Extension of Bush tax cuts for everyone making over 250,000+;
- The elimination of the capital gains tax;
- Economic conflict with China leading to massive tariffs through protectionism;
- Elimination of environmental friendly subsidies for certain energy mediums and fuel efficiency;
- Uncertainty associated with a possible massive shift in the policies of the Affordable Care Act;
- Elimination or significant easing of emission restrictions for various pollutants by the EPA;
- Huge loss of credibility in both environmental and economic international discussions (currently the international community views Mr. Romney as a complete joke similar to G.W. Bush, Obama still has some credibility);
Based on existing information the probability that a Romney Presidency is significantly more detrimental for the environment than a second term for Obama is very high. Some may argue that Obama’s lack of action when addressing global warming mitigates these differences. They argue that a Romney Presidency is akin to driving a car towards a cliff at 150 mph instead of the 80 mph of an Obama Presidency. The problem with this analogy is that it assumes that the car will inevitably fall off the cliff regardless of the speed, which is a defeatist and foolish assumption that does not assume the possibility for change. Time is one of the biggest factors that society has to conserve during the process of emission mitigation and all signs point to a Romney Presidency stealing much more of it than a second term for Obama.
Whether one likes it or not each person living on this planet has a responsibility to everyone else; those who would otherwise vote for Obama, but instead vote for a candidate that has no reasonable probability of being elected are abandoning everyone else. That selfishness in pacifying one’s personal morality (micro-morality) is increasing the probability that all global citizens suffer under a Romney Presidency (macro-morality) from an environmental perspective.
3. To those who believe that voting for Stein is not a winning or a moral issue and instead plan to ‘send a message to the Obama or even the Democrat establishment’ this reasoning appears to be flawed. How exactly is Obama going to receive the message? It appears that the basic school of thought is enough people are going to vote for Stein instead of Obama to create a noticeable reduction in his vote total. Umm… how exactly does that send a message?
Obama has no way of knowing the reason behind this noticeable reduction of votes (if it even occurs). To him and his ‘people’ the only conclusion is that fewer people voted for him. Back in 2004 there was no place on the ballot that stated: ‘Are you voting for a third party candidate because you are disappointed with the policies supported by George W. Bush in his first term, but do not want to support John Kerry?’ There is no effective means to demonstrate to Obama that you wanted to vote for him in the first place, instead of Stein, but could not because of a certain policy issue. Also there is no way to clarify that this policy issue was based on the environment over the economy, healthcare, infrastructure, education, etc. So the message is not being regarded as a message and even if it were, it would be nearly impossible for those in power to determine the specific issue that is being ‘protested’. Assuming that enough voters that think with this mindset would be part of exit polling is simply naïve.
To send a message there are at least three elements that need to occur:
- Enough people have to vote for Stein for individuals in Obama’s camp to consider it noteworthy. Unfortunately there is no definitive way of determining the value of this ‘vote floor’. A good assumption is that for most people to register Stein voting as a message Stein would need at least 10% of the popular vote and it is incredibly unlikely that such a floor is attained based on previous third party candidate vote tallies.
In my opinion to send a message she needs to win a state along with Obama winning the election; Perot got 18+% in 1992, but only 8% in 1996 (message not sent); Nader cost Gore the election in 2000, but did the Democrats change their policies to accommodate those who voted for Nader? Nope, thus message not sent. So what state is she going to win?
- Obama would have to understand that a vast majority of these votes for Stein were ‘disappointment votes’; basically it needs to be communicated to Obama that most of the individuals that voted for Stein would have voted for him if he had a different view and/or execution strategy on a certain policy.
- It must be communicated to Obama that these votes were transferred to Stein due to disagreement with only one particular policy, his lack of action in addressing global warming, not some other environmental issue, not the economy, not education, not immigration, etc.
Overall a rational analysis of these three factors predicts that there is no feasible way to ‘send a message’ to Obama by voting for Stein.
On a side note to those individuals that want Obama to take a ‘pledge’ of some sorts to directly address the issue of global warming during his second term (if elected) to ensure your vote, why would you demand something so baseless? There would be no direct method to bind Obama to any statements he made during this campaign, recall all of the things that he supposedly was going to accomplish in his first term and didn’t (heck some he did not even make an attempt to accomplish); thus all you are really asking for is lip-service with the far-flung hope that it could materialize into something substantial. Basically you just want Obama to play to your egos, giving you a sense that your opinion means something to him. In some context you’re like that 12-year old girl at a Taylor Swift concert holding out her hand hoping that Swift grasps it for a brief second. For such a request to have any significant meaning you need a conditional agreement with Obama saying he will resign the Presidency if x is not done by time y. Unfortunately the creation/execution of such an agreement in almost all cases would be poorly conceived and illogical.
4. Suppose by some miracle Stein actually wins the election when both major candidates concede on Election Night… (Obama is forced to concede when a report surfaces that he really was born in Kenya and is not eligible to be president [of course the report is later proven false, but it is so convincing that even Obama is fooled and he does not have the stones to fight back] and Romney is arrested and eventually convicted for tax evasion). So everything works out perfectly, now it is time to stop global warming in its tracks… right?
Nope, because despite what some may have thought during the G.W. Bush administration, the legislative branch is responsible for drafting laws not the executive branch. The Republicans in Congress are going to treat Stein exactly like they treated Obama by blocking all policies that are in contrast to their supposed belief system (zero cooperation). As for the Democrats it is difficult to see Stein having any significant level of influence on their behaviors, especially because she constantly criticizes the Democratic Party for being corrupt and very similar to the Republican Party, thus there is no ‘whipping’ if some need to be put in line before a vote through party loyalty. Therefore, the Democrats are going to operate on their own personal beliefs whether it is keeping their elected position or taking a chance for the country. Overall there is no reason to suggest that legislation will be passed under Stein, especially environmental legislation, at any higher probability than under Obama.
One could argue successfully that Stein would make more commentary about the need to address global warming, but with climate websites constantly citing polling information about what a winning issue addressing global warming is with vast majorities of citizens wanting to address it, this additional exposure seems limited in influence. The sad reality for environmentalists is the utter lack of environmental based single-issue voters, otherwise there would have been significant punitive damage for House members that voted against the ACES in 2009 and Senate members that threatened to filibuster it; either that or all of that positive polling information is grossly inaccurate (well that actually is true because all polling information in general is pretty much grossly inaccurate). Overall there is little Stein can do to enumerate the detriments of global warming that climate scientists have not already done, passing legislation is what matters and not enough voters seem to care about what is demanded for that part of the solution for Stein’s presence/leadership (whatever word one prefers) to make a difference.
So if all three major reasons for voting for Stein over Obama are flawed why is this faux-debate about 2012 voting being conducted again? The unfortunately reality is that no third party has the necessary infrastructure to even remotely begin to compete for the Presidency of the United States and until this infrastructure is established, voting third party does nothing but support the old saying of throwing your vote away. Voting every two years is the only real power the plebeian masses have, a power that certain parties are still trying to strip unjustly from other parties, so why would someone mitigate this power by using poor logic and irrational judgment when considering how to wield it.
Personally Obama and Romney are incredible disappointments as candidates and I would rather neither win the Presidency ideally, but we clearly do not live in an ideal world and as it currently stands Stein has no legitimate chance for victory, thus those who actually care about the environment and future must regrettably cast our lot with Obama. If one thinks otherwise about Stein’s ability to win, demonstrate this thought process in strict objective and rational details, not blind statements of hope because remember not everyone thinks as you do or cares about the things you do.
Showing posts with label Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Election. Show all posts
Monday, August 13, 2012
Monday, February 14, 2011
Money in Politics – A Potential Strategy for its Removal?
It can be argued that the influx of money in politics has always been a troubling issue with regards to equality and can logically be viewed as an affront to the very nature of democracy itself. On January 21, 2010 the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling that for all intensive purposes provided a deathblow for proponents of financial reform in politics. Citizens United vs. the United States of America outlined what has become the popular refrain ‘Corporations are people’. Moving beyond the general absurdity of this contention,
Also recently eliminated was any legitimate requirement for ‘these new people’ to identify themselves when ‘exercising’ their free speech. Future Congressional prospects to alter this ‘masking’ element to the ruling seem unlikely in the near or even long-term future. However, despite how generally silly and cliché the overly optimistic statement ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ may be, in this particular situation its application may be appropriate for those supporting financial reform.
The prevailing strategy so far by the financial reform movement has been to limit the influx of funds by applying a donation ceiling in an attempt to equalize the two power channels of a capitalistic democracy. To understand the rationality behind this strategy a little background is appropriate. The trademark notion of a democracy is ‘one person one vote’ implying equal influence from all voting parties regardless of position or standing. However, the evolution of the political system in the United States has created an environment where any elected position of significant consequence demands a large amount of money to purchase advertisement and conduct other publicity activities in order to have a reasonable chance at election. This monetary demand places an additional motivational incentive on potential candidates to abide by the wishes of those that have the ability to donate large sums of money at multiple instances.
Thus, while the initial notion of democracy is technically still accurate, it is difficult to believe that individuals who donate more money to fund a particular politician’s run at office will have equal influence to those that donate no money. Therefore, this new election environment has created two tiers of influence: the equal influence provided by voting and an unequal influence where individuals of wealth have significant influence over those that do not have wealth.
Unfortunately due to the flaws in the voting process of an indirect democracy (few/no termination clauses, few abilities to recall, no dishonesty termination, etc.) and the general lack of attentiveness of most voters, in real applied terms the equal influence element is seriously lacking in overall effectiveness relative to the unequal influence element. Due to this inequality some have proposed and even seen the successful passage of legislation to control the influence of money. Sadly as witnessed in Citizens United it is difficult to expect these money ceilings to remain for long periods of time because they do not serve the interests of those in power.
Some would make the argument that the failure of the voting process to neutralize this monetary influence conduit is the fault of citizens and those making large contributions to political parties or individuals should not be punished for this failure. This reasoning is flawed on two different fronts. First, the lack of and limitation of honesty in the political process significantly hinders the total expression of voting power. For example a politician can make statement A to the public, but actually support an opposing position and as long as the public is not able to discover that opposing belief the politician can be elected on a basis of false pretenses. This reality is especially relevant when the position of a corporation and large political donor may be in direct contrast with the position of the general public. How can voting have any real power when a politician can simply lie about his/her position until elected?
The counterargument to the above premise is a rather weak one. The only real logical argument is that in the case of a fraudulent politician, the public needs to take the philosophy of ‘fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me’ and when the politician comes up for re-election vote him/her out of office. The flaw in this reasoning is that any viable candidate must be available for replacement. Sadly in the current political system there will typically only be the potential for one viable opposition candidate as other candidates are pushed to the fringes of the process. Even if the lack of choice were rescinded the same initial concerns regarding truth would still be unchecked.
The second flaw in the above ‘it is the fault of voters not money’ argument is the very psychological nature of the players involved in the process. Most large donor individuals/corporations have a single principle in mind when donating money to a particular candidate: making money. There is typically no concern for any social issues or utilitarian elements that are apart from that main objective. This ‘single issue donor mentality’ gives an effective focus to the donation process eliminating the benefits of logical analysis.
However, because most voters are not rich and powerful, their lives are affected more by the myriad of decisions that a representing official has to make, thus it is illogical for these voters to be single issue voters (despite the fact that some are anyways). Therefore, it is difficult to expect voters to sacrifice all other issues to ensure that the large donors do not receive support for their single issue. This single issue element also ties to the trust issue above in that corporations have a black/white point regarding whether or not support should be given to a particular candidate while even if a candidate lies about one particular issue their overall platform may force a non-wealthy voter to continue to support them.
The principle tactic used by those fighting money in politics and other avenues is the belief in ‘sunshine’ or transparency. Proponents believe that by creating environments where individuals that donate large sums of money must make those donations in a completely transparent manner and those that use the money must outline how it was used it will lead to an outcome where more immoral actions will be restrained reducing the overall negative influence of money in politics. However, the problem with this strategy is that it does not address the saturation mindset. It stands to reason that most people believe that all candidates are taking money from some form of special interest and/or large corporate donors (even the small third party ones regardless of whether or not they actually are), so no candidate is ‘clean’. Therefore, without offering an effective way to remove money from the system, it is unlikely that this ‘transparency’ strategy will work.
Some proponents of that strategy may cry fowl at such an analysis citing that if individuals are made aware of monetary donations and expenditures then they could seek out the individuals that are receive no or less money and characterize those individuals as ‘not beholden to special interests’. The concern with this rationality is that receipt of donated money becomes a single issue. It is difficult to envision a scenario where an individual votes against a candidate that shares his/her viewpoint on a wide variety of issues if it is revealed that the candidate has taken a lot of money from special interest groups.
Therefore, ‘taking money from special interest groups’ will be regarded as just one of many issues that is considered by a voter when deciding on which candidate to vote for. Unfortunately due to the fact that messaging and access is heavily influenced by money it seems very probable that very few candidates will refrain from taking special interest money when available to them, regardless of any transparency requirements. If this scenario comes to pass then with every viable candidate feeling it necessary to take money, the previous public psychological assertion become true: everyone is taking money, everyone is dirty, thus it does not matter who takes money.
This above rationality may explain why various polling identifies 70% - 85% of people, regardless of political affiliation, believing special interest money is a big problem, but very few of these individuals do anything significant to address the issue. This unwillingness to act in mass also severely reduces any real possibility of forming a group to combat special interest money with ‘public non-government derived’ money because special interest groups will almost always have more to devote to a given political race. Remember special interest groups view giving money to a given political candidate as an investment, its sole goal is to create further wealth.
The reality of the situation is that it will be almost impossible to expel money from the political system and fighting money with money also does not appear to be a valid option. Returning to the ‘silver lining’ of Citizens United, currently the ruling hammered the last nail in any feasible reality where money could be significantly limited or even removed from politics, thus instead of chasing the highly unlikely scenario of, ‘money out of politics’, individuals can now address new more viable strategies to limit the influence of money. Realistically based on the present conditions the best strategy is to make money irrelevant. Making money irrelevant involves making voters care about what the candidate stands for beyond their party affiliation.
One important element in combating money is to understand that its primary purpose is to maximize information exposure. The real advantage to money is that it takes advantage of interest and time limitations possessed by the electorate. Instead of depending on a potential voter taking the initiative to look up a particular issue on a given candidate, money allows the candidate and his/her supporters to present that information directly to the voter. Unfortunately this presentation is frequently carried out in such a way that the core message is prone to misinterpretations or even outright lies that favor a particular candidate.
Clearly there are issues that voters care about that move beyond party affiliation. The means to break through voter apathy demands tapping into issues which voters care about and using those issues to defeat any influence of money. No matter how much money a candidate spends it is very difficult to expect a voter to vote in favor of a candidate that has opposing positions on a variety of relevant issues. The sticking point in such an information strategy is the fact that different people view different issues as important therefore it would be difficult to spearhead any direct engagement of the electorate because that would take a lot of money, money that is not available to non-bias third-party organizations. Therefore, the simplicity of the information disseminated by media mediums for party sponsored material must be combated with simplicity and accuracy itself.
The lack of knowledge regarding what is important to the electorate makes everything of significance important. Therefore, all information relevant to each issue of significance for a given candidate must be collected and presented in a way that potential voters can compare that information against their opponents.
The medium for this presentation would be best on a website, but because not all individuals have access to the Internet individuals should have the ability to request information through the mail; the information available would be voting records for those that have served in State or Federal level and any public statement they have made; each piece of information placed on this website must have an associated citation confirming the authenticity of the information; the major issues will be Education, Economy, Health Care, Social Security, Foreign Affairs, etc. With all of this information available voters will be able to use a candidate’s own opinion to differentiate between candidates increasing the probability that potential voters will identify which candidate will best serve their interests.
While the compilation of this information in one single place is important it is equally important to design a simple user interface that will make accessing this information very easy so that individuals are encouraged to use the site and access the information. Accessing this information is largely dependent on the simplicity of the interface. One example is as followed:
The home page should consist of a large map of the United States with a mission statement and instructions below the map and finally a search box in the upper right corner. The instructions would simply direct users to click on a state of interest to begin while the mission statement would inform the user that the goal of the site is to provide non-bias non-partisan information regarding public officials in effort to identify their current and future voting stances. The search box is specifically designed to search politician names to speed searching if only a specific individual is of interest.
Clicking on a state will bring up a list of districts within that state. Each district is flanked by all villages, towns and cities that fall within the boarders of the particular district so users do not have to look up which district they are a part of if they do not know. Clicking on a district will bring up a list of all elected government positions within that district, the individual currently holding that position and, when the timing is appropriate, candidates that are running for those positions. Incumbencies or political affiliations are not listed. Clicking on a name will bring up a list of the major issues mentioned above and clicking on one of those issues will bring up a list of sub-section issues that make up that major issue. Clicking on a sub-section issue will open the final list of statements and votes, if any, made by that politician relative to that sub-section issue. All statements will be organized in their entirety with an associated and accurate question (if applicable), which triggered the statement. Citations will be given as either cited references if the content is not available online or hotlinks if it is.
For this site to reach its full potential all news media organizations must agree not to lock any of the citation links behind any form of pay-wall. Also it is important the information is topic sorted, but remains individual centric. The ability to directly compare multiple candidates on the basis of a single political position could foster the development of more single-issue voters. Creating more single-issue voters would be counterproductive because the emphasis on that single issue tends to eliminate consideration of any other issue when voting which will more than likely produce results that will overall be detrimental to society when electing officials. If individuals wish to do the work comparing a single issue among candidates so be it, but by focusing on individual centricity it will at least expose those voters to other political issues and force the voter to do legitimate work to be a single issue voter.
Overall it is important to understand that money in politics from a candidate’s perspective is all about information distribution. Therefore, money can be countered by opposing information regardless of whether or not it is derived from money. Recalling the advantages money provides, the structure of society itself provides an obstacle to its efficiency. Due to the costs associated with information distribution through wide-reaching media, the popular choice with money because of its targeting effects, issues must be addressed with broad strokes. This generality can be countered with specificity and accuracy hence the goal of the above idea. However, even if such a website is created publicity is an important final element. If individuals do not know the site exists then its existence is meaningless. Thus if such a site is ever created, a significant publicity push would be required to introduce the site.
Also recently eliminated was any legitimate requirement for ‘these new people’ to identify themselves when ‘exercising’ their free speech. Future Congressional prospects to alter this ‘masking’ element to the ruling seem unlikely in the near or even long-term future. However, despite how generally silly and cliché the overly optimistic statement ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ may be, in this particular situation its application may be appropriate for those supporting financial reform.
The prevailing strategy so far by the financial reform movement has been to limit the influx of funds by applying a donation ceiling in an attempt to equalize the two power channels of a capitalistic democracy. To understand the rationality behind this strategy a little background is appropriate. The trademark notion of a democracy is ‘one person one vote’ implying equal influence from all voting parties regardless of position or standing. However, the evolution of the political system in the United States has created an environment where any elected position of significant consequence demands a large amount of money to purchase advertisement and conduct other publicity activities in order to have a reasonable chance at election. This monetary demand places an additional motivational incentive on potential candidates to abide by the wishes of those that have the ability to donate large sums of money at multiple instances.
Thus, while the initial notion of democracy is technically still accurate, it is difficult to believe that individuals who donate more money to fund a particular politician’s run at office will have equal influence to those that donate no money. Therefore, this new election environment has created two tiers of influence: the equal influence provided by voting and an unequal influence where individuals of wealth have significant influence over those that do not have wealth.
Unfortunately due to the flaws in the voting process of an indirect democracy (few/no termination clauses, few abilities to recall, no dishonesty termination, etc.) and the general lack of attentiveness of most voters, in real applied terms the equal influence element is seriously lacking in overall effectiveness relative to the unequal influence element. Due to this inequality some have proposed and even seen the successful passage of legislation to control the influence of money. Sadly as witnessed in Citizens United it is difficult to expect these money ceilings to remain for long periods of time because they do not serve the interests of those in power.
Some would make the argument that the failure of the voting process to neutralize this monetary influence conduit is the fault of citizens and those making large contributions to political parties or individuals should not be punished for this failure. This reasoning is flawed on two different fronts. First, the lack of and limitation of honesty in the political process significantly hinders the total expression of voting power. For example a politician can make statement A to the public, but actually support an opposing position and as long as the public is not able to discover that opposing belief the politician can be elected on a basis of false pretenses. This reality is especially relevant when the position of a corporation and large political donor may be in direct contrast with the position of the general public. How can voting have any real power when a politician can simply lie about his/her position until elected?
The counterargument to the above premise is a rather weak one. The only real logical argument is that in the case of a fraudulent politician, the public needs to take the philosophy of ‘fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me’ and when the politician comes up for re-election vote him/her out of office. The flaw in this reasoning is that any viable candidate must be available for replacement. Sadly in the current political system there will typically only be the potential for one viable opposition candidate as other candidates are pushed to the fringes of the process. Even if the lack of choice were rescinded the same initial concerns regarding truth would still be unchecked.
The second flaw in the above ‘it is the fault of voters not money’ argument is the very psychological nature of the players involved in the process. Most large donor individuals/corporations have a single principle in mind when donating money to a particular candidate: making money. There is typically no concern for any social issues or utilitarian elements that are apart from that main objective. This ‘single issue donor mentality’ gives an effective focus to the donation process eliminating the benefits of logical analysis.
However, because most voters are not rich and powerful, their lives are affected more by the myriad of decisions that a representing official has to make, thus it is illogical for these voters to be single issue voters (despite the fact that some are anyways). Therefore, it is difficult to expect voters to sacrifice all other issues to ensure that the large donors do not receive support for their single issue. This single issue element also ties to the trust issue above in that corporations have a black/white point regarding whether or not support should be given to a particular candidate while even if a candidate lies about one particular issue their overall platform may force a non-wealthy voter to continue to support them.
The principle tactic used by those fighting money in politics and other avenues is the belief in ‘sunshine’ or transparency. Proponents believe that by creating environments where individuals that donate large sums of money must make those donations in a completely transparent manner and those that use the money must outline how it was used it will lead to an outcome where more immoral actions will be restrained reducing the overall negative influence of money in politics. However, the problem with this strategy is that it does not address the saturation mindset. It stands to reason that most people believe that all candidates are taking money from some form of special interest and/or large corporate donors (even the small third party ones regardless of whether or not they actually are), so no candidate is ‘clean’. Therefore, without offering an effective way to remove money from the system, it is unlikely that this ‘transparency’ strategy will work.
Some proponents of that strategy may cry fowl at such an analysis citing that if individuals are made aware of monetary donations and expenditures then they could seek out the individuals that are receive no or less money and characterize those individuals as ‘not beholden to special interests’. The concern with this rationality is that receipt of donated money becomes a single issue. It is difficult to envision a scenario where an individual votes against a candidate that shares his/her viewpoint on a wide variety of issues if it is revealed that the candidate has taken a lot of money from special interest groups.
Therefore, ‘taking money from special interest groups’ will be regarded as just one of many issues that is considered by a voter when deciding on which candidate to vote for. Unfortunately due to the fact that messaging and access is heavily influenced by money it seems very probable that very few candidates will refrain from taking special interest money when available to them, regardless of any transparency requirements. If this scenario comes to pass then with every viable candidate feeling it necessary to take money, the previous public psychological assertion become true: everyone is taking money, everyone is dirty, thus it does not matter who takes money.
This above rationality may explain why various polling identifies 70% - 85% of people, regardless of political affiliation, believing special interest money is a big problem, but very few of these individuals do anything significant to address the issue. This unwillingness to act in mass also severely reduces any real possibility of forming a group to combat special interest money with ‘public non-government derived’ money because special interest groups will almost always have more to devote to a given political race. Remember special interest groups view giving money to a given political candidate as an investment, its sole goal is to create further wealth.
The reality of the situation is that it will be almost impossible to expel money from the political system and fighting money with money also does not appear to be a valid option. Returning to the ‘silver lining’ of Citizens United, currently the ruling hammered the last nail in any feasible reality where money could be significantly limited or even removed from politics, thus instead of chasing the highly unlikely scenario of, ‘money out of politics’, individuals can now address new more viable strategies to limit the influence of money. Realistically based on the present conditions the best strategy is to make money irrelevant. Making money irrelevant involves making voters care about what the candidate stands for beyond their party affiliation.
One important element in combating money is to understand that its primary purpose is to maximize information exposure. The real advantage to money is that it takes advantage of interest and time limitations possessed by the electorate. Instead of depending on a potential voter taking the initiative to look up a particular issue on a given candidate, money allows the candidate and his/her supporters to present that information directly to the voter. Unfortunately this presentation is frequently carried out in such a way that the core message is prone to misinterpretations or even outright lies that favor a particular candidate.
Clearly there are issues that voters care about that move beyond party affiliation. The means to break through voter apathy demands tapping into issues which voters care about and using those issues to defeat any influence of money. No matter how much money a candidate spends it is very difficult to expect a voter to vote in favor of a candidate that has opposing positions on a variety of relevant issues. The sticking point in such an information strategy is the fact that different people view different issues as important therefore it would be difficult to spearhead any direct engagement of the electorate because that would take a lot of money, money that is not available to non-bias third-party organizations. Therefore, the simplicity of the information disseminated by media mediums for party sponsored material must be combated with simplicity and accuracy itself.
The lack of knowledge regarding what is important to the electorate makes everything of significance important. Therefore, all information relevant to each issue of significance for a given candidate must be collected and presented in a way that potential voters can compare that information against their opponents.
The medium for this presentation would be best on a website, but because not all individuals have access to the Internet individuals should have the ability to request information through the mail; the information available would be voting records for those that have served in State or Federal level and any public statement they have made; each piece of information placed on this website must have an associated citation confirming the authenticity of the information; the major issues will be Education, Economy, Health Care, Social Security, Foreign Affairs, etc. With all of this information available voters will be able to use a candidate’s own opinion to differentiate between candidates increasing the probability that potential voters will identify which candidate will best serve their interests.
While the compilation of this information in one single place is important it is equally important to design a simple user interface that will make accessing this information very easy so that individuals are encouraged to use the site and access the information. Accessing this information is largely dependent on the simplicity of the interface. One example is as followed:
The home page should consist of a large map of the United States with a mission statement and instructions below the map and finally a search box in the upper right corner. The instructions would simply direct users to click on a state of interest to begin while the mission statement would inform the user that the goal of the site is to provide non-bias non-partisan information regarding public officials in effort to identify their current and future voting stances. The search box is specifically designed to search politician names to speed searching if only a specific individual is of interest.
Clicking on a state will bring up a list of districts within that state. Each district is flanked by all villages, towns and cities that fall within the boarders of the particular district so users do not have to look up which district they are a part of if they do not know. Clicking on a district will bring up a list of all elected government positions within that district, the individual currently holding that position and, when the timing is appropriate, candidates that are running for those positions. Incumbencies or political affiliations are not listed. Clicking on a name will bring up a list of the major issues mentioned above and clicking on one of those issues will bring up a list of sub-section issues that make up that major issue. Clicking on a sub-section issue will open the final list of statements and votes, if any, made by that politician relative to that sub-section issue. All statements will be organized in their entirety with an associated and accurate question (if applicable), which triggered the statement. Citations will be given as either cited references if the content is not available online or hotlinks if it is.
For this site to reach its full potential all news media organizations must agree not to lock any of the citation links behind any form of pay-wall. Also it is important the information is topic sorted, but remains individual centric. The ability to directly compare multiple candidates on the basis of a single political position could foster the development of more single-issue voters. Creating more single-issue voters would be counterproductive because the emphasis on that single issue tends to eliminate consideration of any other issue when voting which will more than likely produce results that will overall be detrimental to society when electing officials. If individuals wish to do the work comparing a single issue among candidates so be it, but by focusing on individual centricity it will at least expose those voters to other political issues and force the voter to do legitimate work to be a single issue voter.
Overall it is important to understand that money in politics from a candidate’s perspective is all about information distribution. Therefore, money can be countered by opposing information regardless of whether or not it is derived from money. Recalling the advantages money provides, the structure of society itself provides an obstacle to its efficiency. Due to the costs associated with information distribution through wide-reaching media, the popular choice with money because of its targeting effects, issues must be addressed with broad strokes. This generality can be countered with specificity and accuracy hence the goal of the above idea. However, even if such a website is created publicity is an important final element. If individuals do not know the site exists then its existence is meaningless. Thus if such a site is ever created, a significant publicity push would be required to introduce the site.
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