Byrne's Eye View

Campaign finance reform either goes way too far, or not nearly far enough. I don't feel like making first argument, because that one seems natural (what, you get lots of ads if you're rich, but not if you have rich friends? Why not?)

If it doesn't go far enough, the question becomes: how can we make campaigns more equal? Once we've reduced the influence of people with excess wealth, what should we do next? I'd suggest that the next thing to fix is the excess influence of people with too much spare time. Ron Paul supporters, for example, stowed away on Romney's free busses, turning Romney's money advantage into leverage for Paul's spare-time advantage. To equalize this kind of thing, we just need to subject those people to the same constraints that face Romney's most avid supporters. Thus, in the spirit of campaign finance reform, I suggest that:

1) Nobody be allowed to think about, talk about, or write about politics for more than an hour a week, and 2) No one be allowed to say the name of any candidate during the 90 days before the election.

McCain and Feingold, I await your approval.