[lkm]

What I find most disturbing is the fact that at a time when Obama's up 8 points in the national polls he is outspending McCain 8 to 1 in advertising and there seems to be no media oversight upon whether these to facts are linked, is a sizable chunk of his lead entirely due to his bank roll, or is his war chest due to his popularity? With all these pundits no one seems to be willing to say advertising works.

[Locksley]

If Democrats pass any laws that limit special interest groups, only those that are backed by right-wing corporations would be targeted. So much of the funding of the DNC comes from special interest groups, however, that I doubt they will be willing to take much of a stand on it for fear of risking damage to their own.

Quote:

By Nov 4 Obama will have raised and spent the best part of a billion dollars, near enough ten times the sum McCain recieved in taking public finance, yet I've not read or heard a single mention of this as a bad thing, something corrupting or disruptive to democracy. Do you really want your president, senator, congressman to be whoever can pay the most?

It's sickening, isn't it?

[davamanra]

Well, if everything goes right in this next election there will be enough Democrats in order to pass some laws that can at least limit the amount of influence special interest groups can have. They could also demand the ethics committee to start doing their job and minimise the amount of unethical activity that goes on. It may not be a perfect system but it can be significanly better if unethical activities weren't tolerated.

[lkm]

My point was that the rules are set by the American government, the rules of that governance allow the business sector huge sway in setting the future rules relating to specific sectors, which in turn creates a legislative positive feedback loop as more favourable terms allow the next bill to be even more favourable still.
These are the rules of the game, and either a company plays it and lobbies its interests or it doesn't, but the company which doesn't may well find that its competitor has and has successfully shaped the regulation to perfectly fit their business model to the gross detriment of its own. You either play to win, or you don't play at all.
So I urge again, hate the rules not the players.

[davamanra]

The campaign finance system was set up by the Republicans because they were the ones who had all the money, and it certainly worked to their advantage in 2000. Now it has come back to bite them and they want to whine about it. I wholeheartedly agree that there needs to be reforms in our "capitalist" (aka plutocratic) system. Campaign finance and special interest "favors" is bribery just by another name.
The companies don't have to play by these rules to win. They simply have to change the rules so this type of unethical activity won't be tolerated. They don't however because they have the advantage. Why change the rules if it evens the playing field forcing one to get off one's lazy ass and actually earn the fat paycheck for once? Or, if one is in a position of power, change the rules so that one has even more of an advantage over the competition.
I WILL hate the players because they were responsible for making the unfair rules.