Financing Presidential Campaigns
...d for a third party or minor party candidate to be competitive in a presidential election, when compared to the two major party candidates, and this shows that public financing of presidential campaigns plays a huge role in candidate emergence. To prove this, both George W. Bush and Al Gore received $67.56 million from the federal government [Pika 51] while the Green party candidate Ralph Nader received no public funds, and had to run his campaign on just $3.3 million in private contributions that he raised on his own. [Pika 52] This is one big reason why Nader only received 2.7 percent of the vote. So, there is a direct correlation between public financing of presidential campaigns and the success of a particular candidate. Now there are many components of campaign finance law and public financing, and these laws shape presidential elections in many ways. Other than public funding, campaign expenses can be paid from many sources, such as independent campaign expenditures, as well as soft money. Independent campaign expenditures are made by either committees or individuals that want to elect a candidate or beat another candidate, but they are not connected to the candidate’s campaign. [Pika 52] But independent campaign expenditures are not as important to elections today as soft money is. Soft money is when political party organizations or political action committees (PACs) spend money for any purpose except for advertising of the campaign. So soft money is used for get out the vote projects, to get more citizens registered to vote, as well as distributing yard signs, bumper stickers [Pika 52] and other candidate “propaganda”. Although independent campaign expenditures have declined, soft money has remained constant, and in the last couple presidential elections has actually been a very important tool for the major ...