The Push for Public Financing of Elections

It occurred to me in reading the recent news about lobbyists buying off politicians, now is the time for Democrats to get serious about pushing legislation to publicly finance elections for all federal offices. How many stories do we have to hear about some corrupt industry/lobbyist showering a powerful politician in cash before we realize that its time for America to stop with these fake half measures, and start investing a little public money into cleaning up the political process? The only way to limit the influence of Big Money in politics and give citizens back their voice is to provide candidates with an alternative way to finance their campaigns - a way that doesn't force them to rely on money from the same interests who have business before Congress.

This is not some crazy idea. As the nonprofit watchdog Public Campaign shows, there are some states that already have public financing systems in place, and there is federal legislation that has already been drafted. If Democrats really made this the centerpiece of their agenda, they would likely find traction, unlikely allies (John McCain?) - and a solid contrast with the GOP. They might also find that a system of public financing would be to their political advantage because they will always lose in the current system: few argue that the GOP will always have a huge advantage in raising big corporate money.

Sure, Democrats are not perfectly clean - they have taken lots of corporate money. But as McCain showed in 2000, that can be used as an asset. He was involved in the Keating scandal, and was able to use that experience to say he truly understood the danger of money in politics. Democrats can do the same by openly discussing how our system has become so corrupt that it is time for a change.

If we are spending billions to create democracies in far off places like Iraq, we should at least be willing to invest a fraction of that at home to make sure our own democracy starts working properly.