Campaign Finance

Abstract

Without money, campaigns go nowhere. In fact, the last chapter alluded to an “invisible primary” in which there is no voting and there is no public campaigning. Campaigning goes on all the time in the invisible primary but the real contest is among contributors for cash. Many critics and cynics of the campaign process, whether at the level of president or city council, talk about the undue influence of money on politics. They usually refer to the ability of the donors to get access to the elected official or they talk about the way elected officials behave in order to be rewarded by interest groups for their prior votes. Candidates make a sour face when confronted with the reality of “call time” or “dialing for dollars” and lament about the time spent doing something other than talking to voters or, in the case of an incumbent, doing the people’s business.¹