by ALBERT BRANDFORD POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT JUST AS SOME OF US were trying to revive the debate on election campaign financing here, the "world's greatest experiment in democracy" may be about to scuttle a system designed to "rid politics of the corrupting influence of money". Two of the most influential newspapers in the United States reported this week that the public financing system for presidential campaigns, introduced in the wake of the Watergate scandal, may be in its death throes following the formal announcement of the candidacy of leading Democratic contender, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that Clinton had become the first candidate since the programme began in 1976 to forego public financing for the primary and general election campaigns, thereby avoiding having to abide by strict spending limits imposed by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). "The 2008 race will be the longest and most expensive presidential election in American history," the Times quoted Michael E. Toner, a former FEC chairman and a current commissioner as saying. "Top-tier candidates are going to have to raise $100 million by the end of 2007 to be a serious candidate. We are looking at a $100 million entry fee." According to that newspaper, this turn away from public financing is the "twilight of a system once welcomed as a new era of clean government". "It's going to be a tremendous test of whether this system survives," the Post reported a more cautious current FEC chairman, Robert Lenhard, as saying of the pressure building on the existing system. Expensive race Predictions that this American presidential campaign will be the "most expensive" ever against the backdrop of the growing length of campaigns and escalating costs, especially for television advertising, ominously echo fears here by veteran campaigners from both major political parties that the next general election - constitutionally due in 2008 but widely expected this year - will be Barbados' most expensive as well. Readers will recall concerns aired in this space recently by former Barbados Labour Party (BLP) chairman and Cabinet minister, Sir Henry Forde, and former Deputy Prime Minister in a Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration, Philip Greaves, about the rising costs of campaigning. Both men supported the notion of state funding for political parties and candidates with Greaves suggesting that it could remove the possibility of "Big Money" interfering with the process and influencing the outcome of the poll. So what has gone wrong with the American system which initially had the support of both the Republican and Democratic parties and was widely touted as the best way to ensure transparency in the way campaign money was raised and spent? The Times seemed to suggest that the programme's life was assured given the findings of a report in 1986 - a decade after the first publicly financed presidential election - from a bipartisan commission headed by Robert Strauss, former Democratic Party chief, and Melvin Laird, former secretary of defence under President Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign after the Watergate scandal. "Public financing of presidential elections has clearly proved its worth in opening up the process," the commission concluded, "reducing the influence of individuals and groups, and virtually ending corruption in presidential election finance." How it works The newspaper explained how the system works: Any candidate who raises an initial $100 000 in small donations receives federal money to match the first $250 of each donation. For 2008, candidates could receive matching grants of as much as $25 million for the primary season, and grants of about $15 million for a general election. The system, it added, is financed by taxpayers who check a box on their returns to allocate $3 million to an election fund, with about 33 million people a year in recent years directing a total of about $400 million to each quadrennial presidential election. "But the fund has faced chronic shortfalls as the percentage of taxpayers contributing has declined to less than ten per cent last year from over 30 per cent in the 1970s," the Times noted. "Those who could tap wealthy supporters began looking for ways to outmanoeuvre it almost from the beginning." That started in the 1980 Republican primary, the newspaper reported, when John B. Connally, the former Texas governor, became the first candidate to reject public money and outraise his rivals, but his candidacy nonetheless failed to catch on. "By the mid-1980s, candidates and donors were circumventing the spending limits by raising unlimited 'soft money' donations to party committees from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals," it added. "The party committees used the money to help support a candidate's presidential campaign or to attack his opponents." The Post, on the other hand, said the system began to break down in 2000, when George W. Bush, current US president, decided to give up federal matching funds during his campaign for the Republican nomination, which allowed him to raise and spend as much money as he could to win, thereby putting his rivals at a distinct disadvantage. "He raised almost $100 million," the paper noted, "breaking all previous records." In 2004, Democrats John Kerry and Howard Dean joined Bush in opting out of public financing for the primaries, with Bush raising $270 million and Kerry $235 million. Now, according to the Times, by declaring her confidence that she could raise far more than the roughly $150 million the system would provide for the 2008 presidential primaries and general election, Clinton makes it difficult for other serious candidates to participate without putting themselves at a significant disadvantage. Big bucks "Officials of the Federal Election Commission and advisers to several campaigns say they expect the two candidates who reach Election Day 2008 will raise more than $500 million apiece," the Times added. "Including money raised by other primary candidates, the total spent on the presidential campaign could easily exceed $1 billion." Given the estimated Bds$3 million which the DLP leader said recently would be required to wage a successful campaign, is it too much of a reach to surmise that with the comparative size and wealth of the two countries, Barbados' next election bill could be more than twice that amount? What lessons are there, if any, for us from the American excesses? Can we introduce a system with strong enough controls to guarantee participation in the process by any serious candidate or party, ensure transparency, and obviate the likely influence of "big money"? As they say, I raise the issue, you decide. albertbrandford@ nationnews.com
|
