Sunday February 17, 2013, 4:43 pm
in all likelihood it will take more than "kicking butt against the money glutt"- but generally a good project, there should be many more also promoting the OTHER THIRD PARTIES !

Sunday February 17, 2013, 5:13 pm
Sad but true. You cannot currently send a star to Angelika because you have done so within the last week.

Sunday February 17, 2013, 7:25 pm
Limit the money being spent on ELECTIONS!!!!!
IT COULOD BE PUT TO MUCH BETTER USE!!

Sunday February 17, 2013, 8:43 pm
Thanks J.L. for posting this here on C2NN. Got the link to the video in an email I got from Friends of Democracy earlier. Viewed again and posting noted.

Sunday February 17, 2013, 8:47 pm
You cannot currently send a star to John because you have done so within the last week.

Sunday February 17, 2013, 9:02 pm
There are two well-established solutions.

The first, certainly workable in the U.S., is to get voters to contribute voluntarily. Candidates don't want to have to take money from PACs, aside from the ones which they genuinely support. When they do that, they have to pay those PACs back, or never receive such funding again, and they usually don't want to do that. If you contribute $5 to your favourite candidate, then that's $5 less that the candidate needs to seek from PACs. They want their hands free.

The other is a public per-vote subsidy. We have that in Canada. If I recall correctly, each vote which a party receives gets that party $2 from the government. This has a few benefits: First, all parties are encouraged to seek support everywhere, even in places where they stand no chance of victory, and that can do wonders for national unity and oppose polarization. Second, parties do not need to seek nearly as much money from PACs whose interests they do not already support. The other nice part of this is that parties only need to cater to a "weak base", just enough to get people to the polls, rather than need a "hard base" of industries, special interest groups, and other major donors, which would keep them from getting too ideological (rather than pragmatic and practical), unless a large portion of the population really wants candidates who stand on principle.

Monday February 18, 2013, 6:56 am
Thanks for describing the two solutions for us Stephen!You cannot currently send a star to Stephen because you have done so within the last week.