The White House for Sale....

[headscratcher4]

http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/

Who is who in the Bush fundraising operation....(needless to say, a somewhat biased site ;) )

[Ladewig]

The Bush campaign relaunched its official Web site today at_www.georgewbush.com. The slick redesign features lots of bells and whistles. Where the old site encouraged visitors to donate and listed the Rangers and Pioneers, version 2.0 has everything from a First Family photo album and presidential screensavers to the latest in W._fashion_– for both the NASCAR and the Neiman-Marcus set.

So the Bush fundraising site becomes easier to use while Whitehouse.Gov becomes harder to use.
thread (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23677&highlight=China)

[corplinx]

Remember, anyone who gives a candidate a lot of money is buying influence that is for sale. The most simple answer would be that they are giving money to a candidate whose positions would benefit them and therefore they want to win. However, we must defy occam's razor and assume that other organizations can buy that position for more money.

[subgenius]

Originally posted by corplinx
Remember, anyone who gives a candidate a lot of money is buying influence that is for sale. The most simple answer would be that they are giving money to a candidate whose positions would benefit them and therefore they want to win. However, we must defy occam's razor and assume that other organizations can buy that position for more money.
And I had the hardest time explaining how big money undercuts one man one vote in a different thread.
"But the big contributor still only has one vote.":eek:

[corplinx]

Originally posted by subgenius

And I had the hardest time explaining how big money undercuts one man one vote in a different thread.
"But the big contributor still only has one vote.":eek:

You are of course right. However, this is something that should be dealt with via public awareness. A candidate who makes a quid pro quo for cash should be exposed for this voters to expunge. However, big donations do not necessarily get you favors.

Bush for instance has gotten quite a bit of money from gun owners and their groups, however he still says he will resign the Clinton restrictions on gun models and capacity (aka the "assault" weapon ban) when it comes up for renewal.

Look at Bill Clinton, he garnered a multitude of support running on a middle class tax cut. When the time came however he reneged in favor of trying to balance the budget.

Are these big politicians really for sale? If anything, these politicians take advantage of the big donors. Look at Clinton, he would give bigtime partisan liberals a night in Lincoln bedroom for their donation and sign every piece of the contract of america that came to him.

Is the problem congress or the oval office? With congress you at least have a larger sample of politicians to look at. However, one or two people who change their votes after a big donation doesn't seem to be a epidemic problem. It seems to be a localized character issue. That is why we have watchdog groups (which in my view should get more airtime from the networks) to root these people out.

However, "big money" has become one of these boogeymen that people have found easy to oppose but harder to define. Joe Sixpack realizes "big money", "big corporations", "big oil", etc are bad things but can't explain in detail why. I don't expect people's distrust of "big money" to end any time soon.

[subgenius]

Old Jesse Unruh quote (?): "If you can't take someone's money and vote against them you're not much of a politician."

[headscratcher4]

THough not a fan of the Prez. and gernerally outraged by the role of special interest money in elections...I do think that one thing is clear: The next President will raise more money than the current one or the previous President...ad infinitum, or until they figure out some sort of fundraising reform that is fair and not anti-democratic or anti-free speech...and they haven't yet.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by subgenius
Old Jesse Unruh quote (?): "If you can't take someone's money and vote against them you're not much of a politician."

Priceless..... and true. Haven't heard that one before.