Are moderates at a political disadvantage?

[harvey1]

I was reading how Hillary Clinton was booed by fellow liberal democrats because she is not in favor of a timeline for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. Some in her party feel that she is trying to stay moderate for the general election, and thereby just assuming the Democrat nomination is a given.

This has me thinking about the state of being a political moderate. Why don't we have a moderate party and then have relatively extreme Democrat and Republicans have their own party? Does this example of Hillary Clinton suggest that more extreme views dictate the party platform even though there are more moderate voters than relatively extremist views? Is there something evolutionary behind this phenomena? Does it apply on a wider scale toward religious views, or anywhere the terms liberal, conservative, and moderate labels apply?

[Cephus]

Reality check: Corporations don't have rights.

But the people who write their checks certainly do.

[Cathar1950]

juliod wrote:

Reality check: Corporations don't have rights.

I think in the USA corporations are persons so they may have rights. They just don't have any responsiblity except survival.
I am not bragging about it.

[juliod]

But the people who write their checks certainly do.

Fine. Let them write checks as persons.

But corporations, and especially groups of corporations, are what perverts our system.

To have a campaign your need a lot of TV time. TV time is extremely expensive. Thus all serious campaigns must be financed by close alignment to the narrow interests of rich organizations.

How about this: Ban lobbying as a profession. Ban corporate or organizational donations. Only individuals would be allowed to make contributions. These would be limited to a single donation of $50 to a national party and $50 to a single candidate for each post in an election for which you are eligible to vote.

The poor will still be locked out, but at least the rich won't posess 99.9999% of the influence.

DanZ

[McCulloch]

[...]How about this: Ban lobbying as a profession. Ban corporate or organizational donations. Only individuals would be allowed to make contributions. These would be limited to a single donation of $50 to a national party and $50 to a single candidate for each post in an election for which you are eligible to vote.
The poor will still be locked out, but at least the rich won't posess 99.9999% of the influence.

That's a good start. How about limiting campaign spending proportionally to the number of votes received in the previous election?
Banning lobbying would be about as effective as banning prostitution. Better to regulate lobbying. Lobbyists should be registered and made to publicly disclose who is paying them and which elected and campaigning officials they have contact with. Politicians and candidates should also have to publically disclose all contacts with lobbyists. I believe that shining a light on the process would achieve better results than driving it further underground.

[juliod]

How about limiting campaign spending proportionally to the number of votes received in the previous election?

That wouldn't work. It would force small parties to remain small.

DanZ