It's called polling, people! In an editorial today, the Tribune uses Barack Obama's decision to turn down public financing as an opportunity to decry campaign finance reform more generally. In making their argument, the editorial board cites the declining number of people who check the box on their 1040 forms as justification that the public financing concept is unpopular:
Obama is the first candidate to reject public campaign funds in a general election since the system began in 1976. But primary candidates have been taking a pass in increasing numbers. And taxpayers are opting out, too: Fewer than 10 percent now check the box on their 1040 form, compared with 28 percent in 1980.
So almost everybody agrees, but almost nobody wants to say it: This complicated, convoluted system is a loser.
Obama says he wants to reform the system. So does McCain. What's the point? Government rules that limit spending on the message don't clean up elections; they just stifle free speech. The best way to fix this system is to scrap it.
This is a line the Tribune has run with before. In an April 16 editorial titled "The Money Game," the board wrote that fewer than 7.5 percent of tax filers last year checked the $3 contribution box on their federal income tax return, down from the 28.7 percent in 1980. But checking a tiny box on our insanely complicated tax forms does not demonstrate a lack of support, as we wrote back in April. So why don't we look at polling numbers instead.
Taxpayers can underwrite presidential elections by checking the box on their tax forms that sends $3 to the election fund, but fewer and fewer do. It's tempting to view this as popular rejection of public financing, but that would be simplistic. Polling suggests that when voters know what it takes to get public money, support shoots above 70%.
Even though he opted out of public financing -- and with good reason, considering he might raise $500 million from mostly small donors -- Barack Obama believes in a robust public financing model, especially at the congressional level. As an Illinois state legislator, he authored a bill to publicly finance his state's judicial elections. In 2006, speaking to the late Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press, he asked why candidates aren't allotted free television time to reduce the costs of campaigning. He's even signed on to Dick Durbin's Fair Elections Act, as well as Sen. Russ Feingold's Presidential Funding Act of 2007 ("legislation John McCain does not support," as he noted in a USA Today op-ed today).
Most Americans agree with Obama. Why can't the Tribune get on board?
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