RE: More Regulations

[Joan Johnson <joan@altair.com>]

It appears that additional regulations are about closing the loopholes. I am for restricting groups such as PACs, Unions, corportations and other special interest groups from contributing. This is an attempt to return to "one person, one vote". If these organizations have candidates they want to support, then they must encourage their membership to make donations.

As for free air time...  In the last Senate race in Michigan, the challenger, Debbie Stabinaw (sp)didn't have as much money as the incumbant Spence Abraham, so she waited until the last two weeks and flooded tv with her ads. She won. So is it free tv or the last minute splurg that helped her?

On the other hand... In the last presidential race, TV networks needed to be "persuaded" to carry the debates instead of the World Series or other programming. Money seemed to be the influence here as more people would watch baseball than the debates. Considering the strange formats and narrow confines of all but the townhall types, baseball now appears to have been the best bet! :-) 

Equal time for candidates for advertizing will help reduce the cost for the candidate that is true. But then the question of content and style takes over. I don't know if I could endure endless candidate-bashing "free" tv than I could "paid for". At least with "paid for" if the highly offensive candidate lost, there would be some poetic justice.

Joan