More Outrage Needed
Adamany, David
More Outrage Needed Iwho shakes the money tree? by George Thayer. Simon and Schuster. 320 pp. $8.95. reviewed by David Adamany George Washington spent generously to buy rum, wine, beer, and cider...
...James Madison was not returned to the Virginia legislature in the 1770s because he refused to do so...
...Taken separately every event and practice angers...
...Even more serious, however, is Thayer's failure of analysis...
...Yet fueling the opposition, to impose an electoral check on the arrogance of officeholders, may be the most important single objective of campaign finance reforms...
...On only one count do Thayer's recommendations touch the central debate in Congress and the country: whether campaigns must be publicly financed...
...Would a citizen favoring a hard line in Vietnam have seriously considered voting for George McGovern because he didn't like Richard Nixon's campaign contributors...
...He is too interested in his story and too little concerned with its lesson for democracy...
...He recommends tax deductions and credits—but nine states have such experiments, and the best evidence shows that few citizens are spurred to contribute and the few who do are in the highest income brackets...
...New York City television, for example, covers three gubernatorial, six Senatorial, and thirty-five House seats, not to mention mayors and others...
...He does not tell us how enough time can be made available for all the appearances that would be necessary on television in large metropolitan areas...
...We are treated to a commentary on money in politics in the pre-Civil War era, in the "Golden Age of Boodle" lasting until the Depression, in the "Age of Media" from the early 1930s to 1964, and in the present period of "Big Money in Control...
...The rage of an Ida Tarbell or an Upton Sinclair is demanded...
...He applies no higher standard of probity to the processes of self-government than to private affairs...
...The public simply cannot comprehend the long lists of campaign contributors that appear in the newspapers...
...He is right, of course...
...And he does not bring either a closely analytical or a fully informed democratic perspective to his recommendations for the "Healthy Money Tree...
...But he endorses matching government grants for small contributions, a principle embodied in the Anderson-Udall bill and endorsed by more than 130 members of the House...
...reviewed by David Adamany George Washington spent generously to buy rum, wine, beer, and cider to woo the voters of Fairfax County in his campaign for the Virginia House of Burgesses...
...but taken together as a well-crafted saga, Thayer's story of money in politics is too amusing, too interesting...
...Adamany is co-director of the Twentieth Century Fund project on public financing of political campaigns and chairman of the Wisconsin Study Committee on Campaign Finance...
...are selected for impact, and they so thoroughly succeed that one almost forgets the honest men and the nonmonetary events of American politics...
...He is not outraged at the outrages of campaign funding...
...His argument ignores the role of democracy as moral teacher...
...But the meaning of his story escapes him...
...But he never explains why more money is needed: to assure funds for vigorous challenges that hold officials accountable to voters in elections...
...Matching grants reach one serious campaign finance problem by replacing special interest money in big sums with public money to reward small contributions...
...Thayer emphasizes full disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures, but that long-time hobby horse of reformers is now being sharply criticized...
...But matching grants do not assure that vast disparities in spending between candidates will be curbed...
...Further, with issues of war and peace, race relations, civil liberties, economic policy, and distribution of the wealth at stake in elections, is it reasonable to expect voters to allow campaign funding practices to sway their choice of candidates...
...He identifies and discusses the "Key Men with Access" who win the ear of officeholders by raising and dispensing money...
...Thayer's examples throughout Who Shakes the Money Tree...
...As George Thayer reminds us in Who Shakes the Money Tree?, the issue of campaign funds has troubled America from the Framers to the present day...
...But disclosure on the eve of elections does little good...
...His startling argument is that we handle campaign money as we handle other finances in our society...
...A professional writer who died shortly after his book was published, Thayer describes the rising importance of cash and the declining morality of raising it in campaigns since the beginning of the Republic...
...His recommendations "Toward a Healthy Money Tree" are a rehash of old and tired ideas, strung together without order or logic...
...He tells his tale in an artful and lively style that engrosses and enchants...
...In the long run, regrettably, Thayer's book holds little meaning for self-government...
...He is the author of two books on the subject: "Financing Politics" and "Campaign Finance in America...
...Under our present system, both sides wallow in dirty money, and knowing that does not enhance the voters' choice...
...George Thayer tells an interesting story well...
...Thayer confirms our worst fears about campaign financing in describing the Fat Cats who run for office or sponsor those who do...
...But it does not outrage the reader, and that is a serious failure...
...Thayer's specific recommendations are equally flawed...
...He condemns the dollar check-off for reasons that are sometimes factually wrong...
...After nine chapters of damning politicians and moneymen for fund-raising practices, Thayer denounces as "myth" the view that campaign financing is essentially dirty or immoral...
...Mr...
...Nor do they guarantee an adequate campaign fund for challengers, especially in one-party districts, where incumbents are well entrenched...
...Disclosure may permit the press and public to keep track of an officeholder's conduct after election...
...Thayer's whole book highlights the outpouring of money in campaigns, but he concludes that we don't spend very much on politics...
...There is too much information to be coherent: more than 500,000 pages of reports were filed in 1972 in Federal office races under the sweeping Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971...
...He details the amounts and sources of Lobby Money, and he reports where campaign dollars go in the Money Trough...
...He urges free television and radio time for Democratic and Republican candidates for President, Vice President, the House and Senate, governors, and mayors of cities of more than 200,000...
Vol. 38 • May 1974 • No. 5
