USA Today Hates Freedom

This editorial extolling public financing of political campaigns graced today's USA Today editorial page. (You can read the opposing view from Kentucky Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConell, here.)

McConell's response is good, but being a Republican, he misses perhaps the key point of any debate over campaign financing - whether your talking about public financing, restrictions on fundraising, or restrictions on spending, the groups hit hardest are those that exist outside of the two-party system.

Say for instance that I want to start my own lonely libertarian party. Should I get taxpayer money? Clearly not, as a system where any lunatic can get money to run a campaign is unworkable. Therefore, we set restrictions as to who can get campaign money and who can not. So when I decide I'm starting my own party and running for office, my tax dollars go to support my opponents in the two major political parties. Can anyone tell me a way in which that scenario sounds fair or Constitutional? Isn't the government not supposed to favor certain types of speech over other types of speech and isn't it all the more egregious when the speech we're talking about is political speech?

I don't think many people would have liked if the Republican Congress, on it's way out the door, had passed a law that allocated taxpayer money to Republican and only Republican campaigns. Yet somehow, when Democrats and Republicans leave everyone else out in the cold it's supposed to be okay? I don't think so.