8 ms·

What would it take to get someone who cares about the greater good (not an industry crony) appointed to these key roles?

AndrewBissell 13y ago
Stop electing the politicians who appoint cronies?
- growingconcern 13y ago
  Too bad there aren't any.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    You could run for office. Would you appoint cronies?
    - kzrdude 13y ago
      You could run, but how to get the funding to be an actual contender?
      - eli 13y ago
        Oh, c'mon, that's just an excuse. In fact, it's the same excuse people use to avoid entrepreneurship. Money helps you run a campaign, just like it helps you run a business. But sometimes the scrappy, bootstrapped startup still beats the big entrenched enterprise. That's why we're on HN, right?
        unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Kind of ironic that you're making this statement on this thread. The Net was indeed supposed to democratize the world, including, presumably, politics. A candidate would then be able to run a bootstrapped, grassroots campaign. But, that didn't happen, and for reasons very similar to the subject: entrenched interests use their money to continue advancing their own agenda through the media, other corporate gatekeepers, and regulatory capture. It will soon take $1B to run for the presidency, and about as much to pay ISPs in order to launch a competitive streaming company. So, you might just have it backwards: the current rules have to change in order to allow for a viable bootstrapped candidate. This, instead of such a candidate miraculously making her way to success, then changing the rules.
        saraid216 13y ago
        > So, you might just have it backwards Not really. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, not causality. This is a problem that predates the concept of America. Monarchies addressed it by having a three-way tug-of-war between the monarch, the entrenched interests, and the masses, and American politics have tried very hard to ape that with a very powerful central executive. With, you know. Predictable results. Changing the rules won't actually make a difference, much respect as I have for Lessig's Rootstrikers' efforts. That is, as Colbert put it, rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenberg. The fundamental problem isn't that no one gets elected without spending oodles of cash; the fundamental problem is that oodles of cash have to be spent at all. We live in an age where democracy requires marketing. That's the rule you need to change. Not coincidentally, that's also the rule that makes free markets impossible.
        unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Well, what I was trying to do was point out a bit of irony in the GP comment. Judging by your and eli's responses, obviously I wasn't successful. I'll give it another shot. At a time when our political process is broken, full of cronyism, regulatory capture, and co-opting by moneyed interests, we get this new position from the FCC. The position itself is about giving those with money (e.g. Netflix) advantages on the Net. The Net, of all things, which was supposed to be a democratizing, equalizing force. So, what did the GP say in response? "Hey, money doesn't matter. Scrappy bootstrapped campaigns can overcome!" This, even while the very topic of this thread is moneyed interests' de-democratization of the single greatest potential tool for making scrappy, bootstrapped campaigns an actual possibility. I mean, at what point do we consider that democracy is losing and money is winning? >Changing the rules won't actually make a difference >We live in an age where democracy requires marketing. That's the rule you need to change. You're not going to change the need for candidates to communicate with the electorate, nor should we want that. Instead, you change the rules such that candidates simply do not have the money to spend, then you watch as the media, parties, candidates, and entire political process re-structure themselves to allow for viable candidates to be identified and subsequently engaged with the electorate. Here's where the Net can truly be a democratizing force, and even moreso when combined with other media. There's no need for candidates to spend money on marketing. They are the story, and the media clamors endlessly to get their messages out.
- plorg 13y ago
  A) Of course, how do you know they'll do so until you elect them? B) Many politicians who get into office are quite busy, so they tend to trust the people they actually talk to, which are often the people at campaign fundraisers. Cronies may just be people who, conveniently, are always at fundraisers, hence are familiar to politicians. I don't think that's proper, obviously, but easy explanations rarely capture the complexity from which corruption arises.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    Not to mention that a major skill in politics is to hide who pulls your strings. It is anti-democratic for Obama not to call this kind of thing out when it happens, to speak for the citizenry rather than the industrialists. If Obama was on the customer's side at all, he would be leaking information. "Sorry guys, but the way it actually works is..."
- r00fus 13y ago
  So with only two parties, both of which are corporatists, and money=speech means those with the most money buy the best laws (for themselves), you end up blaming the voter? Remember in 2000 when Ralph Nader was prevented (by both parties) from attending debates? How many third parties get any visibility from the corporate-funded media?
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  One of the first things Obama did on entering office was write an executive order contractually banning lobbyists for working for the administration for 2 year after their most recent lobbying job, or going ot work from the administration into a lobbying job in the same field for 2 years after leaving office, as well as posting a list of such restrictions publicly. It's somewhat effective: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/01/19/obamas-revolving-door-transparency/ http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/01/19/obamas-revolvi... However, at the moment it has to be contractual because constitutionally it's quite hard to restrain people from taking whatever job they want, and also because many voters want elected representatives to 'bring home the bacon' by getting government subsidies for business that will lead to more job creation. I don't think this should be the role of representatives or senators, but a lot of people do. Even people who argue for smaller government and campaign against 'pork' seem quite happy when government largesse lands in their own community.
- davorak 13y ago
  Appointing cronies seems to make it easier to get reelected or prepare a nice landing for after you political career is over. What incentives can be applied to promote appointing the competent and unbiassed?
dsr_ 13y ago
Money. There are 100 senators. 34 or so come up for election every two years. Each election is won, 75 - 90% of the time, by the candidate who spends the most. The most expensive campaigns spend about $20M; the tenth most expensive campaign spends about $5M. The margin between D and R in the Senate is 8. Form a SuperPAC and fund it with about $75M. Ensure the election of a crop of senators who know what the key issues are for their big contributors... and that if they step out of line, they won't be getting those contributions next year.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- sytelus 13y ago
  If you think about it: lot of issues we can probably solve by writing a check of $20M to anyone who becomes senator and signs oath for not entertaining any lobbyists representing commercial interests. That would be a drop in a bucket in US Gov budget but would prevent lot of these guys from being lobbied by private interests or even cold calling them to funds their campaigns.
- mrslx 13y ago
  Tax pay funded campaigns with a ban on all other spending to promote candidates.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    How do you ban a random person from spending to promote candidates?
    - zdrummond 13y ago
      They don't get access to the 'no strings' super-fund if they take money or favor from other lobbyists. Still not going to solve the revolving door, but might make thing a bit more fair.
- seehafer 13y ago
  > Each election is won, 75 - 90% of the time, by the candidate who spends the most. Source? Tell that to Meg Whitman. The biggest problem I have with the argument about limiting the amount of money that can be spent in elections is that it essentially implies that the electorate is uneducated and easily swayed. So shouldn't the solution be a more informed (however you want to do accomplish that) electorate?
stuaxo 13y ago
The system should work like jury duty - much like in ancient greece where they had a system of lots (based on black + white balls) - you get chosen then have to do your best for your alloted time.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  Is that because juries of neophytes work so well?
- n4n4ki 13y ago
  The last person appointed to protect the republic was named Caesar and he never gave up his power.
- yuhong 13y ago
  I am thinking of something similar, but for a much longer term like up to 20 years.
- emidln 13y ago
  Combine this with a TTL of 10 years for all laws. Hopefully, keeping theft, rape, and murder from going legal preoccupy all of lawmakers' time.
  - eurleif 13y ago
    Seems like riders would become a huge problem under that system. I guess you could try to make them unconstitutional, but a rider is hard to define; it seems like you would always be able to sneak unpleasant but tangentially-related things in.
  - mattlutze 13y ago
    This would result congress becoming a body whose major action was reaffirming existing laws that were expiring, and would minimize their ability to take on further responsibility. There are many cases where they have in the past given laws a time limit, and most of those either - get up/down extended, at which point why bother with the limit, or - mire congress for weeks because someone decided to pick a fight over a normally non-controversial law. I'm not sure that would improve the system or help us move more power back from czars and appointed directors toward our elected representatives.
mayneack 13y ago
http://www.wolf-pac.com/ http://www.wolf-pac.com/

AndrewBissell 13y ago

Stop electing the politicians who appoint cronies?

growingconcern 13y ago
Too bad there aren't any.
- saraid216 13y ago
  You could run for office. Would you appoint cronies?
  - kzrdude 13y ago
    You could run, but how to get the funding to be an actual contender?
    - eli 13y ago
      Oh, c'mon, that's just an excuse. In fact, it's the same excuse people use to avoid entrepreneurship. Money helps you run a campaign, just like it helps you run a business. But sometimes the scrappy, bootstrapped startup still beats the big entrenched enterprise. That's why we're on HN, right?
      - unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Kind of ironic that you're making this statement on this thread. The Net was indeed supposed to democratize the world, including, presumably, politics. A candidate would then be able to run a bootstrapped, grassroots campaign. But, that didn't happen, and for reasons very similar to the subject: entrenched interests use their money to continue advancing their own agenda through the media, other corporate gatekeepers, and regulatory capture. It will soon take $1B to run for the presidency, and about as much to pay ISPs in order to launch a competitive streaming company. So, you might just have it backwards: the current rules have to change in order to allow for a viable bootstrapped candidate. This, instead of such a candidate miraculously making her way to success, then changing the rules.
        saraid216 13y ago
        > So, you might just have it backwards Not really. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, not causality. This is a problem that predates the concept of America. Monarchies addressed it by having a three-way tug-of-war between the monarch, the entrenched interests, and the masses, and American politics have tried very hard to ape that with a very powerful central executive. With, you know. Predictable results. Changing the rules won't actually make a difference, much respect as I have for Lessig's Rootstrikers' efforts. That is, as Colbert put it, rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenberg. The fundamental problem isn't that no one gets elected without spending oodles of cash; the fundamental problem is that oodles of cash have to be spent at all. We live in an age where democracy requires marketing. That's the rule you need to change. Not coincidentally, that's also the rule that makes free markets impossible.
        unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Well, what I was trying to do was point out a bit of irony in the GP comment. Judging by your and eli's responses, obviously I wasn't successful. I'll give it another shot. At a time when our political process is broken, full of cronyism, regulatory capture, and co-opting by moneyed interests, we get this new position from the FCC. The position itself is about giving those with money (e.g. Netflix) advantages on the Net. The Net, of all things, which was supposed to be a democratizing, equalizing force. So, what did the GP say in response? "Hey, money doesn't matter. Scrappy bootstrapped campaigns can overcome!" This, even while the very topic of this thread is moneyed interests' de-democratization of the single greatest potential tool for making scrappy, bootstrapped campaigns an actual possibility. I mean, at what point do we consider that democracy is losing and money is winning? >Changing the rules won't actually make a difference >We live in an age where democracy requires marketing. That's the rule you need to change. You're not going to change the need for candidates to communicate with the electorate, nor should we want that. Instead, you change the rules such that candidates simply do not have the money to spend, then you watch as the media, parties, candidates, and entire political process re-structure themselves to allow for viable candidates to be identified and subsequently engaged with the electorate. Here's where the Net can truly be a democratizing force, and even moreso when combined with other media. There's no need for candidates to spend money on marketing. They are the story, and the media clamors endlessly to get their messages out.
plorg 13y ago
A) Of course, how do you know they'll do so until you elect them? B) Many politicians who get into office are quite busy, so they tend to trust the people they actually talk to, which are often the people at campaign fundraisers. Cronies may just be people who, conveniently, are always at fundraisers, hence are familiar to politicians. I don't think that's proper, obviously, but easy explanations rarely capture the complexity from which corruption arises.
- rhizome 13y ago
  Not to mention that a major skill in politics is to hide who pulls your strings. It is anti-democratic for Obama not to call this kind of thing out when it happens, to speak for the citizenry rather than the industrialists. If Obama was on the customer's side at all, he would be leaking information. "Sorry guys, but the way it actually works is..."
r00fus 13y ago
So with only two parties, both of which are corporatists, and money=speech means those with the most money buy the best laws (for themselves), you end up blaming the voter? Remember in 2000 when Ralph Nader was prevented (by both parties) from attending debates? How many third parties get any visibility from the corporate-funded media?
anigbrowl 13y ago
One of the first things Obama did on entering office was write an executive order contractually banning lobbyists for working for the administration for 2 year after their most recent lobbying job, or going ot work from the administration into a lobbying job in the same field for 2 years after leaving office, as well as posting a list of such restrictions publicly. It's somewhat effective: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/01/19/obamas-revolving-door-transparency/ http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/01/19/obamas-revolvi... However, at the moment it has to be contractual because constitutionally it's quite hard to restrain people from taking whatever job they want, and also because many voters want elected representatives to 'bring home the bacon' by getting government subsidies for business that will lead to more job creation. I don't think this should be the role of representatives or senators, but a lot of people do. Even people who argue for smaller government and campaign against 'pork' seem quite happy when government largesse lands in their own community.
davorak 13y ago
Appointing cronies seems to make it easier to get reelected or prepare a nice landing for after you political career is over. What incentives can be applied to promote appointing the competent and unbiassed?

dsr_ 13y ago

Money. There are 100 senators. 34 or so come up for election every two years. Each election is won, 75 - 90% of the time, by the candidate who spends the most. The most expensive campaigns spend about $20M; the tenth most expensive campaign spends about $5M. The margin between D and R in the Senate is 8. Form a SuperPAC and fund it with about $75M. Ensure the election of a crop of senators who know what the key issues are for their big contributors... and that if they step out of line, they won't be getting those contributions next year.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
sytelus 13y ago
If you think about it: lot of issues we can probably solve by writing a check of $20M to anyone who becomes senator and signs oath for not entertaining any lobbyists representing commercial interests. That would be a drop in a bucket in US Gov budget but would prevent lot of these guys from being lobbied by private interests or even cold calling them to funds their campaigns.
mrslx 13y ago
Tax pay funded campaigns with a ban on all other spending to promote candidates.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  How do you ban a random person from spending to promote candidates?
  - zdrummond 13y ago
    They don't get access to the 'no strings' super-fund if they take money or favor from other lobbyists. Still not going to solve the revolving door, but might make thing a bit more fair.
seehafer 13y ago
> Each election is won, 75 - 90% of the time, by the candidate who spends the most. Source? Tell that to Meg Whitman. The biggest problem I have with the argument about limiting the amount of money that can be spent in elections is that it essentially implies that the electorate is uneducated and easily swayed. So shouldn't the solution be a more informed (however you want to do accomplish that) electorate?

stuaxo 13y ago

The system should work like jury duty - much like in ancient greece where they had a system of lots (based on black + white balls) - you get chosen then have to do your best for your alloted time.

dinkumthinkum 13y ago
Is that because juries of neophytes work so well?
n4n4ki 13y ago
The last person appointed to protect the republic was named Caesar and he never gave up his power.
yuhong 13y ago
I am thinking of something similar, but for a much longer term like up to 20 years.
emidln 13y ago
Combine this with a TTL of 10 years for all laws. Hopefully, keeping theft, rape, and murder from going legal preoccupy all of lawmakers' time.
- eurleif 13y ago
  Seems like riders would become a huge problem under that system. I guess you could try to make them unconstitutional, but a rider is hard to define; it seems like you would always be able to sneak unpleasant but tangentially-related things in.
- mattlutze 13y ago
  This would result congress becoming a body whose major action was reaffirming existing laws that were expiring, and would minimize their ability to take on further responsibility. There are many cases where they have in the past given laws a time limit, and most of those either - get up/down extended, at which point why bother with the limit, or - mire congress for weeks because someone decided to pick a fight over a normally non-controversial law. I'm not sure that would improve the system or help us move more power back from czars and appointed directors toward our elected representatives.

mayneack 13y ago

http://www.wolf-pac.com/ http://www.wolf-pac.com/