So, setting aside (for the moment, since I’m not ignoring it any more than anyone else) the signature fraud showing up in the paperwork of some participants in publicly-financed campaigns, I have a related question.
Are the opponents of the system at some point going to admit that they were dead wrong with their original dire pronouncements regarding the system’s allegedly-inherent flaws?
If I recall it correctly (and I do), it went something like this: Because obtaining the initial set of signatures and contributions obviously would be obnoxiously easy to do, we would end up with an absolute glut of candidates ranging the spectrum from serious to laughable, which would then have the effect of draining still more taxpayer money into the system to pay for all of those candidates.
Hmm.
Not so much.
Even as we deal with the serious problems that have cropped up with a couple of candidates (which, by the way, are of the type seen in regular campaign financing as well), I won’t hold my breath for opponents of the system to offer their mea culpa.
I will, however, examine whatever they have to say about those current problems through the lens of their track record on the subject.
I want to end corporate tax breaks for their gifts (cough) to so-called-non-profits that are just PR firms.
Can you see this as just the same thing as the direct transfer of money to some candidates?
You are the them but you just don’t know it. Pity.
And what does that have to do with the fact that the constant refrain of “glut of candidates! millions of dollars!” was dead wrong?
That was, after all, what this post was about.