Final-Fan said:
Kasz216 said:
| Final-Fan said:
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd hope that many politicians would prefer to see less lobbying money in politics ... they just don't want to be the one to get less of it than the other guy. Therefore they wouldn't have a problem with trying to evenhandedly close the floodgates. Of course, that's a lot easier said than done, and real reform in this area might earn the authors a certain amount of backlash from those groups. But that's how the bribed could stop themselves from being bribed ... because the bribery is part of a competition with other bribed people. If they cooperated, I'd think they could fix the problem without disadvantaging theselves.
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As for less lobbying money in politics, i'd suggest your wrong for three reasons.
1) A few senators have been trying this since, Clinton, and there seems to have been massive problems/loopholes added to every legislation that tried to tackle this.
2) Incumbents almost always have a funding advantage because incumbents always win.
3) In general the studies done by the freakanomics crew actually tend to show that money doesn't effect your electability that much, and really, you get more money when your more electable. I mean, if Bill Gates came in and decided to spend his whole fortune to get Hulk Hogan elected as President... it isn't going to work.
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1. Well, they certainly aren't cooperating enough then.  Hard to say whether it's greed, sabotage, or what, from my vantage point.
2. OK
3. That's like saying advertising doesn't work because no amount of advertising would have made Superman 64 a bestseller. Although it's true that people's preexisting attitudes about the issues/parties puts a limit on the effectiveness of campaigning.
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Oh it's just an extreme example. I suppose a better one is the Republican primaries though. Herman Cain didn't start getting serious fundraiser money until after his boom. The same with Newt Gingrich.
I can't find the chapter online, but i'd suggest reading freakanomics and seeing the actual statistics and reasoning behind it though.
