ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996 TAG: 9607260011
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BECKY CAIN
OPPOSING campaign finance reform appears to be a growing cottage industry in Washington, employing a diverse workforce with newly recruited political-action committees ranging from the National Association of Beer Wholesalers to the American Medical Association. But even the most aggressive marketing plan won't sell this industry's newest product, recently enunciated by the speaker of the House: the notion that the political process is "underfunded."
This argument has the allure of novelty and of flouting convention - it's the "uncola" of campaign finance theories. But recent polls and focus groups suggest that citizens, wisely, won't buy it.
The facts tell an uncomplicated story. Congressional campaign spending has skyrocketed from $194.8 million in 1978 to $761.6 million in 1994, a jump of 291 percent. Adjusted for inflation, spending increased 48 percent over the period. These ballooning budgets are fueled by special-interest money and are spent on campaigns that give voters heartburn. And yet Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich claims that the parties need to spend more money, not less.
In testimony before the Senate, the speaker blamed the high price of politics on the costs of communicating with Americans. In other words, politicians don't have enough money to buy advertising and push polling. As proof, he compared the amount of money spent on three antacid marketing campaigns - Pepcid AC, Tagamet and Zantac - with the amount spent on political campaigns. The comparison is, frankly, bizarre. It's also wrong.
According to the speaker, each antacid spent $300 million on marketing a year for a total of $900 million; congressional campaign spending in 1994 was $761 million. Political campaigns, however, time their advertising efforts to culminate in the weeks just before the election. In 1994, two-thirds of all campaign spending occurred in the last month of the contest, according to Dwight Morris of the Campaign Study Group. Multiply that amount out over the course of a year and the total would dwarf the amount spent on advertising antacids.
Putting aside the question of numbers, how is it that we are comparing antacids to candidates in the first place? The comparison is an insult to the voters' intelligence. The fact that the comparison has been made at all reveals an astonishing insensitivity to the the anger voters feel toward politics. Voters are smart. They know there's something wrong with a system that markets a candidate like a new brand of antacid by pumping millions of dollars into jamming the airwaves with vacuous 30-second spots. Voters know enough to hit the mute button when a cookie-cutter attack ad trashes a candidate's opponent like a rival long-distance service.
Ultimately, though, the argument over the amount of money spent on politics misses the critical issue troubling citizens, which is the role money plays in politics. Americans believe that money drives the political process and that candidates who are beholden to large contributors are less responsive to voters' concerns.
A poll conducted in 1995 by the Mellman Group and Public Opinion Strategies showed 70 percent of citizens believe that the campaign-finance system is unacceptable.
Forty-nine percent of the citizens polled believe that special interests control the political process. This number has increased from 38 percent in 1991.
The pervasive influence of special interests is very clear in people's minds. As one focus group participant succinctly put it, "[special interests] control which laws get passed and what laws don't." Said another: "I think the politicians are basically corporate puppets and will cater to the loudest corporate voice, depending on what special interest or industry is pulling at their pant legs. ... I feel very stifled, forgotten, left out of the loop." These sentiments are echoed in communities around the country.
The problems that citizens point to are not insoluble. In Kentucky, home of one of the most energetic opponents of campaign-finance reform, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the legislature passed a campaign-finance reform law that included: limited public financing; strict limits on both spending and contributions for the gubernatorial campaign; prohibitions against large contributors receiving non-bid contracts, leases or appointments; and a requirement that candidates receiving public money participate in televised forums.
This law changed the face of the 1995 Kentucky gubernatorial election. The campaigns cost considerably less than in previous years and, in the words of the Lexington Herald Leader, "the rules kept the usual suspects from pumping money into every campaign in sight to ensure that lucrative state contracts would continue coming their way." A cap on spending leveled the playing field, thus encouraging GOP candidate Larry Forgey to enter the race, making the race more competitive. The campaign was also shorter and the candidates participated in nearly 50 public debates. The lesson from Kentucky is, yes, the system can be changed to work for citizens.
It is clear that across the country citizens believe there is a problem in our political system and that the role of money is a part of the problem. If members of Congress are paying attention, they will take steps to address these concerns.
The House leadership, supported by those who lack the imagination to see that politics could be conducted differently, has chosen instead to work to maintain the status quo, modeling campaigns on consumer-product marketing strategies.
Citizens are unlikely to buy this notion. When political ads begin to saturate the airwaves in October, however, they will undoubtedly be glad to know about those antacid pills.
Becky Cain is president of the League of Women Voters of the United States.
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB