Closing out an election year with unbelievable amounts of outside money up here in NH. Never have I seen such a blizzard of TV ads. Now they go Democrat, Republican, Democrat, back to back. Mail box stuffed full of political ads, email box overflowing. Even state reps can afford four color 5 by 7 mailers this election. A whole lot of it is from out of state organizations, so stated right on the ad. Besides, even if you took the entire state of NH, held it upside down, and shook it like a piggy bank, you wouldn't get a tenth of the money that has been blown on this election.
Question. Does all that money really matter? Or are NH voters more influenced by face to face encounters with the candidates? Which are cheaper than TV ads. And we have had plenty of face to face contact, at least with Republican candidates. They have been turning up at small scale rural clambakes and cookouts and VFW halls and town and county party events. Democrats not so much, and the Democrats tend to screen the attendees at their affairs to keep hecklers away.
So, why all the hubbub about campaign finance laws? It's a free country, or at least it used to be, and free means a man ought to be able to spend his money anyway he pleases. Groups ought to be able to make political movies and show them. The really rich donors tend to even out, Warren Buffet vs the Koch brothers comes out roughly even.
I'm thinking the people in favor of "campaign finance reform" are more interested in making sure that the other side gets less money. And they also like bossing people around, and setting up a Federal Election Commission to do the bossing suits them just fine. These are the people who are up in arms about the Supremes and the Heller decision, which overturned a lot of restrictions on political giving.
I now believe the whole campaign finance reform thing ought to go away. Let everyone put as much money into getting their guys elected as they please.
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