NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 03:06 PM) Then anyone who has $500 to spare is worth more as a supporter than the average voter. Really, no matter how you slice it, however you change the numbers, nothing you are going to say is going to make me comfortable with the concept of direct private funding of campaigns. I simply will never believe "one man, one vote" isn't better than "one man, one vote, however another man a vote and $x as well". I'll give you the last word if you want it. First, donating does not give you any more leverage as an individual. So I don't agree with your interepretation of this. Second, while I am all about keeping the contribution cap low, I am much more comfortable with people choosing how campaigns are funded, than having the government decide how to distribute the money. You are essentially taking the extreme on this. I get why, you are looking for a way to make the most level playing field possible. And that's a great concept. But its impossible to implement. I don't like the other extreme either, where we are now, where corporations and other entities can spend a gazillion dollars on candidates for office. So, you make it as individual-centered as possible, keep as much power out of the hands of corporations and unions and PAC's as possible, but still allow for freedom of choice and freedom of speech. By the way, one thing that I could see added to the plan here, is a locality restriction. You can prevent people from donating to any politician that does not serve where they have their primary residence (or make a very strict limit, like $50 or something).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 02:47 PM) My response to that is pretty simple...that's exactly how it works in the books right now. No one can pressure people to give to a campaign legally. And yet, just about everyone seems to understand correctly that our system is as corrupt as possible. As long as people can give something to a candidate other than their vote, then whoever has more of that currency is worth more to the candidate. For that particular aspect, you are correct that it is somewhat like what goes on now. There are some things I put in my rules that are the same as now, some slightly different, some a lot different. Focusing on this particular thing - bundling, if you will - can best be controlled by the limit on the individual contribution level. If $2000 is too much, make it $500.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 02:29 PM) If I'm Bush, for example, and 500 oil execs get into a room with me and pledge to give me $5000 each, I've just funded a large chunk of my campaign. That's a huge electoral advantage that only appears because they expect my policies to be overly friendly to the oil industry, to the point that they'll make that money back. If I'm Obama, and 30000 union workers each give me $199, I've just funded a large chunk of my campaign, and that only happens because they expect my policies to be overly friendly to the unions. Even if you tried to prevent "bundling" in some way, it's going to happen no matter what. Hard money is just as corrupting as outside money. I fail to see how this aspect is a problem. The key here, is making the law such that any individual can do what they want, up to some relatively low limit. If people want to try to address 30 people at once, or 1000 people at once, they are welcome to do that. It is no different than giving a speech to 1000 people and saying "everyone donate!", and I have zero problem with it, as long as the law protects people's freedom of choice with it. Its only a problem, to me, if the corporation or union in any way pressures or blackmails people into donating, or makes it required, or penalizes them for not doing so. What I am saying, in essence, is that a person's vote AND any political donations they make should be a protected status. No one can penalize them, in employment or otherwise, for it. As long as that protection is in place, then convincing 50 executives in a room to donate is no different that telling 50 people in a public speech to donate, and both are OK with me.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 02:24 PM) To me, it is entirely the same thing. One side is getting a monetary advantage because of a policy that they advocate. Eh? Companies cannot donate. Their people can, to whatever cause they want, up to a certain max. How is that "one side" getting a monetary advantage? One side of what?

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 02:03 PM) Are you serious? I did that last time. Yes I'm serious, that's what I do.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 02:15 PM) You've left open direct individual contributions to candidates on the order of thousands of dollars per year. Then you just get your 100 highly paid execs in a room with 15 candidates and it's all the same to me. Did I miss something else? And those highly paid execs are welcome to do that, as long as its of their own volition (thus what I added about blackmail). That, to me, is not the same thing as what you are saying.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 01:03 PM) My big beef with NSS's concept is that I think it's a bandaid over the real problem. Every time I come back to this issue I give the same response and nothing has changed. If I'm a business or group, let's call me the United Auto Sachs in the Citi, and I do business with the government in any way, through regulation or contracting. If the cost of an election is significantly less than the amount I'd gain by a contract or by a favorable law, then it makes sense for me to spend whatever it takes to win that election. If I'm a bank and I think that disclosure requirements will cost me $10 billion over a 4 year period, and I dump $100 million into making sure that no politicians who support that bill wind up winning, I come out up 99%. If I'm a defense contractor and the government is buying my $1 billion planes, how much would I spend to make it so that politicians stay in office who want to buy 50 more of those? A billion? A couple billion? If I'm a union and I want to unionize Walmart, and I can get a bill passed to make it easy for me to do so, how many billions in additional revenue for the union have I just come up with? As long as you have privately financed campaigns, you have an inherently corrupt system. If you re-read my plan, you will see that's not possible. Now, if you are talking about lobbying, that's a different story, and a different topic.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 11:31 AM) over it That's kind of sad.

OK, here it is, the NSS Plantm. I base this plan on the beliefs that a citizen is a voter, and no one else, and that making sure our politicians aren't winning solely on money is crucial to the future of government. --Individuals can contribute up to a reasonable max per politician and party (can do one, both, all) per year (This limit is currently some few thousand max total per year - I suggest a lower number for candidates but no limit on how many candidates, and a larger limit for parties with no limit on the number of parties. Maybe like $2000 per candidate per year, and up to $4000 per party per year.) --No other entity can contribute money to a candidate or party, period (coprorations, unions, any of them) --I agree with Balta's idea that organizations other than candidates or registered parties can spend all they want on ISSUE-SPECIFIC ads, but those ads cannot mention or infer any specific candidate or party --Politicians can spend basically no money on any campaign marketing in any media. They can spend their own money for travel and living expenses while campaigning, as they wish. And make a very small allowance for some personal spending just to get off the ground (like, pay the fee for declaring as a candidate, setting up a website, the very basic stuff), so make it like $50,000 per individual for any federal office as the max limit. --All candidates on any ballot or waging any campaign must keep political funds fully segregated from any other monies, with no transferrence allowed at any time, beyond the $50,000 mentioned above. --Parties can put as much of their money into whatever candidates they want to, without limit. --Parties can raise no money other than the individual contributions mentioned above, that is used for any political purpose. If they want to fund-raise for operating expenses and such, that's fine. If they want to fund-raise for issue ads, they can too, just like outside organizations can, but within those same rules. But their outflow for anything related to a candidate or election has to be from segregated funds coming from those individual contributions. --Debates and multi-party forums can be funded by candidates or parties as they wish, outside those limits, as long as it is open to the public and includes any party or candidate reaching a given threshold of signatures for a given jurisdiction (which would need to be determined). --Corporations and organizations cannot under any circumstances make contributions on behalf of employees, nor can they blackmail employees into any contributions or votes. This includes unions. --Localities need to meet a set of national standards as to how many voting machines per registered voter per voting area, as a minimum, with no exceptions. Voting machines are required to print two receipts - one for the voter, one for the district to file if needed later. All voters will be allowed to re-cast their votes if they can show that the votes on the receipt don't match what the machine accepted. --Periodic and random audits of vote receipts versus machine results will be conducted by a federal body, with stiff penalties for any intransigence or error rate beyond a very, very low threshold. --All voters are required to show identification to prove they are who they say they are, and that they are valid voters. However, the states and/or feds need to allow for access to FREE basic ID's to be issued to anyone below a certain income level (probably poverty + small margin or something), available to ALL citizens, to avoid this becoming a poll tax. --No federal dollars need to be spent on elections other than administration and enforcement of rules and laws, voting machine integrity, and security, as needed. There's a start.

The Sox have the enviable position of having 6 (without Garcia, or with him but Peavy not ready) major league caliber starters in the mix for 2011. If they do sign Garcia, that could be 7. Quality starting pitching is undoubtedly the most valuable asset in trade, in major league baseball. It would be stupid not to use that, to improve the glaring need for a quality bat. But interestingly, the Sox don't have a true #1 Ace type starter (unless Peavy is back to his usual form). So, if I'm KW, I'm sending out the word... I am trading one starting pitcher of the Danks/Floyd/Buehrle/Jackson crowd, in order to get a serious bat. I will take the best value proposition offer I can get. Submit your bids now.

For all the complaining about what candidates and parties are getting what money from who, I'd be curious what everyone thinks is the best way to address this. I have a patented NSS Plan for this, that I will write up in this thread later. But I wanted to get the discussion going. What would you like to see done?

New thread idea...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 08:05 AM) Its all conjecture and hearsay. Honestly it is similar to what the birthers have. Oh now come on, let's deal in reality. There is overwhelming evidence that some foreign money is coming in, and that some money is going out, but that the connection can't be made. Birthers have no evidence of anything whatsoever, in fact they are continuously asking for burden of proof. I know you are trying to say that the stuff Balta cited is weak, but let's not go to ludicrous speed to prove it.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 22, 2010 -> 07:56 AM) I find it to be a bunch of hooey that it gets worse every year. Bush mailers in SC in 2000. The Harold Ford Jr. with a blonde girl hugging ads in Tennesee in 2006. Any chaxby sambliss ad. Any Jesse Helms ad. How long have you been voting, and watching ads?

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 07:20 PM) Impressed??? All he did was totally ignore someone.... That's my point - he listened, realized he didn't want to talk to the guy, and instead of doing something stupid like Daley would, he ignored him and talked to the reporters who he was familiar with and knew to actually be reporters.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 05:17 PM) I'm laughing because the intent is there, and that doesn't seem to bother you at all. They are actively trying. You cannot really think they'd do this. There is zero chance of that happening, unless the US gov't goes bankrupt, which no one will allow to happen, including other countries.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 05:39 PM) I have exactly as much evidence as you do when you claim foreign donations are paying for these commercials. And that right there is a problem. Just curious... what was your take on the SCOTUS decision on financing?

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 09:36 AM) PRESS STATEMENT – OCTOBER 17, 2010 William Kelly on Chicago Reporter Attack: ‘I Was in Their Way’ Well, other than the "deck" comment, that sort of rough stuff actually isn't uncommon with reporters. Still kind of lousy though, that he was blocked out like that. I was actually impressed with the way Emmanuel handled it though.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 11:59 AM) i think aquabuddhagate is having an effect the outsourcing ads the Democrats have been running are closing some gaps (or even building leads) in some races the GOP really wanted to win. Is it the ads though? Honestly I don't know. There is also the possibility that the angry votes for changing to anything went GOP, and now people see that some of these GOP candidates aren't any better (or, in the case of some of the Tea Party faves, are worse), so maybe they are sobering a bit. Or, as I saw someone point out, there is the fact that for whatever reason, the Dems tend to get their base going later in the cycle than GOP'ers do.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 11:33 AM) I already voted last weekend in case anyone is taking notes for the Bigsqwert autobiography. Went with quite a few Green Party candidates this time around. I always voted for the Greens for the water district jobs. I figure, its water, right? Seems like they'd be best suited to the job.

Whitney / Kirk

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 09:27 AM) What about Scott Lee Cohen? He's not a career politician! LOL, he's the Dem version of Christine O'Donnell, with a sprinkling of criminal history.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 07:41 AM) You refer to Kentucky...but Rand Paul is the legitimate front-runner in that race, and Conway has actually closed the gap if anything. He certainly hasn't been hurt by his ads. Actually, I didn't mean Kentucky, that was my tired brain. And now I cannot recall the state where I saw an article that made me think of this, it may have been TN, I'd have to go find it again. Also, it will be interesting to see if the trend in KY changes after this aqua buddha ad.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 07:40 AM) That issue in China was how I started getting down to a normal weight and back in shape. Follow that up with a legitimate exercise program and bam! yeah, I got the bam part alright. Yeesh. Between Delhi Belly, not eating much, and working out in the hotel gym, I lost about 15 pounds during the month I was over there.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 07:37 AM) There ya go. We complain about them every year, and then they keep working. I'm not sure that's universally true. There are some races that are tightening up that didn't look like they should, and it seems like the behavior of the front-runners, including their ads, is having an effect. Its happening in Alaska, Kentucky, and other states.