Personally I think this is how elections should be run.

1. All canidates get an equal amount of air time, TV and radio, for their campain ads(paid out of a public fund) and only within 30 days of the election. Air time paid for - camera crew and actors can vollenteer their time and equipment

2. Each canidate gets a government funded website where they can upload all the videos of themselves and their positions they want - (everyone has free access to public library computers)

3. No personal or business contributions to individual canidtes - you realy want him elected VOLLENTEER to man the phone banks using your own damn phone - no paid election campaign workers AT ALL - EVER.

4. Any thrid parties running ads on behalf of a canidate must register who contributed to the political action group and how much before any licenced broadcaster is allowed to air the ad (also only within 30 days of an election)

5. A series of public debates to be broadcast on PBS stations involving all the canidates running - any canidate refusing to participate does not recive any public funds.

6. No posterboard signs on the side of the road - they suck, no one ever cleans them up, and they provide no info on the canidate other than their name and their party.

7. Political parites should be scaled down until they are nothing more than an ideological stance which gives a broad outline as to a canidates political leanings - not the current monstosites which warn sittle politicans to vote a certain way on certain issues should they ever wan support for their projects or to be re elected.

This movement assumes rich or corporate-sponsored candidates have an unfair advantage over less-rich or non-corporate ones.

Well-financed candidates are not guaranteed victory. Meg Whitman spent almost $150 million of her own money trying to be California's governor. She lost to "Governor Moonbeam" (I wonder if the Dead Kennedys will re-release "California uber alles").

In financing herself, Whitman showed a lack of awareness why candidates do fund-raising activities and press-the-flesh events...to get in touch with the voters. Whitman was aloof from the voters because she didn't need them until election day. Having no personal stake in her candidacy, voters weren't engaged and motivated to vote for her.

Brown, while not corporate-sponsored, did have big money sponsors in the state employees' unions (AFSCME, SEIU, etc.). But Brown, being an old political hand, understood the value of connecting with voters early and often, and did so.

Candidates with messages that resonate with the voters will succeed at fund-raising. Candidates whose message does not resonate with voters will fail.

Public funding of elections allows weak or fringe candidates to piggy-back on stronger candidates and forces people to fund candidates and ideas in which they do not believe.

Imagine that guy from the Rent is Too Damn High party being able to run a campaign as well-funded as the ones for the mainstream candidates. Imagine David Duke being able to.

As of right now, any money I see fit to donate is used to the candidate of my choice. So as of right now, not only can I choose to vote for someone, I can take that vote one step farther and help pay for some of the campaign costs that my favorite candidate incurs.

It makes me angry to think about my tax dollars paying for some of these morons running for election.

I'm all for requiring all campaign donations to be make public, but I don't believe in limits. And I sure as heck don't believe that government money should be sent for these people.

Conan nailed it on the first line.

We had some young college aged kids come to our last neighborhood planning group meeting pushing this idea for CA. It was different from the AZ one in that they wanted no candidate to raise any money directly, but have all the money go into a gov't controlled account that would then distribute it. This just places that much more control into the hands of the damn politicians that are screwing things up already.

It would also allow for the few in charge of the fund to be corrupted far worse then the current system of election fund raising really is.

It reminds me of the people who think allowing corporations to donate or be involved in elections in any way is corrupting the system, but don't seem to think the same about the massive union involvement.

Let people donate as much as they like, but make it anonymous so that the one recieving the money does not owe anyone any favors.

There should be no public funds involved in any election from dog-catcher to president.

The Presidential Election Fund on the income tax forms should be gone. If you can't afford to run, or have a popular enough set of ideas to get people to support you -- don't run.

The biggest thing is that the best and brightest won't run for higher political office. Washington did not want to be president. Jefferson did his time and went home.

Look at the longest tenures in
Congress. How many of them can you identify as being in the last fifty years?

This was not the intent of the founders -- the intent was you went -- did your job for two, maybe three terms and then went back to your business, farm, profession, etc. Now spending 30 years is common. That is bullshit.

I think congressional pay should be capped at $75,000 and maybe expenses. Deal with it. The rest of us are broke. So is the government.