RE: Campaign Finance

[Denise Hood <hoodsx3@aol.com>]

Philip,

I live in the state of Washington. We have had Maria Cantwell(D) win her Senate seat in an upset, against incumbent Slade Gorton(R) in this past election. Maria was one of only a handful of "millionaire" candidates who won office in this past election. I can't speak for Corzine of New Jersey, but in Cantwell's case, she used ONLY her own money to run for the Senate, and did not accept ANY PAC money. So she had a freshness and appeal to many voters in Washington, the rationale went that she could go to Washington as her own person, not beholden to any special interests who had financed her campaign, and therefore "Owned" her, and would expect her to "PAY UP" once in D.C. THe campaign was very costly, and Maria begins her term very heavily in debt, but with her principles intact. It was a very hard-fought race, and it was so close that the outcome was not known for weeks after the election, while Washington (unlike Florida!) underwent a state-wide recount of the votes, that determined Cantwell to be the winner by a slim margin. 

If you compare her with the incumbent, Slade Gorton, he was bought and paid for by the timber industry and mining interests, the N.R.A.and who-knows-what-else, and it's not too hard to imagine how he voted, as a result. Environmental groups in Washington State awarded Gorton the "Dead Swan Award," for his very anti-environmental voting record. The lobbies get what they pay for. In Washington it's true what they say about "Money talks," and you know the rest.

I'd rather have a handful of congressmen and senators who ran on their own money, and go to Washington "pure." I see them as the hope of citizens hungry for TRUE representation, and legislators responsive to the needs of their constituents, instead of being beholden to the big corporate interests that are currently setting our national agenda, and deciding what our legislative priorities are.