Michael Lissack respond to the public interest, to the genuine needs of all citizens, and to their own consciences requires that the role of private money in public life be reduced as much as possible. All candidates should receive some public support, as presidential candidates already do, as well as some access to radio and TV. All paid political radio and television advertising would be illegal, just as we’ve done with cigarettes and liquor. That’s where much of the money now goes. It will immediately reduce the cost of campaigns and eliminate the corrupt political commercials we’re now forced to endure. Instead, the FCC will require television stations to provide free time for can- didates. Both a cost ceiling and a time limit should be put on all campaigns. If the campaign process is going to work, it must be organized for the press, not by the press. The campaign must be made more coherent, so that communication during the campaign is more instructive. The campaign could be improved by shortening the nominating phase. The challenge is to abridge the nominating process and at the same time to slow it down. As things stand now, the weeding-out process occurs too quickly, while the campaign lasts too long. Both are detrimental to effective communication between candidates and voters. The usual arguments made against a lengthy campaign are that it disrupts the policy process, discourages the candidacies of responsible officeholders, and wears out the voters. On the other hand, it has been claimed that a lengthy campaign enables the voters to learn about the choices they face. The public acquires very little information about the candidates’ politics during the nominating phase, and over the course of a long campaign, the voters get distracted from the performance of government, as lesser issues compete for their attention. A lengthy campaign also makes it difficult for the candidates to establish their agendas; their pledges quickly become old news. Ironically, today’s nearly year-long campaign actually makes the can- didates’ politics less intelligible to voters than would a shorter one. A lengthy campaign has another degenerative effect on election communication. The tone of news coverage becomes increasingly negative as the campaign pro- gresses through the primary election, convention, and general election phases. As the campaign wears on, the press becomes increasingly critical
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