Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate in California’s gubernatorial race, became the highest campaign-spending politician Wednesday. Whitman spent 119 million dollars of her own money, according to an article by Juliet Williams of the Associated Press. The 119 million will fund her campaign against Democrat Jerry Brown, California’s attorney general.
Regulating how someone should spend the money they earn can — in some cases — be a violation of First Amendment rights, but one must consider the implications of someone who can spend hundreds of millions to win a political race.
Allowing someone to spend 119 million dollars to fund their own political campaign creates a monetary arms race. The person with the greatest amount of personal wealth will almost always have an advantage above the candidate with fewer funds.
No election, federal or state, should hinge upon who has the largest personal bank account.
Elections should be based upon the candidates and their policies, not their wealth.
Running a campaign in today’s political atmosphere can be dirty and expensive. Everyone should be familiar with partisan television ads, radio commercials, and signage. All of these media tools are tremendously expensive, but are they really necessary?
The argument used in defense for astronomical spending of this magnitude is that campaigns cost this much to run. This is simply not true. There is no reason why any candidate should need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to gain a position of power.
Some of the most costly expenses for candidates are television ads. These television ads are usually short, and the majority of them are used to paint the opposing candidate in a negative light.
Currently Whitman has a 30-second campaign commercial airing on televisions all over California, in which her opponent Brown is portrayed by former President Bill Clinton as being dishonest about his tax policies. The television ad, which has been found to be false, continued to air despite its lack of validity. If these are the kind of messages candidates are spending 119 million dollars on, then it hardly seems necessary.
With Whitman’s latest personal check, she surpassed Michael Bloomberg, the current mayor of New York, in personal campaign financing. Bloomberg held the previous record with a total of $108 million, according to Williams.
In the midst of a weak economy, does it really help a candidates’ image when they are spending hundreds of millions on signs and television attack ads?
The environment in politics appears to be moving towards an almost unanimous barrier to entry, being that only the ridiculously rich can enter. A system that requires its players to be mega wealthy prohibits those who aren’t from entering.
Politics need to be about intelligent solutions and service to the constituents. Allowing the use of personal funds lets candidates to shape policies in their favor once elected. Accountability becomes an important issue when politicians have the power to buy their own political office. The need to be re-elected is not sufficient enough by itself to keep politicians from legislating bad policy.
Between corporations, special interest groups and the candidate’s personal bank accounts, there is no lesser evil when it comes to whom the candidate should be influenced by.
California has a limit on how much one can spend on their own campaign; the most that can be used is $12.95 million, according to the website of California Secretary of State Debra Bowen.
Campaigns do not need to cost 12 million dollars. Moreover, the candidates should not have the ability to raise the costs of running for office. A voluntary donation ceiling in the tens of millions creates a scenario where the candidate with the greatest wealth has the ability to buy an election victory.
If Whitman loses her campaign for governor, the 100 plus million dollars will likely not effect her net worth, which is estimated at $1.3 billion, according to a report by Forbes.com.
The only thing that her spending will effect is the image she is portraying for herself concerning fiscal responsibility. Whitman should be held responsible for explaining what her interests are, and whether or not she has special interests for Ebay, where she was a former CEO for the San Francisco-based company.
Andrew Taylor is an economics senior and may be reached at [email protected].
You wrote: “Regulating how someone should spend the money they earn can — in some cases — be a violation of First Amendment rights.” And here you are trying to violate her First Amendments rights, based on an article you read that may or may not be accurate.
I think you are creating an ideological arms race. Get serious fool.