> Why would it be bad to forbid any kind of political donation for established parties.
Everybody is responding to your question with the generic "free speech" answer. It needs to be fleshed out so everyone can understand it.
What political donations are used for is to buy advertising and get on television, which politicians need to do to get elected. Now suppose we ban political donations whatsoever. Cui bono?
You haven't changed the need for politicians to get their faces on the TV in order to get elected. So now what determines whether they get on TV? They can still buy advertising themselves, of course, but only if the candidate is rich. Not really what we were going for. And even then, who has more power in this scenario? A millionaire candidate who can personally afford to buy some TV spots or the billionaire who owns the local TV stations? And if the prospect of handing Comcast/MSNBC and News Corp that much control over elections doesn't make the point sufficiently, imagine what happens when MSNBC, Fox and CNN are purchased by Exxon, Chevron and BP.
You can't stop people from buying airtime. It only consolidates the power of the people selling it. What you can do is public financing of elections. Public financing doesn't restrict anyone's speech -- the candidate can buy the same ad with money from the treasury as with money from coal producers. But the candidates are going to work for whoever is funding them; if that isn't the general public then it will be defense contractors and Monsanto.
Everybody is responding to your question with the generic "free speech" answer. It needs to be fleshed out so everyone can understand it.
What political donations are used for is to buy advertising and get on television, which politicians need to do to get elected. Now suppose we ban political donations whatsoever. Cui bono?
You haven't changed the need for politicians to get their faces on the TV in order to get elected. So now what determines whether they get on TV? They can still buy advertising themselves, of course, but only if the candidate is rich. Not really what we were going for. And even then, who has more power in this scenario? A millionaire candidate who can personally afford to buy some TV spots or the billionaire who owns the local TV stations? And if the prospect of handing Comcast/MSNBC and News Corp that much control over elections doesn't make the point sufficiently, imagine what happens when MSNBC, Fox and CNN are purchased by Exxon, Chevron and BP.
You can't stop people from buying airtime. It only consolidates the power of the people selling it. What you can do is public financing of elections. Public financing doesn't restrict anyone's speech -- the candidate can buy the same ad with money from the treasury as with money from coal producers. But the candidates are going to work for whoever is funding them; if that isn't the general public then it will be defense contractors and Monsanto.