Money in Politics?

Written by: Gary Skulnik on Jun 8, 2006 10:50 AM EDT

I think most of us agree that we need public financing of campaigns to get the influence of money out of politics. But one thing we can't seem to get our head around is the problem of wealthy candidates, who may be progressive on many issues, essentially buying campaign victories by putting thousands of dollars into their own campaign. It's totally legal, and we can't outlaw it, but do people agree that we need to strongly discourage people from supporting candidates that are buying their seats?

Here's one example I know of. A guy is running for Delegate in Montgomery County and is reportedly spending $60,000 of his own money to win the race. It's his right to do that, but it seems extremely excessive and not something that we should support.

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Location: Silver Spring / Wheaton / Takoma, MD 20902