You Ask, "How Can You Run without Asking for Money?" Here's How:

Press Release

Yesterday candidates won primary elections spending unprecedented amounts of money. Rick Scott won the Republican nomination for governor in Florida by spending $20 million. Overall it was a good day for candidates who reached into their own deep pockets to defeat lesser funded opponents.

In my campaign for Congress, I am neither soliciting nor accepting contributions. I am self-funding, but not to the tune of millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. I expect that my campaign will cost between $30 -- $50 thousand. My opponent, Todd Akin, has far more than ten times as much money in his treasury than I will be spending.

I am frequently asked, "How can you win when not accepting contributions?" I will give you a short-run and then a longer-term response.

In the short-run I can win without contributions if the media and electorate find my campaign to be a refreshing change from "politics as we know it." Many candidates talk out of one side of their mouth about limiting money in politics while out of the other side of their mouth asking for large contributions. So far I have been able to "walk the walk" and not accept contributions. That's novel; that's news; and that's in one small step towards cleaning up the mess.

When other candidates adopt a policy of neither soliciting nor accepting contributions, then the novelty wears off and it will be less newsworthy. So how can low-budget campaigns without contributions become successful in the long-run?

When I entered this race, I said that I was gearing my ideas and methods towards effecting change over the course of a generation, not one election cycle. We have been stymied in making progress with regard to money in politics because most candidates think about what will work in the short run.

So here are the six steps that I think are necessary for "politics with minimal money" to occur over a generation.

1. Let's get over the notion that we will have successful legislation to close loopholes and limit campaign contributions. It has not come close to happening in a comprehensive way. Even small steps are deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, perhaps justifiably, on the grounds of a violation of our First Amendment right to free speech.
2. This leaves as the only way to get money out of politics is for candidates to show self-restraint; to voluntarily refuse to take contributions.
3. The internet offers opportunities for the best and the worst in politics. On the down side, we can go negative and incessantly ask for money. On the up side, the internet provides a forum for candidates to offer ideas and explain them in far more depth than they can through most other media. The internet can also be a venue for on-line town meetings; where intelligent conversation takes place between voters and candidates; between voters and other voters. The cost of a campaign web site can be less than $100 per election. That's affordable.
4. This is no surprise; individuals in politics (and elsewhere) are known from time to time to shade the truth. I'm no exception; I may well be guilty of that. We need a robust system of fact-checking by independent sources of what candidates say. Access to the fact-checking web site should be clearly marked on every candidate's web site.
5. We can save millions of dollars if politicians refrain from going negative.
6. This is the most difficult point and the one that will take the better part of a generation to implement. We need an electorate that has interest in issues and candidates for office. The electorate must see the intrinsic importance of both if we are to try to live the American dream. A well-informed electorate does not need banners, songs, parades, or bumper stickers to learn about political races. They don't need to learn about candidates through gimmicky and often negative television ads.This means a major overhaul of our schools. First we have to work from the premise that he finest thinkers have always been motivated by curiosity, not fear. We need to make schools places where learning involves enjoyable exploration. Students need to get out of the classroom and into the world that is the focus of our political dialogue. When we get to a point that a critical mass of students graduate from high school and still want to learn more for the intrinsic value of knowing more, we will have an electorate that can form a partnership with serious politicians to elevate the dialogue, all on a minimal budget.

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