White House race may cost hopefuls $500M (public financing is dead)

[Herman Munster]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060916/ap_on_el_pr/presidential_money

WASHINGTON - Those three dollars you've set aside in your tax returns as a good deed toward clean presidential elections? Forget about it. Nobody wants them anymore.

Strategists from both parties estimate the White House race in 2008 could cost each nominee $500 million — far more than the Presidential Election Campaign Fund can afford. As a result, this next presidential campaign could mark the first time in 30 years that the Democratic and Republican nominees turn down the fund's millions in both the primary and the general elections.

"The public financing system was a great system, but it's broke," said Steve Elmendorf, the deputy campaign manager for Democrat John Kerry when the Massachusetts senator ran in 2004.

"There's not enough money in it anymore. It's highly unlikely that any candidate in any party will stay in the public funding system," Elmendorf said.

[serryjw]

1. One more nail in the coffin

of democracy