Although I do not consider myself a “single issue” person, My concerns about the role played by money in politics continue to grow. Money changes everything, and its current influence goes well beyond what I suspect our founding fathers had in mind.
I don’t have a solution, or even a well defined position, other than being in favor of genuine “campaign finance reform”. But I do have an encouraging thought. If Gabrieli loses (sorry to those who believe in jinxes) won’t a very strong point be made? This is not some fringe fruitcake with buckets of money. Chris Gabrieli is an appealing candidate. He’s just reached a little too far on each attempt. And each time, as he was poised to jump in, there have been the political “experts” who saw his resources and swore that they could spin that flax into political gold. And they have been wrong to the tune of almost twenty million dollars.
I suspect that Mr. Gabrieli will finally learn the lesson. What about the rest of us?
Awww… Who am I kidding? Money still talks. But thank the lord it ain’t everything.
I think we can all agree that public financing is broken…even if Gabrieli doesn’t get the nomination, the money helped/helps make him competitive. Regardless, Healey is certainly going to keep trying.
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Federally, the system is completely busted for 2008. At best the courts would allow spending capsm but until then we need Clean Elections.