Dan Glickman (in photo), former 4th District congressman and current chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, was back in Wichita last week. He helped campaign for Donald Betts, who is running for Glickman’s old congressional seat, now held by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard.
Glickman told The Eagle editorial board that he spent only $100,000 when he first ran for Congress in 1976 (about $400,000 in today’s dollars), and he was able to buy 30-second advertising spots on the TV news back then for only $150. Now, he said, members of Congress continually have to raise money and often are paralyzed from doing anything that might upset their donors. “It’s an insidious system,” he said.
9 Comments
If you want to have unfettered discussions free from WE b.s., and choice of topics, I suggest moving to TOPIX.COM.
Gee, ya dont think the MEDIA is behind this rise, do ya? ‘Cause they are the ones killin’ a fat hog every campaign season… which includes all FOUR seasons EVERY year nowdays.
Large campaigns are the direct result of large government.
As government grows, the impact of government, on our lives, grows.
The way to reduce cost of campaigns is to reduce government, but that probably will not happen.
Any attempt to limit the amount of money spent on politics is a direct attack on the 1st Amendment.
Good Glickman quote in Renger’s column today: “There is no trick to being a humorist when you have the entire government working for you.” — One of Dan Glickman’s comments before introducing the satirical group Capitol Steps at his family’s lecture series last week.
“Franklin” offers –
“…to reduce cost of campaigns is to reduce government, but that probably will not happen.”
Ya think?
Fact is, this is a large country. 350 million people constitute a constituency.
After years and years of “smaller government” Republic Party operatives in power, we’re supposed to fall for the old “smaller government” canard?
And then “Franklin” switches gears with –
“Any attempt to limit the amount of money spent on politics is a direct attack on the 1st Amendment.”
Yeah, that’s the way the SCOTUS ruled. But it’s got its problems. It’s like saying the guy with a hundred dollars in his checking account should get a hundred votes at the polls and Bill Gates gets a Hundred and Fiftyt Billion votes.
That’s pretty much what you’re advocating. Hell, it might be the way to run a super-power in the 21st Century. But don’t confuse that with anything resembling *democracy.*
Monkey
Political advertising is just that: advertising.
We do not have to buy what they are selling.
The vote still belongs to each individual.
If individuals can be bought by advertising, so be it.
Individuals are bought by government hand outs all the time.
“Any attempt to limit the amount of money spent on politics is a direct attack on the 1st Amendment.”
Now we’ve done this one before paulie.
If YOU have a bigger sound system and visual billboards on the same corner as me with my bullhorn and nothing else?
How is my speech equal to yours?
You can drown me out so no one can hear me.
And THAT would be tragic as you have so little of anything anyone needs to hear.
Monkeyhawk raises a correct concern as to being able to buy the vote.
Con ranter Neal Boortz OPENLY shrieks for voting rights and franchise to be based on wealth.
And that folks, is feudalism.
Media and politics are so intertwined, it’s no wonder we have the longer political season.
The real danger to America’s liberty & democracy is not special interest funding of public campaigns. The real danger is the increasing fascist elitist media and state & federal prosecutors & judiciary that selective choose which issues are investigated & reported and which citizens are prosecuted. The ethics guru at the Poynter Institute, Kelly McBride, wrote a column last October stating that that local investigative reporting is America. Newspapers are afraid to embarrass local wealthy powerful people. The wannabe reporters & editors at the eagle practice “community journalism” are so desperate to be an “influential” part of the elitist political, medical, non-profit & legal community that they have sold out their journalistic ethics to be propagandists for the latest tax-payer funded, feel good project or program in Wichita which a Potemkin village on the Arkansas river.
Don’t expect Sen. Don Betts to do anything radical to expose the corruption and human rights abuses in the local child protective agencies, the Wichita juvenile & family law courts. Betts needs to suck up to the corrupt legal establish (especially GOP Senate Judiciary Chairman John Vrtil, Attorney General Steve Six and Governor Sebellius ) by being a member of the fascist Commission of Judicial Evaluations.
I just read on the internet that while on the plane to the US the Pope told reporters that he was ashamed of the cover up by the Catholic church about the sex abuse scandals that bankrupted so many dioceses. Of course the extent of the scandals would never have been exposed if it was not for the aggressive reporting of the Dallas Morning News earlier this decade. I hope that “so called” conservative Christian Judge Tony Powell, Robb Rumsey & David Kaufman will publicly state someday that they are ashamed about the corruption and child abuse that was condoned by the Kansas Bar Association, the Kansas Supreme Court, and prosecutors and judges of the 18th Judicial District.
Bill McKean kiakahahaha@yahoo.com 316 293-6079