Former vice-presidential nominee and likely future presidential nominee, John Edwards spoke at Gnomedex 6.0.
He wanted to 'engage in the dialogue' and stop sounding like a politician. Problem is...in order to be a viable candidate on the national stage, you need money...and a lot of it. You either have it yourself (becoming less realistic as the cost to elect continues to increase) or you need to raise it from special interests.
These special interests have influence on the decisions national candidates make ... more so than any 'tech geek conference' could ever do by a factor of a million. So... how can someone get elected to a national office w/o losing sight of why he/she was there in the first place?
No more TV ads? Take massive campaign fund-raising out of the formula and make one vote actually equal one vote.
Obviously, large companies in the home-state of a senator or congressman deserve special attention ... more so than the local crazy cat lady who complains about the barking dog; however, let's be realistic and not allow it to get out of control.
He wanted to 'engage in the dialogue' and stop sounding like a politician. Problem is...in order to be a viable candidate on the national stage, you need money...and a lot of it. You either have it yourself (becoming less realistic as the cost to elect continues to increase) or you need to raise it from special interests.
These special interests have influence on the decisions national candidates make ... more so than any 'tech geek conference' could ever do by a factor of a million. So... how can someone get elected to a national office w/o losing sight of why he/she was there in the first place?
No more TV ads? Take massive campaign fund-raising out of the formula and make one vote actually equal one vote.
Obviously, large companies in the home-state of a senator or congressman deserve special attention ... more so than the local crazy cat lady who complains about the barking dog; however, let's be realistic and not allow it to get out of control.
