Campaign Finance Reform

[tobetrained]

1 hour ago, tallslenderguy said:

You're safe with having to "defend" Musk... because, you are wrong on both counts.  i am not asserting that "small dollar donations are better," that is presumption on your part.

OK.

1 hour ago, tallslenderguy said:

Here's what i envision (and i'm sure one can find rocks to throw at this and it would take more thought for a finished approach, but try to bear with me to see where i am actually coming from): i made reference to "one big pot of money equally divided."

You're focus is on the election. I've tried to express the limitations of the "selection set," if you will.

Can we try this? 2026 will be:

1. a referendum on Trump
2. a referendum about affordability and cost of living
3. other things too

I think we'll likely have a broad agreement there?

Here's the issue with your "selection set" in regard to affordability: One of the key impactors of affordability, specific to apartment rentals, are companies like AirBnB. This has taken millions of rental units off the market. Cities are desperately trying to pass ADU-build incentives to get home owners to add more rental units to their marketplace.

If candidates take this on, AirBnB and other similar services will have millions in brand advertising to compete against the candidate messaging. And, by definition of "brand advertising," this excludes any reference to the election or candidate so isn't money to a PAC, super PAC. It's just standard advertising. That Super PAC stuff is above and beyond this consideration.

AirBnB has every right to advertise their brand and their version of its benefits. That is covered under free speech -- as long as it's not false marketing.

This is what I mean about neutering campaigns. Candidates have to compete against more than just each other for "share of voice." (marketing term there)

If you simplify the world to a point where the ONLY messaging is that of the candidates to the topic(s) at hand -- I agree with you. But that's a false assumption. There is NO election where that's true.

• environmentally-driven candidates: vs. oil/gas, or vs. "clean" coal, etc
• data privacy: vs. social, or vs search/AI, etc
• deregulation: vs. unions, or small business, etc

and on it goes, processed foods, ride share, tech monopolies, screen time for kids, etc, etc, etc.

[tobetrained]

And I missed this article earlier today but, holy crap on topic:

[think before following links] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2y38v4prvo

PepsiCo talking about affordability and health:

"The firm is also pivoting towards health-focused products, with the launch of Doritos Protein later this year."

re: affordability and prices "The products in line for price cuts will not see their packaging size, ingredients or taste changed, PepsiCo promised." -- note they say nothing about product volume in the packaging.

Pepsi had $2.2 billion on US ad spending in 2024. 
[think before following links] https://adage.com/pepsico/

Candidates will need to compete with that.