Quote:
Originally Posted by NatCh
Now you're making me jealous.
Your campaigns are probably not so influenced by "soft money" and fundraising prowess either, I expect.
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I don't know if it made the news in the US, but we had a huge political scandal a couple of years ago called the "Cash for Honours" affair, where all the main political parties here were accused (absolutely rightly) of giving people "honours" (ie being made a Knight or a Lord, etc) in return for a large donation to the political party (I should explain that each party has the traditional right to nominate a certain number of people for "honours" every year, but it's supposed to be for their achievements, not for giving money to the party!).
As a result of that, the funding of political parties has really been clamped down upon, and all donation above £5000 (about $9000) have to be publically declared. There are moves afoot too to limit the amount of money each party can spend in "campaigning" to a fixed amount.
It's certainly not perfect, but I think we are getting to be a lot more open and accountable than we were in the "bad old days" of secret donations, etc.