A destructive myth

Here's an analysis of the effects of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which banned `soft money' contributions. Personally, I'd expected that this bill would bomb, and parties would just find ways around the letter of the law. But instead, the parties have adpated to new conditions, in large part by soliciting more contributions from more small donors. "...BCRA is promoting a democratization of party finance." [p 5] "$32 million of the DNC's $44 million in total 2003 receipts came from small donations." [p 6] I recommend the report as at least a good skim for anybody who cares about campaign finance.

But the important point to note here is that it basically falsifies Ralph Nader's main claim that the Republican and Democrat parties are slaves to their "corporate paymasters". If it's true that a party's campaign platform is all about the donors and the voters are an afterthought (which it isn't), then this means that the DNC is tailoring 74% of its platform to over a million small donors. Once again, the corporate/Democrat conspiracy which is the basis of Ralph's explanations of why you should vote for him simply have no basis in reality.

Why do I spend so much time bitching about Ralph Nader? Well, I bash liberals because I love them. I really want the liberal side to prevail, which means that liberals need the best possible arguments; however, everything that can be classed as `corporate consipracy' is a rhetorical waste of time or worse. A large part of the U.S.'s population works for a large corporation---which is why we call these corporations `large', see. Many of these employees generally like their jobs: they've been there for a decade or two, have some complaints but are basically comfortable, and would rather that their pension not get fucked with. Why alienate this gigantic portion of the voting population by telling them that the people they get a biweekly paycheck from should be arrested and the corporation they work for dismantled? This is not how you get people to vote for you, or even want to have a conversation with you.

So that's why I've spent so much time picking on Nader: as well as being the representative of reasonable left-leaning people like those of you who have commented on past posts, he is also the mouthpiece of a fanatic left, that tells a capital v labor story in the most black-and-white of terms---terms so stark that they are clearly false to many people and turn those people off to all liberals.

Anyway, just a note to watch out for subtlety-avoiding stories about big bad corporations. Next time, I'll restore balance by beginning a series of didactic essays on how to pick apart arguments by conservatives.