You'd also muffle the free speech of the donors
They'll get their "free speech" in the voting booth on Nov 4, just like everyone else. The election shouldn't be decided by donations. What you have this year (and basically every election), are two "establishment" candidates from the same two parties every year, who through the party's established connections to corporations, lobbyists and the rest of it will always have a huge advantage. As a result, they're also forever bound to keep or pass policies that are in the interest of these large donors. The only time you ever get a competitive third party candidate is when its some rich billionaire willing to flush a lot of his money down the toilet.
I think we are agreeing that there is a problem, as well as where that problem is, but we have different views on how to change it.
If you read my posts in this thread, I am outraged by the two-party system, but even more so at the apathy with which the American people have let them take a stranglehold on politics.
While free speech is in the voting both, it has also been upheld in many other forms, and I believe that to include donating money to whom you want to donate it without governmental interference. If I want to donate to AIDS research, I don't want the government taking it and spreading it across all disease research. If I have a friend on trial, and I want to give money to him to pay for his defense, I don't want the court taking it and giving it to everyone on trial at that courthouse.
By the same token, if I have a candidate I REALLY believe in, enough to donate a large sum, i don't want the government to snatch it up and give it to the others ESPECIALLY if I don't like one of those candidates and their platforms at all.
Here's where my solution differs (and this is just my own meager opinion): you're never going to get money out of politics. The only thing I believe we can do is be transparent as far as who is giving what to whom. Whatever donation is given to a candidate must be posted on the internet, and it must include the amount, the candidate, and the donor. No more anonymous donations, no more limits. If Chevron wants to give McCain $10 million, fine--but we should know.
Any law, the more it tries to protect, creates loopholes and other problems. Now, instead of the money going to candidates, it goes to PAC's who send out fliers and commercials that are even worse than what candidates have done.
McCain/Feingold's reform law is a failure. It is over 500 pages. It LITERALLY, pages taped end to end, stretches from the back of an NFL end zone, to the back of the opposite end zone, around the goal post, and back to the 50 yard line (I've seen it done). That's 170 yards long, double column on each page. 300 college educated people were tested, given a class on the law, and asked to submit the paperwork without a flaw--all 300 failed, and broke the law. Because of this, each person in the campaign, if running, would be personally responsible for a $10,000 fine.
As far as acknowledging 3rd party candidates, well, that is up to voters, a large portion of which are not of either party, to do themselves.
