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Matter-eater Man said:
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the G-man said:
Do you really think that either party would nominate a candidate who was implicated in either Abramoff or Enron?

Don't be silly.



My point was that any candidate is going to come with special interests attached. I didn't pick good examples of special interest though.




I actually agree with MEM on this one.

Democrat or Republican, every Senator or Congressman in Washington is beholden to some group for the campaign finances that got them elected, and continues to keep them re-elected.





It's been discussed here that John McCain, the champion of the McCain-Fiengold campaign finance reform bill (which was praised as the bill that would end campaign finance based corruption, but has done little if anything to change the finance-based system of corruption), that McCain exempted the groups that are his bread and butter in re-election funding.

And you can bet the same people who praise McCain now, for publicly dissenting from Bush's policy, will be quick to tear him down and vilify him as one of the "culture of corruption", if he becomes a leading Republican contender in 2008.

And for all the high-sounding words, I don't see any real effort beyond lip-service, from the Left or the Right, to change the campaign finance system.




The area where I disagree with you, MEM, is your attempt to label it a Republican problem.

It has, through many decades and many Presidents, been a problem affecting the majority of both parties.
Tom Delay.
Jim Wright.
John Glenn.
Jim Traficant.
Abscam.
Abramoff.


And the small group of individuals from both parties (such as Vin Weber) who genuinely want to change the system to something truly serving the best interests of the people, often end up leaving office in disgust because of those who vastly outnumber them (on the Left and the Right) who are getting rich off special interest funds.

Or at best, if not greed and getting rich, Senators and Congressmen who desperately need special interest funds to get re-elected, in order to compete on a level playing field against their political election opponents, who are in turn financed by other special interest funds.

So how does an honest man get elected ?

It's kind of like a nuclear arms race.
Where there's huge financial power you need in campaign finance to even play. And it's very hard, a great risk, for either side to stand down and give up those funds.