As indipol got very very busy in the past two months (having had yet another child and having seen work ramp up considerably) political writing plummeted. But indipol is still thinking about and following politics and hopes to return to writing soon, especially on the Colorado CD-2 race between Will Shafroth, Jared Polis and Joan Fitz-Gerald.
In particular I’m jonesing to cover certain aspects of Jared’s talking points as he tries to play down the fact that he is unabashedly trying to buy a win in this race. Now I’ve said before that I hold no grudges on Jared’s money (I’m an entrepreneur myself) or on how he spends it, but I do find Jared’s self-funding unsavory. The reason I find it unsavory is a combination of two things:
1- Politics in America is usually and usually should be of the people, by the people, for the people. Raising money for a campaign from lots of different people is one way that politics becomes of the people, by the people. Going to the people for your money and your votes says to me that you are trying to buy the people’s attention. Leaving the people to themselves and instead buying millions of dollars of mailings and airtime without making much of a dent in your piggybank is a blatant attempt to influence people without going to them. It is an attempt to buy name recognition rather than earning it. And while that is not illegal, nor should it be, it is distasteful to me.
2- Instead of just admitting to this and getting over it, Jared is spinning it and I find the spin to be bizarre and disingenuous. The main spin from Jared’s supporters (both in his campaign staff quotes as well as in his planted comments on various blogs and newspapers — here for example) is that Jared is a special interest of one and therefore should be more trusted than Joan who is raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from PACs and most likely will see serious 527 activity on her behalf (Will has taken very little from PACs — under $10K). The notion that you are only an “independent” candidate if you self-finance means, taken to its logical conclusion, that only the ultra-wealthy should run. This is almost Rovian in its spin and is a subject I will return to in a subsequent post.
Happy 4th and don’t forget to vote on August 12th!
Personally, I don’t think that any of the ways of financing a campaign in this country gain one any moral high ground. Hillary Clinton put in over $30mm of her own money, and in my book that is neither a point for her or against her.
Money is not decisive in political races. Indeed, most self-funders have lost here in CO:
http://coloradoindependent.com/view/cash-doesn-t-always
What matters are the respective merits of the candidates, and how hard they work. I have been going door-to-door nearly every day for months and working hard to make the case that I will be the most effective Democrat to represent our district in Washington.
While it doesn’t get reported much by the mainstream press, I am proud that over 2,000 individuals have donated to my campaign.
Here are my sentiments on the matter from a recent Boulder Weekly article:
“In our race, while all three candidates have comparably large small-donor bases, none of us can raise the money we need from small donors alone,” he (Polis) says.
“One candidate [Shafroth] happens to know a lot of wealthy people from across the country from his work raising money professionally for a nonprofit. Another candidate [Fitz-Gerald] has raised a lot from special-interest groups she has done favors for over the years, and a third — me — is self-financing.”
Polis says that, although it would be difficult to argue for the moral superiority or inferiority of any of those three flawed methods of campaign financing, he’d probably say that turning to special interests for money is the least savory because of the relationship it forges between special interests and lawmakers, who are supposed to represent the people.
“I believe that all three ways to fund campaigns are flawed for several reasons,” he says. “It seems you either need to have wealthy friends, be tied into special interests, or be wealthy yourself in order to run for Congress.”
This places Congress off-limits to most Americans, who can’t afford to run for Congress, if for no other reason than that they can’t leave their jobs for the year required to put momentum into a campaign, he says.
“All of us had to quit our day jobs a year ago,” he says. “But Congress should be accessible to ordinary Americans. That’s why I support public financing of campaigns, and specifically the Clean Money Clean Elections model posted at http://www.publicampaign.org.”
(end of quote, back to commentary on your post)
I realize that I might have a bit more antipathy towards the special interests and the way campaigns are funded than you do, and that is reflected in my platform and consistent with my association with good government reform efforts like Amendment 41. Yes I know this approach might rub you the wrong way, and it does rub some the wrong way, but my relationship is directly with my constituents above and beyond organizations that they are members of.
It is my sincere belief that there is no moral superiority or inferiority in how campaigns are funded (as long as it is done legally, of course). I do hope to work on improving how we fund campaigns, which I believe will help move our progressive agenda forward in Washington as well.
Jared Polis
http://www.polisforcongress.com
And please don’t assume that favorable letters to the editor are “plants.” I used to think they were too (for and against candidates), but through experience I have learned that my supporters (and those who don’t support me) have their own minds.
It doesn’t mean that campaigns don’t try to plant them too, but I think the papers are getting better at discerning authentic voices and favoring them.
Jared Polis
http://www.polisforcongress.com
Correction:
The amount of Hillary Clinton’s self funding is listed at over $12,000,000 at opensecrets.
Her campaign debt is over $20,000,000, and it is unclear from opensecrets whether she is personally responsible for the remainder of the debt.
Jared Polis
http://www.polisforcongress.com