[livius]

He’s right. Speech is money...or, rather, money is speech. Air time doesn’t come free, and you need money - lots of it - to buy airtime.

The only people who were silenced by the old rules were people who relied on small or individual donors. Taking off all restrictions would give the middle class (he doesn’t mention the poor, since the poor generally don’t donate to candidates) collectively the clout that rich institutional donors such as the unions have.

What’s wrong with that?

[CutePuppy]

Not just airtime, which can be bought by PACs, though it's really not the same as the candidate because there are many rules that limit what can be done by PACs and many PACs are just in business to line their own pockets instead of supporting the candidate and his vision, and it's illegal to "coordinate" with the campaign (at least, for conservatives).

Travel, campaign staff and regular campaign activities may be severely limited, even when the "pro-specific-candidate" PACs are flush with money.

The qualified articulate middle-class people (not multimillionaires who could finance their own campaigns) could be tapped as candidates and adequately financed by others who are rich enough but have no political talents, time or interest in running for political office themselves.

Yeah - that's an equalizer that would significantly broaden qualified political talent pool running for all kinds of elective offices, and may reduce the time the candidates / politicians spend on fund-raising.