Choosing a candidate in an anonymous process sounds a lot like an election, but much earlier and with dollars instead of votes.

It seems to me that ending all direct contributions (and the use of one's own personal wealth) in favor of a public funding system that gives every candidate an equal share would have the same effect and cost taxpayers the same amount. However, it wouldn't give any candidate a financial advantage from the start. The budget for campaigns could also be reduced, forcing the candidates to participate in free events, such as debates, instead of just buying airtime to run attack ads.

Unfortunately, the politicians like the current system and they are not going to abandon it.

The $50/voter idea proposed by the two Yale professors is a can of worms which attempts to displace an idea already proven to work very well in 28 states, most notably Arizona and Maine.

The presidential public financing system is broken, no argument. But the answer is to amend it, not end it. There are at least 5 things needed to fix this system, most of which have to do with making it more like the successful state systems already in operation:

1. Increase the funding amounts, index them to inflation, and expand the system to include Congressional elections.

2. Add a "matching funds provision" so that publicly funded candidates (those who opt in to the system) get additional matching funds if a privately funded candidate tries to outspend them and thereby "buy the election." This keeps the playing field level and discourages the excessive spending by the privately funded candidate in the first place (since it no longer gives them any advantage).

3. Make the system FULL public financing so that we cease to reward those whose primary qualification for office is that they're good at raising private money.

4. Establish a more reliable funding source than the voluntary check-off on tax returns so that resources for the system aren't perenially threatened.

5. Educate the public on what public financing is and how they benefit from it. It's simply incorrect to say Americans don't want it when the truth is they don't really understand what it is. Something as simple as a one sentence explanatory preamble on the tax return (assuming this remains the funding source) would be a good first step. Example:

"Checking this box will make nonpartisan public funds available to qualified candidates, thereby reducing (if not eliminating) their need to seek or accept private donations from corporations, or unions and other non-profit groups, making them less beholden to such private organizations and more accountable to voters."

The Yale professors' idea goes off in several wrong directions and would foster all manner of mischief, most of which we and they haven't even thought of yet. Public financing is a proven solution which is staring us in the face. We should embrace it, make the needed improvements, and move on.

Those ubiquitous and dreadful 30-second TV commercials inundating the airwaves before an election push campaign costs sky-high. They mislead, misinform, and coarsen public discourse. Why should so much money be spent this way??? I suggest outlawing these sound-bite salvos (just like tobacco TV commercials are prohibited) and providing House, Senate and Presidential candidates with blocks of free time to be used in half-hour increments to intelligently discuss issues and positions. (No film or fancy effects.) Perhaps televised debates could be mandatory as well. Combine this with time limits for elections (Canada style) and public funding of elections and we'll have a more ethical, sensible and perhaps less polarized democracy.

If the past is any prologue to this issue, my money is on those who muddy the waters prior to any race: float any one of several undermining or disparaging strategies about why it can't work, why it is "unAmerican", why someone--anyone--is being deceptive or disingenuous by promoting so "democratic" a solution to big money fianacing of the political process. Get the picture?

It will be marketed to death. Quick and painless. Next idea?

I really don't mean to be so cynical, but I have seen it work that way in corporate America, in the educational process--anywhere a rational process is offered up as a salve. Damn, we have become so good at this...

My cure for campaign financing:

Let every candidate raise as much as they want, and as much as they can. Then it has to be evenly split among every Presidential candidate. Major party or mini-party, it doesn't matter.

The money has to be spent on legitimate campaign ,party and election work. The day after the election the funds revert to the U.S. Treasury and is assigned directly and only to providing medical care to uninsured citizens.

One comment I read in the article has been echoed in many places. The one I am referring to is that the public does not want to finance electiions because it does not check the magic box on the tax form. A closer look at this reveals that most taxes are prepared by tax professionals. These professionals are educated to not check the box, told not to check the box by superiors, and may have a stake in not having public financing.

Most Americans do not realize that the box even exists. If they were informed or specifically asked if they wanted it checked and had it explained to them I wonder if that would impact how many people would check the box. We at present have the best Democracy Money Can Buy (Thanks Greg Palast)we need to get it back. In a Democracy it is one person one vote, in a supposed free market it is one vote per dollar. I wonder why the Constitution now reads, "We the Corporations" ?

To the several people who suggested that the "anonymous donations" could be subverted by simply giving some precise amount (say, $9,821.63) as a signal of the source of the donations: you're misunderstanding the mechanism being used. Rather than hitting the candidate's coffers all at once, the donation would be broken up into chunks (say, $25 each), which would be donated over the course of several days. Hopefully, that will be enough to make sure that no individual donation source can stand out from the crowd, even if the donor tells the candidate when they donated.

I like the idea of weakening the power of corporate money. But I object to the idea of doing so by swamping them with public money. Unless the incentive for big donors is very sharply reduced, the campaigns still get incredibly expensive, and I don't think that expensive, flashy campaigns are good for us. Of course, most everyone knows that TV time is the primary expense for congressional and presidential races. They also know that these thirty second spots do almost nothing to improve discourse or inform voters.

If we could pass some law making TV advertising less attractive, it would do a lot to drain the swamp of politics of the brackish water of money, thus eliminating the bloodsucking mosquitos of special interests, and freeing us from the malaria of... okay, stupid analogy. The point is, TV advertising is what makes campaign contributions a big deal. An outright ban or limit on the amount of campaign advertising stations can carry would probably be found unconstitutional, which is a shame. In fact, given the current court, I would be surprised if it supported any limitations on big business' right to buy elections. The best I can think of is a law that required the government to give a dollar to every opponent for every dollar that a given candidate spent on TV advertising.

My other fear of this proposal is that, even if the proposal does make donations by big businesses less effective, they'll just raise their contributions until the overall effect is the same. If a few million will get your industry tens of billions of dollars in favorable legislation and subsidies, that's a huge return on a tiny investment. If they suddenly find themselves having to put $10 into the system to get the same results they could with $1 before, they'll find a way to funnel that money in, unless the laws are tightened up, and more tightly enforced.

While I think I could support some version of this proposal, I'd still like to see something more akin to the public financing laws that exist in many states. Shorter races, more support for serious discussion (public debates, voter information drives, etc.) and a more level playing field would all be the best. But I don't think I could reject this plan if it had a good chance of passing. Any real reform would be good, because of the chicken-and-egg nature of such reforms: if the current system keeps the current legislators in power, they're not going to vote to overturn that system.

One possibility: a few individual states could band together and implement something like this without national legislation. Say that four or five states got together and created a fund that any voter in those states could access. As a voter in one of those states, I could direct that $25 from the fund be given to the presidential candidate of my choice. The advantage: no national legislation needs to be passed. Instead, it would rely on individual states' actions, and those individual states would have an interest in having greater sway in presidential races. For example, if my home state of Utah did this, maybe a candidate or two would stop by to encourage ordinary people to direct their contributions to them instead of to the other guy. I mean, with half a million voters at $25 each, that's... carry the three... not chump change.

Other states would feel obligated to join in. After all, if Utah is doing it, that's a lot of Red State money flowing into the race. Maine might join the coalition just to provide a counterbalance.

On a tangential note: I've noticed that a lot of interesting proposals for changing national politics rely on individual state action. For example, if California decided to always give its 55 electoral votes to whichever candidate won the popular vote, it would effectively render the electoral college moot, and turn the entire national race into a nationwide popular vote.