CNN’s Campbell Brown just put a commentary on cnn.com titled, “Commentary: Food banks instead of campaign ads“. In summary, she says the two campaigns should give campaign finances to food banks instead of spending them on non-impact negative ads. Instead of spending a combined $30 million a week ripping on each other, why not give that money to a food bank in Provo, Utah, or the Northlands Rescue Mission in Grand Forks, North Dakota. At first glance, this sounds like a great and righteous idea, but in the end, it is a horribly ill-conceived not-thought-through idea just to make Brown look good. Here’s the simple reason why:
People make political contributions for one reason, they want the candidate they support to spend it so his or her message gets out. There are rules regarding what the campaign can do with the money. You can’t just give it to a food bank! If that’s the case, why not just tell donors to contribute directly to the food bank instead of going through a circuitious route? If you want campaigns to donate the money to food banks, then where does it end? Why even campaign? Why not just stop everything in life and only do things if it’s related to survival? As bad as the economic crisis is, life must go on. As a matter of fact, the political campaign of this year is more important because of the economic crisis. So as much as Brown sounds all righteous and looking out for the little poor guys, her idea is naive and illogical.
Silent Archimedes 