It's official. No one can give money to the candidates in the race for governor or any other politician for that matter. Every donation is suspect and a potential scandal.
A story in the Wisconsin State Journal today is the one that makes it official. The story is highlighting a ridiculous accusation by the Republicans about a business that gave money to Governor Doyle but didn't get any business from the state. If you have been following the news, adding this story to the mix means business that don't get contracts from the state cannot give money and businesses that do get contracts from the state cannot give money before OR after getting a contract.
That's everyone I guess. Anyone that works for a business is not allowed to give money to politicians because you just never know if your employer might get a contract from the state or might not get a contract from the state.
At what point do you think the businesses in Wisconsin will get really angry that the press is making them look as bad to the public as the politicians they support?
I would like to point this out from the DPW Platform:
Increased empowerment of citizens in all civic affairs makes our nation a true democracy. The government must be an open institution that people trust. The government must comply with open meeting and public record laws, enact legislation for full public funding for all state and national elections, while ensuring that every citizen has a guaranteed right and equal access to vote. We have the right to inspect and count votes and have a paper ballot to insure voting accountability.
It is not the Democrats in Wisconsin that are killing campaign finance reform. Our members in the Senate and Assembly did not kill SB1 - Our candidate for Gov has pledged to sign it once it reaches his desk.
Let's compare to the RPW Platform:
We support the right of individuals to freely express their political opinions through their financial contributions, with full, prompt disclosure. We insist that neither employers nor unions should force individuals to contribute to political causes against their will. We oppose public financing of all campaigns.The Green Party of WI doesn't have public financing as part of their platform:
PACs must be eliminated. Limits should be imposed on the money that candidates can spend on campaigns, with the amount determined for each race by the size of constituency of the office being contested. We support removing economic interests from the electoral process by limiting contributions of cash and services by businesses and individuals. We do not support term limits since they restrict the rights of people to choose their representatives.
The Libertarians dont have it either:
We advocate election law reforms that make it easier for the people to nominate and finance the election of the candidates of their choice.
Pretty plain as day in there, isn't it? There is only one party in WI that is officially trying to clean up elections. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin. And I am proud to be a member.
3 comments:
I'm confused.
I read the DPW Party platform, I read the post here with the intended point being (I beleive) that we are at a point of such intense political spin on these campaign finance issues that only the major accounting firms could follow and correctly interpret the nuances and reach a fair conclusion. But wait...you can't trust them either.
So maybe, the point is that anyone can be made to look "improper" and will be. That the standards will keep being tailored by the opposition (Reps, Dems AND Greens too) until a guilty verdict can be reached. That lobbing acusations has become so prevalent that it is sheer overload and the truth has been killed by friendly and un-friendly fire. That a totally new system has been proposed that will (hopefully) stop the Merry-Go-Round. Okay, that was what I thought Jef's post and the post he quoted meant.
So, in response to that rather large, all-inclusive concept, you lob a PORTION of the accusations that have been made as some kind of proof of something. And I am confused as to what that something is. Other than you have perhaps attended Green Party meetings and are repeating things you have heard there. But I cannot understand how your argument disproves his (or "the") larger point.
I have heard a great deal of Green Party rhetoric. To say that the Democrats are as corporate as the Republicans is supposed to be a big blow? Honey, we're all corporate. You can't extract "the corporate" from your own life any more than you can say that you do not use petroleum products. Do you think oil is only something that you put in your car? You are surrounded by petroleum based or infused objects, you could not survive without them. We are oil, we are corporations. Even people who meet under big tents (made by corporations) wearing sandals (ditto) after riding their bikes there (ditto) on their days off from their jobs (double ditto) who stand around a feeling happy about how "different" they are, they are seriously corporate too. Not nearly as different or pure as they might like to think.
Now, taking a different approach, you could say that The Little Guy needs a chance again, to build a Mom and Pop business, that the Amercain dream is no longer so obtainable and needs to be restored. Well that's fine. I agree. And you could say that Modern Life is counter to our mental health and happiness, I'd agree also. Life seems to have spun out of control, we could work on a few things, all of us.
But I'd not single out the Democratic Party as "corporate". It's bogus. The party, any party, is a fraction of the larger society. Unless it is a party of traditionalist Navajos or something, if you look, you'll find corporate traces. (your toilet paper is corporate) To use that larger corporate/cultural reality and apply it to a select group as some big damning condemnation shows no real examination of reality, just the repitition of oft heard phrases.
Unless you are freakin' Amish, you are as corporate as anyone else in America, in any party, or completely non-political, even those who are comatose.
And, holy tamale! Really? Bush and WMDs? Is that an apt comparison? That seems gratuitously bitter and counter-productive to me. I am always confused when Green Party people talk like that. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, NSA, Iraq, Lebanon, painful rectal itch, the girl who broke your heart in 7th grade, and dandruff - why not throw those in there too? If you are so concerned with accountability why not spend your energies working so that those who are responsible for the WMD fiasco feel the consequences, instead of spreading "guilt" to other groups who had NO part in the decision-making process.
God! WMDs!!!!
Unless it just makes you FEEL like you are doing something without actually doing anything or even (if you find you CAN'T do anything - like most of us) facing your own level of powerlessness in this weird modern world. (our level of individual powerlessness is enormous and worth an honest look)
I genuinely do not understand that tactic, the lack of self-awareness, the lack of logic - I do not understand how that is to win converts other than those few who just enjoy being pissed off
but -
I am typing this on a Dell, sitting on my Hanes-wearing ass, in my manufactured home. You know - major parts of the house were assembled in a factory and brought to my lot on a truck. Okay? I'm corporate. But you're not.
You must be...Daniel Boone?
As a footnote here - I have written for an "alternative" newspaper in my community. My name is listed as a board member (pity the others, huh?)
We are able to print our leftist rants because we get grants from...corporations.
A lot of the fellas in that corporation would probably not like me or my writing. But they give money so that we can say and print what we want.
Issuing blanket judgments and demonizing entire groups does not look any better coming from the left than it does from the right.
Nerd Alert!
"munis"
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