Re: Money and politics, Oak Bay News May 25
Campaign finance limits are an attack on freedom of speech. People want to advance their beliefs.
Andrew Weaver tries to create an artificial distinction between time spent earning money to donate and time spent doing campaigning directly, such as phoning and preparing mailings.
His position is consistent with Marxist teachings that anyone who has money stole it from someone else – fixed pie economics denying the human mind, and a vague power theory.
(When in fact companies and organizations like political movements have begun from very little, in the face of established entities.)
U.S. experience is that campaign finance restrictions favour incumbents, who have name recognition – Weaver is now an incumbent who’s been busy getting publicity for his party toward the next election.
Note too that money has not elected several president wannabes in the U.S., such as Ross Perot.
(Donald Trump is winning for a different reason – he’s successfully hooked into voter disgust with conventional politicians, which Weaver has become.)
Canadian experience is that conservative parties do well with small donations – that’s why neo-Marxist parties were yelling and screaming about loss of the system that picked taxpayers’ pockets to fund them.
Limiting large donations seems convenient for Weaver, as he thinks they don’t go to his party – unions want jobs, which his policy of de-industrialization would eliminate.
But much money goes to Weaver’s eco-friends from large organizations, engaging in a continual campaign. And from corporations hedging their bets and pandering to his irrationality for PR purposes.
Is he willing to forgo that help, by eliminating any promotion of ideas, any time of any year?
Keith Sketchley
Saanich