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| By Larry Campbell |
The election is over and the votes have been counted. Did your candidate win or lose. The race for Kentucky's US Senate seat vacated by Republican Jim Bunning was hotly contested by Jack Conway the Democrat and Rand Paul the Republican. The two candidates and their supporters spent millions of dollars on their campaigns to earn your vote, resulting in Rand Paul being the winner. Could we have had the same results if they had been limited to say $10,000. With today's anything goes $$$$$$$ we will never know if another candidate could have won or not. All the other possibilities were eliminated because of the large amounts of money needed to run for public office.
In President Lincoln's time a person of modest means could be elected to public office even to the office of President. It makes me think could Abraham Lincoln be elected today if he were running for this Senate seat? Would it be possible for him to be elected without having supporters able to donate millions of dollars to his campaign fund? Most people I speak with say it is unlikely that he would be able to be elected because it takes too much money to run for public office today. The same is true for President Harry Truman, were he to run for president today it is unlikely that he would be able to win because it takes an unreasonable amount of money to run for public office these days.
The challenge is: can the average person get representation if only the wealthiest people can afford to seek office. Many people think that the most successful and wealthy people are the most qualified to represent us because their success proves that they not only know how to get things done, but they know what needs to be done. Can this be true that only the wealthy are best suited to govern in a democracy or is it that they are the only ones that can afford to run for public office? If this is so, who will represent the average person, the small businessman, the school teacher, the fireman and policeman,the factory worker and the farmers?
If we are to meet the challenge of America we must change the way we finance our elections and how much money we allow people to spend to be elected to public office. This must be accomplished state by state, as it is not something that we can trust to congress to get done as it is in their interest to keep things as they are. Groups like the Tea Party could help accomplish this if they were to focus on average people who would like to make a difference and not whether the person is a Democrat or Republican. A level playing field is achievable if public interest groups get involved and work toward the goal of equal representation for all of America.
Some have said why don't people like me or others run for office as write-in candidates. It's the money thing that keeps people from running, they need a large amount to get their ideas and positions out to the public. Many of us would run if we had the funds and the support of public interest groups interested in building a nation that is a true democracy where all have equal representation. The challenge is to bring about this change with respect for all who live in our great country.
