Newsflash: Money Buys Access
May 29, 2008 – 10:36 amThere once was a time when political conventions served a purpose, a time before our modern primary system when the party bigwigs would convene and select a presidential candidate in smoke-filled rooms. Well, it turns out, the conventions still serve a purpose after all:
Committees raising money for California delegations to the national conventions are asking wealthy donors to make six-figure donations in exchange for VIP-level treatment and seats to witness history. The top-price ticket package: $500,000, to be a “presidential host” at the GOP convention in St. Paul in September.
That’s right: if you can afford to drop half a million dollars, you get intimate access with the candidates, party insiders and special guests. Didn’t John McCain run his entire 2000 campaign on reducing the impact that money has on the legislative process? Now, he is a direct beneficiary of pay-to-play politics. In fact, the campaign finance law he passed with Senator Feingold is a joke:
Candidates are under strict fundraising rules in campaigns, but national political conventions present a virtual open door for giving. In 2004, for example, the Raytheon Co., Fidelity Investments and IBM each gave at least $1 million to the host committee for the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
All McCain managed to do was increase the number of staff attorneys required to comply with the new regulations and find more loopholes for those that want and always get special treatment. Both of the major parties are in bed with major financial interests and will only cater to their donors, not the American people. Real campaign finance reform (not the sham that Senator McCain designed) is needed to reduce the corrupting influence that unlimited sums of money have on our government. McCain overwhelmingly failed this test as a legislator; why give him a promotion for such a hypocritical failure?
