I tremble to express an opinion in an area in which I
have no expertise and little opportunity to even
participate in conversations with those who do.  But
here goes...

It seems to me that advocates of campaign finance
restrictions are not persuasive when they talk about
the value of equalizing money (in order to gain
political equality between candidates), when so many
other areas of life are unequal.

Candidates who are the children of successful
politicians, or even their nephews or nieces, have a
huge advantage over those whose families have not been
prominent in politics.

Candidates who have been successful sports figures, or
movie stars, or who physically attractive, or who are
members of the dominant ethnic group in the area, or
who are bi-lingual or tri-lingual in the languages
spoken in that area, also have huge advantages in
getting elected.  Candidates who are war heroes, or
who have been prominent television news broadcasters,
or who are pastors of churches with tens of thousands
of members, are also advantaged.

If we accept all the other inequalities between
individuals, why are we so upset with financial
inequality?

--- RJLipkin@aol.com wrote:

Just one quick reply to  Eugene's interesting
comments.  If restrictions on
spending money are  restrictions on speech, then
wouldn't it follow that a
society that is designed  (or just happens) to
create inegalitarian economic s
tratification which  results in vast disparities
("restrictions"?) on spending
money in  political campaigns are "restrictions"--at
least de facto restrictions)
on the  many.  Of course, one may argue that such
inequality--excluding some
people from serious entry into the campaign wars
while privileging a  much
smaller, elite class in those wars--cannot count as
"restrictions" or
'restrictions on speech." Perhaps.  But beyond these
analytic limits, such  inequality
in effect, if not by design, creates a privileged
elite--both  Republicans,
Democrats, and some others--which has precisely the
same  effect.

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