I agree with Mickey. I do think, though, that campaign finance laws should be tossed on the ash heap of history. One of the few good things that Barack Obama did in 2008 (or ever, for that matter) was to make spending limits irrelevant.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I also agree with Mickey that while he shouldn’t be indicted, he hasn’t been punished enough.
The world is dying of stupid.
Laws regulationg how campaign funds are spent can probably be done away with. Laws regulating how campaign funds are acquired are necessary I think to a functioning democracy. Just look at how the union money is influencing Wisconsin. We wouldn’t have this problem if the Dems weren’t so beholden to a particular special interest (rather than voters directly).
Citizens United, B. Unions can just spend as “soft money.”
I think the ideas of regulating how candidates get their campaign money coddles the voter. I hear complaints from the ruling class that people are cynical about politicians and government, and I just don’t see how that’s a problem.
If you come to mje and say, “I want to wield power over you, but I’ll only do it for your own good, and if you become cynical about me I’ll be very, very unhappy with you,” is asking for a coat of tar and feathers, in my opinion.
Let candidates use money obtained by any means that would be legal for anybody else, and let the voter beware. Which he damned well better learn to do.
And that’s what happens when I edit on the fly. Read it through the Cynthia McKinney filter and I’m sure it’ll make sense.
OK, as one of the lucky few who had this parasite as an elected offish-hull after watching him start out just chasing ambulances via late night TV ads, WHEN would enough be enough?
He’s got somewhere between 20 and 40 MILLION DOLLARS. (he’s yet another Dem with a slippery, nebulous income, but NYT posted how much Bush had paid for his socks oddly) Only taking Edward’s money and killing his law license would ‘hurt’ him. And as far as I know there’s really no way under our laws to do anything like that.
His current situation, to me, just adds to his already broad stench. Here’s hoping that justice is served.
Well ya have to make the tar hot, otherwise the feathers wouldn’t stick??? Meanwhile, the media, the real villain, gets off clean.
The stupid party allows taxpayer funding of the evil party… they allow propaganda in our public schools… they lower the voting age so that propaganda is still in effect (before the liberal gets mugged by real life or their brains have time to fully develop)… the stupid evil parties are both as corrupt as the day is long.
What’s to worry?
This is why we need someone who’s been through the media fire and still sticks to her guns. We need somebody they can’t all a racist.
Palin/West 2012.
Perhaps not perfect, but they both know how to use a weapon. Neither fears the media. …but the best endorsement is the left fears them.
They ain’t RINOs.
So, does this mean I am free to write a check to Jon Erpenbach so he can pay this week’s hotel bill? This is not to support his campaign, it is just that I think that Mr. Erpenbach is a great guy, and it would give me great satisfaction to make a non-tax-deductable gift to him so he can, say, stay in a hotel instead of in his house or, dunno, in his car at a Tollroad Oasis.
This seems like a weird debate. If the result of this is to prohibit his behavior because it’s illegal however you account it, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. If it’s chilling to people that want to cheat on their dying wife and have a child with another woman, and take money from their political followers to conceal this character failing from the people you want to lead into the new century because they can’t run for office at the same time because it can’t be campaign funds and not campaign funds, that’s not so bad.
Which is about the only good thing I’ve ever said about campaign finance laws.
I always find Kaus’s Road to Damascus moments of deviationism from Democratic orthodoxy by way of his personal experience (in this case his quixotic run for Bab’s Boxer’s well-polished seat) amusing.
Reminds me of that old adage: a conservative is a liberal that got mugged by reality. Or just mugged, or tried to start up a company, or find his teenager an entry-level summer job, et cetera. No wonder people are apt to vote Democratic most when young, senile, unable to speak English, on psychiatric meds, in prison, or saturated with oxytocin.
Let’s move on from Johnny Boy. He’s virtually got “Lying Jerk” tatooed on his forehead, and he draws no more energy from me.
“saturated with oxytocin.”
Watch it, Carl, wasn’t one of our guys in that situation?
The funds can be used in any number of ways that promote corruption.
get rid of the restrictions, and just require transparency.
It can all be fixed if you just require transparency, rather than offering hoops, that obscure reality.
“I got this from here, and this is how I spent all of the things from all of the here’s I got stuff from, but here is how it was spent.”
Seems reasonable to me.
Campaign finance is retarded. (in the perjorative, not in the actual meaning)
Watch it, Carl
I suspect he’s trolling for a liberal. Even Carl has his weaknesses… It’s been a few days since he’s slam dunked one. I’m kind of hoping one takes the bait myself.
We’ve gone so through the mirror regarding campaign funds and rule of law that it really is no longer an issue. The issue is winning the overall battle against cheaters. We need to fight like marines because winning is the only thing that matters in this environment anymore. We’re so far from a government of integrity and honor that those that have it are labeled freaks.
We’re so far from a government of integrity and honor that those that have it are labeled freaks.
Wait a minute, have I stumbled onto an AGW thread?
Or is this a NASA appropriations thread?
Or a “how the fuck do we deal with the teachers union?” thread (I’m on the local school board so my question has weight).
It seems to be more of the same whichever way you slice it, and I’m beginning to wish for:
1) an ice age
2) undeniable evidence of microbal life on other planets in our solar system (to spur spending on robotic missions to Europa and Enceladus for more data).
3) A state-wide teacher contract that eliminated our need to cut a deal (by inexperience negotiators) for just our school.
Is that too much to ask?
Increase reporting, get rid of everything else.