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Again, a popularity contest requires both candidates and voters. If you want to make it into an election about issues, then getting rid of campaign advertisements is not going to do the job. Elections are never going to become more than popularity contests unless our society learns to value being politically informed more widely. You could take away all the campaign ads in the world, but the fool who says "I voted for Edwards because is has a nice look to him" is still going to be a fool and vote for stupid reasons. Even discussing ways to limit what gets said about candidates in the media seems to me like a more realistic way to deal with this, despite the obvious First Amendment issues.
I just don't think any amount of taking away financial incentives for politicians to behave like businessmen is going to make them stop behaving that way, especially when the incentive to gain the support of as many voters as possible is a permanent part of democracy. In the end, their greatest reason to be dirty scumbags is still going to be there - and they will employ whatever advertising tactics are allowed to get the votes. This is still a Mass Media Mind Control issue to me.
Don't get me wrong, I think that there are some valuable, nuanced ideas coming out of this discussion here. But maybe it needs to take a new direction. Nothing I've read here yet has done anything to change my mind about this topic or about this topic being moot in the Politics Forum. And I came to this thread sort of hoping that would happen. Any new ideas?
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"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)
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