Some Thoughts

[Denise Hood <hoodsx3@aol.com>]

Greetings Everyone! I am pleased to be able to participate in this forum, and thank the National Issues Forum for this opportunity. I am signing on very late, it's after midnight on the West Coast. I have had an opportunity to read everyone's thoughtful postings. And to all the young students, I applaud you for your interest in Campaign Finance Reform. You are the hope of America's future, and your desire to learn and be part of this speaks VOLUMES about the kind of leadership we can expect from you in the future.

I have not had any personal experiences with campaign finance to share with you. I have been very involved with my local Party organization, and I saw many wonderful, intelligent, dedicated and energetic people worn to a frazzle this past election year, with the endless rounds of fundraising. Good, decent, hard-working men and women, but it really is true, bottom line, the candidate who raised the most money ultimately won the election. I'd like to see the system changed to where candidates could be judged based solely on their merits, and "may the best man win." But the cost of campaigns makes that impossible. It's very sad, and something has been lost from the whole equation, when the door was opened to soft money.

I was able to watch some of the Senate hearings on Campaign Finance Reform on t.v. today, and I was listening to Sen. Russ Feingold speaking about how legislators feel "cheapened" to have to go begging, hat in hand. He said that it makes him feel "unclean," it's like a form of prostitution.

I have a lot of respect for Sen. McCain. It takes tremendous courage to stand up for something that you believe so strongly in, especially when it makes you a pariah to your own party, and it's sitting president. Republicans do NOT favor any REAL kind of campaign finance reform, they would substitute what they refer to as "paycheck protection," which merely goes after labor unions contributions to campaigns, and leaves the huge corporate lobbies and the other soft money intact.

When we ask ourselves WHAT it is about our system of government that turns most voters off, that translates itself into such dismal turnout at the polls, even in a presidential election year, I think that so many people feel a complete disconnect from the whole system by which candidates finance their campaigns, and a loss of faith in the system. No one TRULY believes any longer, that a candidate can survive, with his values intact, and in order to go to Washington, he has to put his soul on the auction block, to the highest bidder, and that leaves us, the American people, the voters, who are SUPPOSED to be the people they represent, out in the cold.