Should national level groups be involved in state level elections?

Asked by gussnarp (2835

) October 30th, 2009

OK, this happens across the political spectrum, so hopefully we can keep ideology to a minimum. I heard a story this morning about a congressional race in New York in which a third party conservative was leading the republican. It was supposed to be about the future of the Republican Party, but I thought what was more interesting were the adds from national groups for the third party candidate, for the republican candidate, and for the democratic candidate.

Seems to me that national involvement used to be mainly from the party, and mostly about gaining a seat. With this race, and with the race for Joe Lieberman’s Senate seat, we have outside groups who just want one ideological vote instead of trying to gain control of the body.

If opponents of campaign finance are right that money is part of having your say in a democratic election, and if congresspeople have a role in representing specific geographically based interests, then is this kind of national funding subverting democracy? Is it making congresspeople represent an ideology over an area?

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3 Answers

I don’t have a problem with anyone providing financial support for a candidate, so long as the supporter is publicly identified and that information is easily accessed. I do think that corporate special interests have too much influence, but I don’t support so-called campaign finance reform efforts that try to limit spending. It’s the old schmoo. You try to hold it in here and it pokes out there.

There’s no way to keep influence out. However, we can make efforts to make it easy to find out who is supporting a candidate. Information is always the answer, not banning. I don’t care if it’s illegal drugs or campaign donations. The best way to counteract the effect of these things is education. It’s the only way that will have a long term effect.

wundayatta (58722

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