People have their constitutional right to contribute to a campaign and if they have discretionary money that they want to contribute to a candidate, whether a Republican or a Democrat, they should be able to do so.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The reality is that asking the public to fund political campaigns accomplishes nothing. Candidates continue to seek interest-group support through other channels, both financial and in-kind, and corruption problems abound.
I contribute to public candidate campaigns, and there's a federal limit on how much you can contribute to each individual candidate. I obey the law in that regard, and I feel like I'm doing it properly.
If candidates spend money on ads and other political speech and their opponents are rewarded with government handouts to attack them, that chills speech and is unconstitutional. Non-participating candidates certainly don't volunteer to allow their opponents to receive taxpayer subsidies to bash them.
It's important not to limit the amount of their own money that candidates can spend, but to give other people access to enough money to run competitive races.
I don't think politicians should be allowed to take money for their campaigns from outside interests.
I believe we all have the right as private citizens to endorse candidates and participate in the political process.
There's nothing in the First Amendment that even remotely talks about spending money for political contests, and to say that an individual can spend as much of his or her own money as he or she wants constitutionally without any limitation, I think is just absurd.
Much of what candidates have to do is raise money and appeal to constituencies or interest groups that can provide that money.
Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.
A campaign ought to demonstrate the basic human decency of the candidate. That means your First Amendment rights end at the tip of your opponent's nose - even in the matter of political rhetoric.