Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Maybe in theory, and not in every state, as I understand the 1990 ruling allowed States to ban corporate financing...
I was talking about federal limits. I don't know enough about each individual state's system to paraphrase the 51 different systems in two lines of a comment =)
Unless you count 527 money.
I don't see why you would. The amount of money donated to Greenpeace, some of which goes to the Vote for the Environment Campaign, which ranks the parties on environmental policies and tends to give the Greens the highest score isn't figured into how much they get.
There is a lot of money sloshing around the US political system. But the massive sums being raised by Obama (and being used by the media as the proxy we were discussing) were all from individual citizens, and all of amounts of no more than $2000*.
Doubt it - hence the discrepancy between Act's funding and poll ratings.
Who uses ACT's funding as a proxy for its support? In the US Presidential election, the vast sums being raised by Obama were being touted as "see he's got a lot of support and will win". In New Zealand, nothing like that happened with ACT or anyone else - ACT was doing poorly in the polls and that was it.
* inflation adjusted
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Money is treated as a proxy for level of support.
Here? I'd have said it was all about poll ratings in New Zealand. In the US fundraising is a pretty good proxy for support because:
1. only individual citizens can donate to candidates; and
2. such donations are limited to $2000. -
Well, I didn't want to pick on anyone, but it was Keir:
I don't think that if the allocation & cap is inequitable it ought be replaced by a higher cap and yet not a higher allocation.
And later:
I also think that the cap and allowance should be identical, and would prefer an uneven cap with identical allowance to an even cap without identical allowance.
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I have rarely read an editorial sympathetic to the left
Then you must rarely read editorials. The New Zealand Herald in particular seems to be all over the place.
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I'm amazed that advertising has any effect at all on the vote outcomes.
You can see how it would. You don't follow politics, but you like tax cuts for the rich. National has ads in which it promises tax cuts of a sort you like, so you vote National.
The advertising didn't change your view, so much as give you enough information to take your view and work out which voting option is best for it.
Does anyone disagree about an equal spending cap for all parties? Apart from the 2 main beneficiaries?
There was a comment from someone a few posts up which indicated that they did. And the Greens apparently do, too. Although Rod Donald didn't =)
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There is no limit on donations.
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More spending helps to generate more votes, otherwise why do it?
Because you think it generates votes, even though it doesn't.
They're entitled to whatever power and influence they can generate by fair and equitable campaigning.
I'm not pushing for unlimited campaign spending limits. I want the same spending limits applied to each party. I'd also be reasonably happy with a separate lower spending limit on broadcast advertising.
But a system which say, National can spend $1m on TV and radio advertising, and Labour can spend $1m on TV and radio advertising, but ACT and the Greens are limited to $200k seems/is wrong.
The idea that ACT (and the Greens) should do well in a couple of elections so that they can prove that they're worthy of telling us what their policies are to enable us to be informed about whether we want to vote for them is simply backward.
If you are concerned about the influence money has on politics, then your solution will be found in changes to the donation laws, not lowering the spending limits of parties you don't like.
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BUT there is an exception to this rule whereby the BBC and private licensees grant political parties a number of "Party Election Broadcasts" prior to each election ... which are by-and-large limited to the big parties represented in Parliament, with the larger parties getting more PEBs than smaller ones.
Yes. I hoped to recognise this by referring to a ban on advertising. I assume they still have other party political broadcasts of this nature (i.e. outside election time)?
Bryce Edwards has this ... I assume he's referring to some test inserted into the Broadcasting Act 1989, which then would have been dropped once party registration came in post-1993.
I remember that too, just looking through the amendments to the Broadcasting Act at the time, I can't see where it is.
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Are the greens growing because of outside influence/ confusion like the Greenpeace Organisation?
My guess is that there are people within the Green Party who fear that if parties are able to spend their own money on election broadcasting, that in some future election, ACT will have a lot of money, and will be able to out-spend (or at least spend to the same level as Labour and National) other parties. That this massive spending will get them lots of votes and they'll use their power/influence to embark on the second revolution.
Or something like that.
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what I lose in infrequency, I make up for in length =)