I have become involved with a political issue. The issue has nothing whatever to do with partisan politics. It has to do with how elections are financed, whether by wealthy individuals, special interest groups or otherwise. I see a more than superficial attraction in public campaing financing. I intend to speak of it over the next few months.

On that issue, Oregon’s major metropolitan daily has problems. One is certain consistency on their editorial page.

An 12/12/07 they noted in their editorial headline “For city council hopefuls, it’s all about the Lincolns,” They said it was going to be pretty tough for candidates to find a thousand registered voters to sign a petition and pony up five bucks to accompany their signature. Doing so would qualify the candidates for public campaign support.

Then on 12/24/07 they complained bitterly that nearly all the candidates were qualified to campaign as voter-owned candidates. The Oregonian termed public funding “a municipal status symbol, sanctimoniously billed as a sort of City Hall purification system,” a “luxury item,” a “frill.”

They defended their position by noting that incumbent mayor Tom Potter was funded the old way and nobody is accusing him of caving in to special interests. Nobody said that money from private sources would always corrupt the political process, but sometimes, and increasingly these days, it very clearly does. A large and growing faction of the electorate is turned off by the stench of political corruption and a growing number of decent politicians feel the same way. Money does influence decisions in Oregon, even if Portland seems relatively free of it.

Jack Abramov and Tom DeLay are the poster boys for the kind of special interest funding we’re talking about. Public financing is the corrective, with four states doing it, four more seriously considering it this year and perhaps a dozen more in the early stages of achieving it.. Arizona led the way after a particularly corrupt political season. Arizona made it law ten years ago and seems pleased with the result. Candidates who opt for special interest funding are finding it tough to campaign against voter-owned candidates.

“How to Rig an Election” by Allen Raymond is a recently published book. Raymond worked for a while after college in public relations, found it dull, and enrolled in Baruch College’s graduate program in political management. A classmate told him to go with the Republican Party, not for ideological reasons but because they had more bucks. Raymond was good at political management. His candidates had a splendid won/lost record. Raymond obviously did very well for himself as well. How about bagging $15,000 for an evening’s work?

Says Raymond of political ethics, “The worst kind of client you can have is one who holds too firmly to his or her ideals, … Election operatives like myself and the kind of politicians who hire us have ensured that idealists can’t win elections. Only the cynics are making the laws.”

Those, of course, are the self-serving words of a felon lacking ethical sensibilities, most notably decency. But he has a verifiable history that is not nice to think about. The book lists for $25 and even if it’s by a man recently released from prison it’s worthy of attention.

The Eugene Register-Guard, editorializing on a recent event in California, was talking about the defeat of a health care reform measure which was warmly welcomed in that state’s legislature and seemed certain of passage. Then suddenly the picture changed. The Guard noted “The heavy hitters in the health care industry have enormous political clout.” I take ‘heavy clout’ to mean big bucks. Money talks, and it speaks loudly in legislatures and elections. Note the twelve million spent in Oregon by tobacco to defeat a health care bill for children. The Supreme Court even gives money First Amendment rights.

Legislators say that under the old system, one third of their working time is spent ‘dialing for dollars’, talking to those whom they hope will pony up for their re-election campaigns. That’s a lot of time listening to special interests talk about their shopping lists. A state senator from Arizona was recently in Oregon, and told people that while she’d had experience in campaigning, she hated having to beg for money and was reluctant to run if that’s how it had to be. Once voter-owned was enacted, she ran successfully against a well known and well funded opponent. Now she’s free to concentrate on the issues facing the legislature instead of hanging on to the words of special interests. And after ten years experience with the law, Arizona campaigns are opening up to people who wouldn’t previously volunteer for public service (Not a matter of personal gain. Oregon pays its legislators $18,000 a year.)

So, Portland has a mayor and city council that’s the talk of the nation, until this year funded the traditional way and nevertheless the role model for the nation. There really is something special about Portland, and to a large degree about Oregon itself and I won’t try to define what that might be. But the influence of special interests is growing rapidly, largely because industries and special interest groups have found politics to be a truly worthwhile investment. Outspending your opponent and winning because he can’t keep up and must withdraw – ever played a no-limits game of five card stud with people who understand the game? The Proposition 37 investors earned unimaginable margins on their victory.

The Oregonian did note that “democracy is not a luxury.” If campaigning is expensive, and you better believe it is, it is due in part to the efforts of people like Allen Raymond who understand the economics of campaigning. Do you want special interest groups to buy your politicians or would you rather buy your own? On a per capita basis public financing is pretty cheap. And Arizona finds their election costs declining because the way the rules are written; if an opponent goes on a spending spree the voter-owned candidate gets matching funds. So what’s the point of trying what you know is not going to work? Traditionally funded candidates are learning that simply spending more does not overcome the advantage enjoyed by voter-owned candidates.

So, The Oregonian prefers special interest funding. Well, it’s a free country and they are entitled to their opinion. As I am to mine.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 9:41 am and is filed under Elections, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.