All American elections should be won on merit not on millions of dollars!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

It is absolutely disgusting that millions are donated to our candidates for this presidential election. The people who matter do not have food to eat!!! Yet candidates are prepared to spend millions on TV ads. Jeb Bush's campaign for instance is out of control. Let's concentrate on our Democrats.
It is disgusting that so called Democrats solicit millions from ugly lobbyists to further their political careers. The only candidate who has the mandate of the workers unions and the unemployed is Bernie Sanders.

[shenmue]

1. What does he pay his bills with, feathers?

What do you think he's raising? Money.

Quit dreaming. Your candidate is not holier than anyone else.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. This is America's problems

Why shouldn't candidates be vetted by means that do not rely on big money and lobbying? Money is evil and distorts the truth.

[WillyT]

10. Well... Hillary Is Sure "Feathering" Her Nest Eggs...

Win or lose...

[elleng]

3. Yes, and that means there must be public financing,

a huge and very difficult proposition.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. But not unattainable

America needs to tone down this outrageous graven image politics. I would expect the following to agree with this. I think that Bernie, Martin and people like John Sarbanes, Ben Cardin and Elijah Cummings would agree.

[elleng]

5. Many would agree,

and many would fight like hell against it.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. Of course

We are within a disgusting oligarchy which doesn' t provide. I teach students who don't have meal when they get home. We love these students and do everything g we can to help them. People like Jeb Bush and Scott Walker have no idea what is like.

[restorefreedom]

16. the only future for fair elections. nt

[BooScout]

6. Money may be evil....

But even Bernie will have to raise millions upon millions to run his campaign.

The hard reality is that in America, a successful Presidential campaign is astronomically expensive when campaigns now extend for 18 months. Without a war chest of moola, a candidate will go nowhere fast.

I personally prefer the British method, just a few weeks of campaigning and then the vote....but it will never happen in the American system.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. Big, big difference!

Look, when money is donated from people who have to make the decision whether they have cable TV or eating out or donating to Bernie there is a HUGE difference!!! I was a,councilwoman in England who raised money from yard sales! American politics should be no different!

[BooScout]

14. Really?

Last time I checked, there were no yard sales in England.....boot sales yes, but I've never seen a yard sale.


Back to the subject....I prefer the British system too, but it is just not going to happen in America, not in my lifetime anyway....and the reality of the situation is that it takes someone who can raise millions to win.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

19. Boo - this is the time don't look back!

Doubting Thomas's are not going to"win this election.

[BooScout]

21. tell ya what....

You convince the Republicans to stop spending so much on elections and I'll jump on board....until then.....I'm going to give a donation to Hillary.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. Yikes!

[okasha]

25. Whay we have now

is a model chosen by the writers of the Constitution precisely because they didn't want the Parliamentary model in which a head of government is both appointed and subject to recall by the legislature.

The current circus was created by and for the electronic media. Once upon a time, when the world was young, Christmas season started the first week of December. Halloween costumes were for children, and decorations consisted of the occasional jack o' lantern. And, unbelievable as this might seem, election season began in midsummer of election years, six months at the most.

I'd like to turn the clock back on all three.

[Fred Sanders]

8. What is disgusting is not understanding how the disgusting CU decision monetized free speech.

Equally disgusting is the apparent swallowing whole of incendiary rhetoric coming from all angles and places and not being able to disguise self serving rhetoric, as practised by the GOP and the mass media, from good rhetoric, as practised by Obama.

Republicans not only hail CU, they want to expand it and at the same time keep donors secret...they want to keep this electoral wasteland intact. Either play by the rules of this hopefully temporary electoral finance wasteland, or be wiped out.


Socrates debated about the nature of rhetoric. Socrates believes there are two types: "…one part of it would be flattery, I suppose, and shameful public harangue, while the other—that of getting the souls of the citizens to be as good as possible and of striving valiantly to say what is best, whether the audience will find it more pleasant or more unpleasant—is something admirable. But you’ve never seen this type of oratory".

Which type should liberals support?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

15. Liberals?

People (the public) whatever their brand should support an fair and equal society that can produce for the benefit for that society. That means the creation of a wealth that is distributed to that economic society. A social market economy that is rid of a disgusting siphoning off of the 99 % for the disgusting 1% I am probably a small % who actually cares about our society.

[BainsBane]

9. Mandate, according to you?

Now you speak for all workers and unions? One union has so far endorsed, and they choose Clinton. You do not speak for workers across America.

You know there are PACS and Super Pacs for Sanders. He has raised millions of dollars ($14 million, last I read), and a PAC run by his field director was fined for violating the existing and incredibly meager campaign finance laws. Bet on Bernie 2015 is a Super PAC, and there is even a Super PAC called Billionaires for Bernie.

If you want to do something about money in politics, you need to address that issue by working for public financing. Promoting Sanders accomplishes nothing in that regard. In fact, when I point out the connection between PACs and Sanders, I'm told it's a smear: mere facts are "smears." Pretending promoting one man's career does something about campaign finance law is disingenuous. That rests in the hands of SCOTUS, and can only be overturned by constitutional amendment or a court that re-appraises that ruling. Pretending it's all about individual politicians enables the system to continue to rot to the core. You all focus on the political fortunes of one pol or another, and it gets worse and worse. Then the next election comes along and you do the same thing. Is there no point at which you are going to figure out that no politician is going to save you, that reform doesn't center around the fortunes of members of the political elite?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. Baloney

You have no idea. So be it that workers firm PACS that's all they can do to combat the likes of Jeb Bush.

[BainsBane]

13. Billionaires for Bernie

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/07/15/theres-a-new-super-pac-for-bernie-sanders-it-wants-billionaire-donors/

What union can I join where I become a billionaire? Really. I need to know what job that is. I'm happy to retrain.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

17. Look there is a big

You are nothing but a republican. Unions are for the people and if they are funding the few then they should be disbanded. I see that you see anti -union?

[BainsBane]

18. anti-union because I pointed out that a Super Pac is called Billionaires for Bernie?

Your entire scenario of Sanders backers is based on what you would like it to be, and you ignore evidence to the contrary. Your response to my telling you about Super Pacs is to accuse me of being a Republican and anti-union. I am neither. I am anti-nonsense and anti-invention from whole cloth. There is no evidence that these PACs are "by workers" or that his support comes from the working class. You would like that to be the case, but you have no proof that is so. In fact, my guess (based on what I've read about polling for E. Warren) is that he may in fact do best among people with higher incomes, the upper-middle class. It's one thing to indulge in fantasy and another to become personally insulting because others question it. OBVIOUSLY Billionaires for Bernie is not a union Super PAC. Anyone can see that much from the Post article. Being insulting won't help your candidate win the election, and denying evidence only discredits you.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

20. I don't think that you understand the new America

Good luck with the old ways

[BainsBane]

22. I think you are not interested in evidence

and assume the world is exactly as you want it to be. You believe you are entitled to speak for all workers of America and feel no responsibility to provide any evidence to back up your assumptions. You claim to care about the role of money in politics, but when presented with evidence that PACS and Super PACS have been created to promote Sanders, including one called BILLIONAIRES for BERNIE you insist they are run by "workers." No worker is a billionaire. Your denial of evidence shows that you actually don't care about the corrupting influence of money but instead are focused entirely on the political fortunes of one man. You make excuses because reality doesn't fit your fantasy of what you would like in a political savior. If you paid attention to the nature of the problem, you would know that no one can run a campaign absent the influence of money in our current system. Yet you respond to my post about the corruption in the system by claiming "baloney," and indulging in a bizarre fantasy that PACS like Billionaires for Bernie are started by "workers." I may not understand the "new America," but at least I'm living in it and not creating a fantasy.

[George II]

29. Sure, labor unions have formed PACs, but do you know who the contributors to those PACs are?

[DanTex]

23. Especially Bernie, taking all that money from people who can hardly afford it!

[cherokeeprogressive]

24. Or billions of $. n/t

[Gothmog]

27. Due to Citizens United, this is the system that we are stuck with

No sane person likes the current system but we are stuck with this until something can be done about Citizens United. I note that Clinton, Sanders and O'Mally have all agreed to use a litmus test for future SCOTUS nominees and will only nominate justices who will vote to overturn Citizens United

[LWolf]

28. K & R