draft of aN ARTICLE ON MAINE DIRTY ELECTIONS.

a study (pdf) has been done on public financing in maine.
tentative conclusions: (mine, maybe not theirs)
before the dirty elections act, 3 million a year was raised privately.
now, it's 3 million a year plus unknown amount for implied advocacy.
main thing that has changed is move from voltantary to involuntary.
that is, under the old system, a person could choose to allocate resources:
feed the kids, or give to campaign? maslow's hierarchy shows that most people prefer to feed their kids, and will curtail political contributions if there is a conflict.
under the institutionalized graft system, a person is forced to contribute to campaigns, even if she doesn't want to, and even if this means the kids go hungry.
while the money is the same, the alternative costs are much higher, adding to the net social disutility. the politicans who receive the graft are rarely poor, so for the poor, the dirty elections regime is a transfer from them to the already wealthier politicans.
i have not recently reread the case that upheld the law. i see constitutional problems related to the way the act uses public funds to retaliate for private speech, but i do not know whether the complaint addressed those concerns.
My interest in this scheme goes back a few years, when i noticed it seemed it could be undone by civil obedience.. have 1000 people run for office under the system, or even 100. 151 houseseats, 36 senate.
the study authors seemed to have no way of estimating implied advocacy - they
assume what the government measures must be true, and if the government does not measure it, it is unknowable. this is another way in which the system could be gamed. credibility gap?
in 02, libertarians mostly sat out the process -of 2 candidates, one took the graft.
not clear what '04 pattern will be. only 8 greens took the graft. the system tends to tax people who don't support the big two parties, to fund the big two parties,
but isless discrimatory than other graft systems, e.g. fec, indiana.
thegraft went disproportionately to safe districts; private funds were targeted to where they might matter.

wiki lbj

http://www.libraryreference.org/johnson.html
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Lyndon%20Baines%20Johnson
a search for the golden bough lead to moyers/campbell, moyers/lbj.

i'm not sure why the1066 battle of clontarf shows up as a link.