Tag Archives: Democratic primary

national news, political news

Beware of big money, former Sen. Hart warns

Former Vice President Walter Mondale once asked famously of then-Sen. Gary Hart: Where’s the beef?

He sought to smoke out Hart’s position on the issues that were driving the 1984 Democratic Party primary presidential campaign.

These days, though, the former senator is giving us plenty to chew on as he warns of the influence of big money — as in really big money — on the upcoming 2016 campaign for president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/gary-hart-hillary-clinton-2016-billion-dollar-campaign-116673.html?hp=l2_3

Hart’s target? Former Sen. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who figures to raise as much as a billion bucks to run for president. Hart doesn’t like that kind of influence. While he expresses admiration and respect for Clinton, he sounds like he’s leaning toward a possible alternative candidate for president — say, Elizabeth Warren or Martin O’Malley.

As Politico reported: “The post-Citizens United campaign finance environment has sullied the presidential process, he said, benefiting establishment politicians who cater to financial backers. He pointed to his own experience, noting that he and his wife mortgaged their home for between $50,000 and $75,000 — an amount that made a significant difference in his first campaign in 1984.”

Ah, yes, Citizens United.

That was the infamous Supreme Court decision that ruled in 2010 that campaign contributors cannot be limited in the amount of money they give. Why, it’s a free speech issue, the court ruled. President Obama then stood in the lectern at a State of the Union speech and scolded the justices as they sat right in front of him for their decision. Although the setting was inappropriate for such a tongue-lashing, the guts of what the president said hold up today: It is that money wields too much influence in the modern political process.

Those who suggest that enabling corporations to give mountains of money to candidates is simply allowing “free speech” do not seem to grasp that some speech is heard more clearly than others. Politicians are going to listen to those who can give huge sums of money more than they’ll listen to you and me.

Is their voice more important than ours?

That’s the kind of influence Sen. Hart is warning us about.

Gary Hart has found the beef.

 

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No early voting this time, thank you

The November 2013 Texas constitutional amendment election came at a bad time for my wife and me.

We had to vote early because we were going to be away from home on Election Day.

We’ll be at home here in Amarillo on March 4 when the primary election rolls around and I’m returning to form and am going to wait until Election Day to cast my ballot. I’m guessing my wife will do the same, although that’s her call to make.

I’ve long had this big-time hang-up about early voting.

I hate the idea of voting early for someone and then finding out — to my dismay — that my candidate has done something terribly wrong.

Thus, I like waiting until the last possible moment to cast my ballot.

Yes, I know casting my vote on Election Day doesn’t eliminate my candidate from committing a dastardly deed before he or she takes office. Given that it’s the primary election and that in Randall County at least — where there are zero Democrats on the local ballot — the Republican Party primary is tantamount to election. Thus, we have the wait the entire rest of the year before our candidates take office. That means a lot can happen between now and the end of the year.

Of course, that will be a factor only if I decide to vote in the Republican primary. I might vote in the Democratic primary, which has some contested statewide races that have piqued my interest. I haven’t yet made that decision, either.

Traditionalist that I am, I’ll still wait it out.

I’ll let others troop to the early-voting stations and get their votes out of the way.

I also will hope that their candidates don’t get caught doing something they — and those who vote for them — will live to regret.

Good luck, y’all.