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In the movie Amadeus, composer Antonio Salieri was profoundly jealous of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's innate musical gifts. Not only was Mozart a vastly more talented composer, but his compositions flowed from his pen with apparent ease, as if he were merely transcribing the notes from angels. Mozart could carouse and give himself to debauchery, yet still easily produce heavenly compositions. While Salieri led a pious, contemplative life and diligently labored at his craft, he produced far more pedestrian pieces of music. God's apparent injustice gnawed at Salieri and ultimately destroyed him. Salieri could never accept that it is often too much to expect justice in this world. Nonetheless, there are precious occasions when we may enjoy the prospect that someone or some group receives their proper comeuppance. Campaign finance reform may yet represent this proper reward for Democrats.
The problem fundamentally lies with the mythology of Democrats, that they are the party of the little guy while vile Republicans represent the upper class interests. This mythology causes them to pursue policies even against their own best interests. The only way Democrats can reconcile the success of Republicans at the polls is to argue that Republicans buy elections with resources provided by moneyed interests. The inevitable logic of this tenet of their faith is that if campaign contributions are limited or even eliminated, electoral success for Democrats would follow. The first efforts at campaign finance reform could only be made to jive with that pesky First Amendment if it could be argued that campaign finance laws help avoid the appearance of corruption. Hence, money donated directly to a candidate's campaign could be regulated, but people and institutions would retain the freedom to advocate their positions, independent of the campaigns. Money could only be donated to campaigns in modest increments of $1,000 per donor per election. However, independent organizations could raise amounts from people, corporations, unions, or other interest groups in any amount. Money raised directly for a candidate is called "hard money." Money contributed to other interest groups has come to be called "soft money." Unfortunately for Democrats, Republicans turned out to be much more proficient at raising lots of money from modestly affluent donors, particularly small business people, in increments of $1,000. Democrats, however, had to rely on limousine liberals willing to donate money in far larger chunks. Democrats extricated themselves from this dilemma by campaign finance alchemy, in effect, turning soft money into hard money. |
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