I’m going to split hairs a bit here and say that yes, I would feel obligated to refuse a donation of money from anyone outside my district (there is part of me that would wish to make an exception for immediate family members but even then I’m not sure I would accept such donations). On the other hand, donations of time and influence are acceptable.

In other words, if you believed in my candidacy enough to endorse me publicly, even if you went so far as to come to my district and speak to voters in support of my candidacy I would consider that a perfectly acceptable way to lend support from outside the district.

Refusing monetary donations from outside the district would definitely put such a candidate at a disadvantage, but I think it would say a lot to the people of the district that the candidate intended to represent them and not any outside entity.

But I have a question. If you were to run, say, for a position in the Utah State House of Representatives, would you have to refuse a donation of time or money from me (given that I don’t live in your district)?

You see, I think that anybody that would work to implement principles of good government would be worthy of my support, regardless of where they live.

It is my belief that it is a very rare circumstance where a person is legally prevented from doing the right thing (more rare than being legally discouraged from doing the right thing). That being said, I agree that it would require a lot of hard work to campaign as I have outlined. I think that hard work would weed out virtually any candidate who was not very committed to whatever they were trying to accomplish.

I would love to see a non-celebrity candidate run such a race as well. In fact, as an undeniable non-celebrity I would be more than happy to run such a campaign. I am realistic enough to know that as a non-celebrity there is a long road of groundwork that I would have to lay before I could hope to run a campaign with any chance of being taken seriously. If I ever feel that I have laid that groundwork you can bet that I will run in the first race where I am not satisfied with any existing candidates. (That shouldn’t be too hard to come by unless our candidates improve before I am ready to run.)

I’m not exactly sure how requiring businesses to donate indirectly is an improvement. I’d rather have a clear picture of who is giving what to each candidate. Since businesses can be dramatically impacted by government, should they be cut off from direct donation?

Arm’s length campaigning by third parties (i.e. PACs) for a specific candidate is an impossible mythical creation. Nothing like this ever happens without some kind of coordination without it resulting in being an embarrassment for the candidate. Maybe this could work in utopia, but it seems awfully puerile to think it could work in real life.

The interesting thing is that no laws or policies would have to be changed for your ideal candidate to implement the kind of plan you have described. In fact, a candidate could make the funding issue a major point of his/her campaign.

But you are talking about a lot of work. Your ideal candidate would need to do a lot of personal work to have a broad enough contributor base to be competitive. Undoubtedly this would require a fundraising organization. With the increase of caller ID, the telemarketing approach is becoming less effective. Candidates that develop a celebrity persona and following would certainly have a leg up in getting broad based voluntary donations over your more lackluster roll-up-the-sleeves (but possibly more effective) type.

I’m not trying to shoot down all of your arguments. I’m merely thinking in reality mode. I guess what I’d like is to see an example of a (non-celebrity) candidate effectively running a campaign like this.

The only problems I see (and I admit that sometimes I can be very myopic) are: (1) the legislator should be legislating for two years, not just one and then running for re-election, including obtaining financing; and (2) what is the “true” cost of getting someone’s money–that ultimate payoff to those who finance the campaign. Eliminating the business contributions and the PAC contributions might mitigate the second point somewhat.

Despite not liking the candidate, President Obama financially supported much of his campaign through the individual contributions and through intelligent use of the internet. It may have helped in the election as well when those contributors put their votes with their money.
I do like the component of your plan that puts the “fundraiser” in front of the “funder” to state his/her case and positions. But, I’m not quite sure how that is significantly different than what–in theory–currently happens.

Ultimately, getting honest representation is what all of us would be buying and voting for, and although it does cost money to get elected, the money always seem to have some corrupting influence.