Campaign Finance

By Larry Fritzlan

We must institute campaign finance reform if we are going to have a democracy that represents the people, not special interests.

The politicians would like us to buy their story that the other party is the problem. It's not! Both parties are on the take. They are both taking cash from the very entities they are supposed to regulate. This is unethical!

And yet we continue to vote for the same politicians, over and over again + the ones who have the money wield the influence, but much of their money comes from the companies to which they give tax breaks and special favors. I don't understand why my opponents need hundreds of thousands of dollars to run a campaign. Why can't our positions speak for themselves? Please look at my platform, compare my positions to theirs, then decide who you want to support.

This is true of politicians on the left and on the right. Go to http://www.opensecrets.com and look. And it is well documented that the billionaire oil barons have been major contributors to the Republican Tea Party. These powerful, wealthy, and influential forces shape the outcome of our elections in ways that we can no longer tolerate.

Why does it cost so much to run a campaign? There are some real costs, such as filing fees and website development. But the reality is that information flows freely in our new technological world. We all get to see and hear the candidates' speeches and debates on TV, the radio and on the Internet, for free. The current system is organized around wealthy interests who end up treating us like idiots with their negative and nasty advertisements. Unfortunately, advertising is brainwashing that works: it obscures the real issues and can make us not want to vote at all!

It never made sense to allow large entities like corporations to bribe officials as they do now. And I don't think it makes any sense to allow these same special interests to finance TV advertisements for one candidate or another. It is not OK to allow the fat cats to use their money for developing slick ads to brainwash the electorate. This is not about selling a product, but about governance of our country, and about our children's future. This smacks too much of something out of 1984.

We can change this.

They won't change this. They will fight tooth and nail to keep the whole system rigged to their advantage.

But we can do it. Simply vote only for candidates that pledge not to accept money from corporations, lobbies or PACs, and who further agree to accept donations of no more than $100, and only from individuals + candidates who take the Money Out of Politics Pledge:

Money Out of Politics Pledge

"I agree to accept no money from any corporation, lobby, PAC or entity other than a person, and I agree to accept no more than $100 from any individual."

You can go to MoneyOutOfPoliticsPledge.com, a website I created to challenge all candidates running for federal office to get money out of politics. If any candidate does not agree to take the Money Out of Politics pledge, we don't vote for them.