Spending options/Value of political speech

[Ken Diamond <kenken5001@yahoo.com>]

Bound by court rulings that allow limits to contributions because of corruption appearances but allow unlimited spending, it's somewhat strange to cast aside limits to the former for the sake of disclosure. Is there any constitutional prohibition on mandating disclosure by itself?  The argument of doing it to promote competition is something else. 

It is possible to allow unlimited and disclosed contributions up to some percentage of what the top fund raising candidate has on hand. This might discourage the current practice of fending off potential challengers by having huge war chests on hand and the media's  often expressed judgement of viability (along with corresponding exposure) made using the same standard. California Secretary of State Bill Jones just announced that he would run against Governor Gray Davis in 2002. Davis has amassed $28 million in campaign funds so far. Jones has $200,000. What if Jones didn't have to spend the next year fund raising? Would it be so awful to allow him to raise it from a few very wealthy individuals as long as he agreed to not spend any more than his opponent? If it is legal to restrict contributions but not spending unless by agreement, couldn't we bargain our right to the former to achieve the latter in a constitutionally acceptable manner?

While attempting to create an effective set of disclosure rules has some value, its usefulness in regards to election outcomes is limited. That's because the role of that analyzing information has in most voter's decision making is questionable.

Much of what is called speech is actually political advertisement, replete with the tools of manipulation derived from the world of marketing. Its primary vehicle is the mass media of radio and television and it occurs mostly not as voters are focused on considering issues but rather as they are passively being entertained. It generally has low information but high emotive content. While I find it generally worthless for my purposes of making an informed decision, those who run campaigns obviously find it serves to their goal of influencing voters. I would like to know others actually think that the professional political consultants and the politicians that employ them have somehow got it wrong in their approach to getting elected. I find the primary product offered in the political marketplace is not good policy and sound ideas but slogans, soundbites and sophistry. 

It's worth noting that buying political speech that most analysts would judge relatively high in content, that better represents the ideals the first amendment was designed to protect, is denied because of commercial or political correctness concerns. Ross Perot was denied the ability to buy extended time on the networks ostensibly because they didn't want to disrupt their schedules. Here was a man willing to forego the oft maligned 30 second format for the extended one suggested by many political reformers and he was denied the ability to do so. 

On the political correctness front, you can read about David Horiwitz's attempt's to buy ad space in campus newspapers to express his arguments against the idea of reparations for slavery. No matter how you feel about the issue, this is not even campaign spending with the potential corruption problem but an attempt to provoke a policy discussion.

If money is the equivalent of protected speech, how is it that's it all right for some to limit the exercise of that speech? While there's talk of mandating free media, some can't even buy it.