Money Politics

As a publication we have dedicated ourselves to covering issues we feel are important today and will be tomorrow. Issues from land preservation, race relations, healthy eating, local arts and culture. We’ve done all of this while doing our best to avoid any political inferences which we feel might drag us on to a political slope that many others with much greater resources than we have already try to navigate on a regular basis. Indulging in this kind of forum would, we feel, also take away from the larger goals for the publication.

The topic of politics is on my mind, this week my wife Adele has been out of town on business and I’ve had the opportunity to watch a couple of interesting shows. We generally have limited time to watch TV and the watching we do generally results in compromises about which show we watch together, shows about politics are usually not part of any compromise. So, after my son Jake went to sleep this week I watched some TV and caught most of two shows, about politics, before I couldn’t keep my eyes open and went to sleep as well.

The first show was Run Granny Run a documentary about Doris Haddock of New Hampshire who in 2004 ran for the U.S. Senate at age 94. I recorded the show knowing I wouldn’t stay awake through the whole thing. The premise of the story is that Doris decides to run for the senate partially because of her frustration with money influencing politics and elections. As I watched I felt the documentary thoughtfully took me through the trials and tribulations she faced in her journey.

The second show I viewed was Dan Rather Reports. This episode featured James Carville, a Political Consultant. The topic was the 2008 election and the democrats in the field. At times Rather asked questions, they also took questions from the audience and Carville served up his thoughts.

At one point someone in the audience asked Carville about the importance of money in political campaigns and whether he thought that importance would increase or decrease. His answer was that it would absolutely increase for various reasons such as media overload, requiring much more exposure by the candidates to get through to possible voters. The escalation of spending in all levels of political races. Carville also mentioned that the changes in timing of primaries and the number of debates require candidates to get their message out earlier and more often.

His answer struck me, and brought me back to Run Granny Run. As the election neared for Granny, lack of funds was one of the issues she faced in her try for the senate. There’s a scene in the documentary where she says to her son something like “what a beautiful commercial,” when viewing a campaign commercial they developed, ‘it’s too bad we don’t have money to run it.”

My mind keeps going back and forth between different points in the two shows and the similarities of the larger issue - can a better candidate win an election without the funding many think they need. As I think about this I’m brought back to a question James Carville was also asked on Rather Reports “why he didn’t’ talk about John Edwards?” He responded that Edwards wouldn’t win the democratic nomination so why talk about him. He also said that he thinks Edwards might have the best Health Care Plan and some of the best ideas on others issues, but he can’t win the nomination. Although he didn’t go into any detail about Edward’s campaign funding, he did talk about the spending power of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obamar based on their abilities to raise money and the effect this would have on others, like Edwards, in the rase.

I am not naïve and know money has influenced politics in America, starting with the founding fathers. It saddens me to think that whether or not Doris Haddock, John Edwards, John McCain or any other individual might be the best candidate because he or she is the one with the most integrity or the most competent, in the end it will come down to who can spend the most money on their campaign to win.

Is this Democracy or Moneyocracy? Should our elections be about monetary firepower vs. cerebral firepower? In my opinion they shouldn’t be. In order to get us back on track, whether someone votes Democrat or Republican, he or she needs to listen to the issues when making the decision – not just the rhetoric. More importantly we all need to take the first step toward making change by getting out and voting. Or if any of us are game and have a stance of the issues, we should do what Granny did - run. Not for the sake of just running, but for the sake of alternatives. Capitalism is based on choice in the market, so in my opinion, Democracy in a capitalist society should also be about choices in the market.

Tom Pellicane – Publisher, canvas Magazine