Why Not Try Lowering the Cost of Campaigns?

The amazing thing about political journalism is the "pack mentality" that seems to affect its practitioners. Almost all political journalists and commentators think "inside the box." There seems to be very little original thinking. This means that both issues discussed by political journalists and solutions proposed are fairly narrow. Take, for example, campaign financing.

Since the Watergate era the focus on the issue of campaign financing has been to regulate the contribution side of the equation. This means passing legislation that restricts the amount of money that can be given to a particular candidate by a particular person or entity. Yet, the cost of campaigns keeps rising, and the amount of money going to candidates keeps going up and up, especially for campaigns for Federal office. Meanwhile, the cost of campaigns going up means that more and more people are discouraged from running for local offices because those races are becoming more and more expensive.

Here's a suggestion: focus on the bringing the cost of campaigns down. How? Here's one idea that could have a significant impact: allow candidates for all offices to mail at the same rate as non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations can mail for a very reduced rate. Extend that rate to all political candidates. There would obviously be some cost to the USPS, but the benefit to society of driving down the cost of campaigns would be worth it.

Actually, it is our understanding that the law does allow the state organizations of the Republican and Democratic parties to mail at the same rate as non-profit organizations, or at a very similar rate. The above proposal would extend that rate to all candidates running for public office.

There may very well be problems with this proposal that we haven't thought of, and maybe its not such a great idea, but the important thing is to change the focus from controlling contributions to lowering the cost of campaigns. If the cost of campaigns could be significantly brought down, then more people could run for office without risking bankruptcy.