ext_382502 ([identity profile] rjmccall.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] tim 2008-09-12 01:17 am (UTC)

(1) So NARAL isn't allowed to create voter guides? What about its membership newsletter? Is this a ban on all candidate-specific information, or just positive — e.g., can NARAL say that McCain and Palin have terrible views on abortion? What if it's purely factual information — can NARAL send something out detailing specific occasions when McCain publicly opposed blah? Who decides all this— will every NARAL mailing suddenly end up in court to decide whether it's sufficiently non-political?

My point is that any organization that wants to distribute information is invariably going to spend money doing it, and that you are basically proposing to destroy the freedom to create large organizations that express any sort of real political opinion. Worse, you are doing this purely out of a misguided belief that the only people cutting large checks to political candidates are evil defense contractors.

(2) Incumbents have a huge name-recognition advantage, and the only way to even try to overcome that is with exposure, which you are massively limiting a challenger's ability to gain — I mean, even a candidate's gas money when canvassing neighborhoods is a campaign expenditure that must be carefully accounted for.

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