Reply To: A Third Term for Mayor Mike Bloomberg?

Joseph-

I don’t see how “campaign contributions” differ from bribery. The “donors”, especially corporations or unions, have ulterior not altruistic motives when donating.

There are several reasons to contribute:

3) You want to influence your candidate.

IOW, I think ALL so-called contributions to campaigns should be outlawed as bribery.

This would abolish all political parties, as well as excluding all candidates except those rich enough to self-finance.

The existing campaign finance laws have already caused all sorts of shenanigans, such as 527 groups, families all maxing out donations to a particular group, left-wing filmmakers with an agenda, and soft dollar contributions as well as allowing super-rich candidates to overwhelm their opponents.

Although those laws were well-meaning, I think they cause more problems than they solve.