Something's Still Wrong

Listening to another NPR story on the way home yesterday about political campaigning (Is there anything else in the news right now?)

Democrats (and I’d assume the GOP is using the same tactic – they just weren’t the subject of the report) are paying for ads – in this story mostly print flyers mailed to homes – flyers that essentially promote 3rd party candidates. The idea behind it is to convince enough voters to not vote Republican but rather another party. Dems realize they aren’t likely to get those voters to come to their side but if they can create dislike, distrust or just plain confusion, they succeed in reducing the vote counts for their opponents.

I guess for those types of things the funder must disclose who paid for the flyer and reading the fine print could uncover that an ad for a 3rd party was really paid for by the Democratic party or a similar group. But most people aren’t going to drill down that deep into a piece of junk mail.

Maybe all is fair in love and war and now politics.

Just more evidence for me that the system that allows money to flow so freely and for anything and everything to be OK under the 1st amendment, just doesn’t seem fair or the best way to operate political fundraising or elections.

For better or worse, if you are selling a product, your claims are supposed to be accurate, if you lie about your competition you can be sued and somewhere along the line the FTC, the FDA or maybe even the local BBB might come along and slap your wrist or worse.

But somehow the political realm is spared any sort of control or regulation that makes it honest, simple and … oh nevermind, politics will never be either of those.

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