Campaign Contributions & Campaign trail...yes, It's a Political Question

Can't believe no one has answered this, yet.

I would LOVE less campaigning. I think it would be great if they had to print up their platform and how they plan to reach their objectives in booklet form and everyone got mailed a copy. Then three debates and that's it. Maybe 3 - 6 months on the campaign trail doing town hall meetings. I don't want to see another candidate at a state fair eating a dadgum corn dog.

People do more research when they buy a car than they do when they elect a representative or president.

I also think there should be huge limits to what contributions they can receive and how it can be used.

Yes I agree to both. The biggest problem that I see is the ridiculous "corporations are people" decision. That alone is changing the entire political landscape, and not for the better. I can't believe that the Supreme Court - in the US!!! - allowed that. What a disastrous decision. Because of that corporations are now literally buying this election with impunity. I'm so disgusted with the whole thing at this point. I can't believe that what we have now passes for a democracy.

Cheryl, this is a great question! I have said it before, and I will say it again. The reason our system is SO broken is that corporations are allowed to buy politicians. (Large companies, unions, extremely rich people, etc etc) I have always felt that as long as corporations can give as much as they want, why on earth would politicians care about everyday people?

Of course, the last time a law was put in place restricting what corporations could donate to politicians, the Supreme Court struck it down, saying it limited corporations' first amendment rights. (Really? REALLY?) And apparently the Supreme Court also feels that corporations are people. So... as long as the Supreme Court is also on the take, I'm not sure there's any hope here.

But I love the idea of restricting corporate/union money in politics. Huge step in the right direction.

How about this addition? Let the WORK they accomplish be "rated" somehow and they would need to achieve over an 80% effective rate in order to even be allowed to run again?
Now that just might keep their nose to the grindstones!

YUPPERS, I believe what you stated was my answer to Jo's post, no money from anyone other than an individual & a max dollar amount should be set too.

I would love to see a book called "Presidential Candidates for Dummies".....so for anyone who is running, the book would have everything the candidate did in his lifetime including his/her college grades, political voting, laws they tried to push thru, where there campaign funds came from, where their spouse works, if other family members were able to 'benefit' from anything etc, you see where i am going

it makes me sick that Presidents start on the campaign trail rather than working. So basically they work half of their term (2 yrs) and then campaign for the next 2 yrs, something is wrong with that.

Yes! Let's be polite and civil!

I completely agree with both points. A year and a half of campaigning is ridiculous. But the problem with knocking corporations out of the campaign pool is that the Supreme Court just gave them personhood, which was a travesty, IMO.

Campaign finance reform is probably one of the most essential changes that needs to be made. Although there is no evidence that will happen any time soon.

In addition, I think there should be an equal amount of free media time given to each candidate, in a neutral forum. That won't happen any time soon either. Do you notice that when there is a GOP debate, you mostly hear from the "frontrunners" and the others are largely ignored? How often do the media say anything about Jon Huntsman, for example? So the media pretty much determine who the candidates will be, by omission.

But great ideas!

The idea sounds lovely but I doubt it will work. It always seems like restrictions or regulations are nothing more than a road map of how to get around them. They are don't do this, this or this. Okay so we will do that instead, ya know?

In theory it would be wonderful because you would have to make promises to average Americans if you wanted to gather enough money.

Makes me wonder who would actually run once the money to DC was cut off. I know they get paid well but....