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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
A Beatty campaign could force both parties to admit their addiction to special-interest money
Sep 2, 1999 | He has yet to make a formal announcement, or even an informal one, but the pundits are already zinging Warren Beatty about his possible presidential candidacy. The New York Times' Maureen Dowd doubts that he'll run for president because the aging screen idol can't control his lighting on the campaign trail. (She forgets how the Michael Deavers of the world can arrange the most flattering photo ops for their clients.) Slate's David Plotz calls Beatty's politics "a muddle." (Though a campaign dedicated to "freeing democracy" from "the vulgar and obscene" spectacle of ceaseless fund-raising, achieving "universal health care" and helping out the 35 million poor Americans left behind by the bubble economy sounds like the most solid platform on today's fuzzy presidential trail.)
In fact, it's Beatty's very unmuddled call for complete public financing of all federal campaigns that has cut through the fog in this otherwise snooze-inducing political season, as the wholly owned and operated mainstream candidates vie to maintain our thoroughly corporatized political status quo. With the exception of maverick GOP candidate John McCain, and some vague rumblings from Bill Bradley, no serious presidential contender has yet acknowledged the threat to democracy posed by the unbridled influence of special-interest campaign contributors.
We've already seen how the money chase has tainted front-runners Al Gore and George W. Bush, with Chinese government funds pouring into the Clinton-Gore coffers and Texas funeral industry dollars allegedly burying Gov. Bush's top mortuary watchdog. The Bush campaign is so flush with contributions from adoring fat cats that he has blithely waved off federal matching funds, which come with spending limits attached. To match this wretched excess, the Democratic Party has announced it will amass an arsenal of $200 million in soft money, a daunting task that, in the jaundiced words of pollster and Beatty ally Pat Caddell, will force party officials to not just rent out the Lincoln bedroom but sell off "wings of the White House."
It comes as little surprise that Bush and Gore have not placed campaign finance reform at the heart of their races. As Beatty has commented, our two major political parties have become little more than "accounting firms." The political system is "so corrupted, we don't need a third party, we need a second party," he declared.
Clearly it will take a political outsider to force the issue. McCain is making a noble effort in this regard, but Beatty's splashy entrance into the race would not only give the issue of campaign reform a dramatic boost, but also shine a spotlight on the growing wealth gap in America -- "the disparity of prosperity," as Beatty calls it. The persistence of poverty, especially among children, in the midst of an unparalleled economic boom is an obscenity rivaled only by the campaign finance scandal.
