McLaughlin: Candidates shouldn’t let campaign contributors run their policies

Curran Mclaughlin

Potential GOP presidential candidates were fawning over billionaire Sheldon Adelson on March 28th who was hosting the Republican Jewish Coalition for four days at hotel and casino complex, the Venetian. Possible 2016 candidates traveled to Las Vegas hopes of gaining valuable support from one of world’s wealthiest.

Participating hopefuls include New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Each had a chance to address the conference but Adelson was only able to hear Christie’s and Kasich’s speech.

All speakers did their best to pander to Adelson and the RJC.

Gov. Walker mentioned lighting the menorah every Hanukah and the hebrew meaning of his son’s name.

Chris Christie mentioned his trip to Israel, a strong focus point of the Coalition. Christie gaffed when detailing his trip when he called land controlled by Israel “occupied territories.” Adelson was reported to decidedly not support Chris Christie by confident and president of Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein.

John Kasich took his speech to a more personal level with Sheldon Adelson, at times only addressing him solely.

Hey, listen, Sheldon, thanks for inviting me, and I want to thank all of you for giving me a chance to come here and speak. I don’t travel to these things much, but this is one that I thought was really, really important. And God bless you for what you do.” Said Kasich at the conclusion of his speech.

It feels like these future candidates are more contestants in a beauty pageant rather than prospects for the presidential race.

What’s next? The swimsuit competition?

Adelson obviously has a lot of pull within the GOP.

With the implementation of Super PACs, wealthy individuals and corporations can contribute any amount they please to candidates.

To gain the funding for campaigns, politicians have to pander to the donor to secure the funds.

This gives too much political leeway to billionaires and corporations to influence policies for their own self interests.

On top of that, the recent decision of the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Committee has struck down any limitations that can be donated by wealthy individuals. The cases was decided 5 to 4 with a sharp divide between liberal and conservative justices.

“If Citizens United opened a door, today’s decision, we fear, will open a floodgate,” Said Justice Stephen G. Breyer.

In a system where political ads dominate the airwaves throughout election season, where does it become too much? Americans believe most political ads to be negative and misleading.

Maybe it’s time to redesign how political campaigns are run in America. A system that isn’t aligned with special interest money.

Money flow to politicians needs to be limited to keep from the hands of greed. Limited to a point where a single outside party can’t affect how the politician conducts his policies when assuming the office position that they are filling.

Politicians are supposed to be the voice of the people who elect them in office, not the voice of who can contributes the largest amounts of money. It’s clear who politicians are more interested in appeasing.