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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Hughes who wrote (14320)	11/11/1998 12:01:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Re: Campaign Finance Reform & Minnesota Looks as if good ole populist Farmer-Labor country may be ahead of the rest of the country again. Maybe one of the reasons the major parties have been dragging their feet on campaign finance reform is that it can benefit third (or fourth) parties too. According to a Washington Post story, the state's campaign finance law helped Jesse Ventura to get his message out. Some relevant excerpts. "....Ventura's surprising win was more than folkloric. It offered real lessons on campaign finance reform and demonstrated the possibilities that come with decoupling money from politics. That is what Minnesota sought to do nearly a decade ago when it enacted reforms to limit campaign spending while providing third-party candidates with a public subsidy if they receive at least 5 percent of the vote in the state's September primary. That, as much as anything, got Ventura's cash-poor campaign into the game once he received 10 percent of the vote in the primary, political scientists, pollsters and party officials said. And, by limiting both major party nominees -- St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman (R) and political scion Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (D) -- to $2.1 million in campaign spending, the rules prevented them from running away with the campaign with a blitzkrieg of television ads. That essentially leveled the playing field for a third-party candidate and, by creating a three-way race, allowed Ventura to win with less than a majority. Unable to saturate the airwaves with political ads, the three candidates were forced to rely more on televised debates to define themselves and their opponents to the voters. In that forum, Ventura clearly shined, appealing to blue-collar workers and young with his candor, compassion and anti-establishment pronouncements that gradually chipped away at his opponents' poll numbers. Because of the state finance laws, the three gubernatorial candidates here spent less than $5 million combined. Minnesota is a relatively small state of about 4.5 million people, but that figure still pales in comparison with the estimated $13 million spent by Gov.-elect George Ryan of Illinois..... many hope that his election will represent a turning point in American politics. "I hope that this will show people what can be achieved when you can pare down the influence of money on the political system," said Todd Paulson, executive director for Minnesota's Common Cause. "It's the closest thing I've ever seen to a revolution." "There's no doubt that this couldn't have happened without Minnesota's campaign finance laws," said Steven Schier, a political science professor at Carleton College in Northfield. "By qualifying for the public subsidy, Jesse got just enough money to keep pace with Humphrey and Coleman." search.washingtonpost.com