Killing Free Speech
Campaign Finance Reform & Election Reform
Monday, September 2, 2002
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by Kenneth Scot Stremsky NOTE: 'The Green Papers' is a non-partisan website "dedicated to the dissemination of facts, figures, tidbits and commentary- in fact, information of all different kinds" (to quote from our site's own Mission Statement ) about Politics; at the same time (to again quote from 'The Green Papers' Mission Statement ) "this site is an exercise in Free Speech. We certainly support the notion that you have the same right of Free Speech we are here exercising ourselves." Therefore, we have no objection to submissions to the 'vox Populi' section of our website from candidates for public office, subject to the same "rules" re: our policy on 'vox Populi' submissions that anyone else submitting material to that section must also follow. At the same time, the publication of such a 'vox Populi' submission from a candidate for public office should not, in any way, be construed as an endorsement- either express or implied- of that person's particular candidacy or the views expressed in the course of that person's campaign by either 'The Green Papers' as an institution or members of the website's Staff; we, indeed, welcome appropriate responses and/or comments from the opponent(s) of the submitting candidate- or spokespersons for their campaigns- for publication in our 'vox Populi' section. TheGreenPapers.com Staff Killing Free Speech, Campaign Finance Reform & Election Reform KILLING FREE SPEECH: The media should not be surprised that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has a lot of supporters for limiting political speech. The media contributes to the problem by not giving much coverage to little known candidates. In New Hampshire, some newspapers constantly forget to mention that I am running as a Republican for the United States Senate when they mention a Republican opponent of mine. Many people think a newspaper that says it supports political speech is a liar when it fails to mention all the Republican challengers for United States Senate from New Hampshire when it mentions a particular Republican candidate for United States Senate from New Hampshire. On August 7, 2002, I was the only candidate for United States Senate from New Hampshire who posted information on the League of Women Voters website which is http://www.dnet.org. One of the questions candidates are asked deals with campaign finance reform. If dnet.org did not limit the amount of characters each section could have, I would have the campaign finance refom section in this letter on that website. There is not much difference between Senator Bob Smith and Congressman John Sununu on the issues. There is, however, a great deal of difference on several issues between they and myself. They do not discuss on their websites much information dealing with campaign finance reform, election reform, and tort reform. Neither of them mention using Bayh-Dole on their websites to lessen prescription drug prices even though it has been the Law of the Land for many years. Bayh-Dole may be found at Duke University's website which is http://www.duke.edu. Bayh-Dole allows the federal government to license patents based on federal government research to other companies. The more companies that make the same drug the lower the price of the drug will probably be. My proposals dealing with soldiers and veterans discussed on my website do more for our soldiers and veterans than their proposals on their websites. The media should not be surprised if within 50 years Freedom of the Press is lost. The only Republican candidate for United States Senate from New Hampshire who discusses the Bill of Rights in great detail on a website is me. The only candidate who educates the voters a great deal about the issues is me. I believe that Trade Promotion Authority is not constitutional because of Article Two of the United States Constitution which says a Treaty requires the Advice and Consent of the United States Senate. Last year, I think Congressman John Sununu said the President of the United States of America should have Trade Promotion Authority because he did not think 535 members of Congress should be involved in making trade agreements. Does he think 535 members of Congress should be involved in making laws? Does he think the President of the United States of America should have the power to say to Congress I want this law passed up or down without changes? Does Congressman John Sununu understand why we have separation of government powers and checks and balances? Does Congressman John Sununu realize that the Legislative Branch of government according to the Constitution is the most powerful branch of government and that many members of Congress have given power to the President of the United States of America that the President of the United States of America is not supposed to have. If you do not believe me, read Article One of the United States Constitution and then think about U.S. history. For additional information on Mr. Stremsky's views on Freedom of the Press,
visit this page on his site: CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM: TAX DEDUCTIBLE CAMPAIGN FUND The Federal Government should allow people to contribute as much money as they want to a tax deductible campaign fund that will help candidates for the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, and Governor run for elective office when the candidate agrees to spend less than one million dollars on a primary election or a general election. The Federal Government might want to allow candidates to obtain money from the campaign fund when they agree to spend less than ten million dollars on a primary election or a general election. I am not sure if the limit should be one million dollars or ten million dollars. The campaign fund should also help candidates for President of the United States of America who agree to spend less than twenty million dollars on primary elections. Congress might want the limit to be fifty million instead of twenty million dollars. CAMPAIGN FINANCE Campaign Finance Reform is discussed in the March 21, 2002 New York Times. Individuals, unions, businesses, non profits, political parties, and political action committees should be allowed to spend as much money as they want on political advertising any time they want including within 60 days of an election. If political advertising is restricted, Amendment One of the United States Constitution is weakened. Amendment One of the United States Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble; and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." When political advertising is restricted, freedom of speech does not happen. When political advertising is restricted, the ability of people "to petition the Government for a redress of grievnaces" is lessened. Individuals, businesses, unions, non profits. political parties, and political action committees should be allowed to discuss issues without mentioning the names of candidates. Individuals, businesses, unions, non profits, political parties, and political action committees should be able to say who they do not want to be elected and why in political advertisements. Individuals, businesses, unions, non profits, political parties, and political action committees should only be allowed to endorse a candidate and say why they want the candidate elected after the candidate has given them written permission to endorse the candidate. A candidate should be allowed to say in writing when the candidate does not want to be endorsed by someone or some organization and that person or organization should have to stop endorsing the candidate. If political advertising is restricted, incumbents have an easier time getting re-elected. Congress does not have the power to limit how much money a candidate may spend on his/her campaign because of Amendment One of the United States Constitution. Congress does have the power to limit how much money and other types of contributions that individuals, businesses, unions, non profits, political parties, and political action committees may contribute to candidates because contributions are a type of commerce. Congress could say that individuals other than a candidate may not contribute more than $1,000 to a candidate's election. Congress does have the power to say that businesses and unions may not contribute any money and other types of contributions to candidates and political parties. Congress does have the power to say that individuals may not contribute more than $10,000 a year to political parties. CAMPAIGN LAW SHOULD BE THE FOLLOWING An individual other than a candidate should be allowed to contribute up to $10,000 to a candidate's particular election. An individual should be allowed to contribute $10,000 for a 2002 election and another $10,000 election for a 2004 election after January 2003. Unions, businesses, and non profits should not be allowed to make contributions to candidates. Union, businesses, and non profits should not be allowed to contribute more than $5,000 a year to political parties. An individual should be allowed to contribute up to $100,000 a year to political parties. Political parties should be allowed to contribute as much money as they want to candidates. Political action committees should only be allowed to contribute to a candidate's campaign when the candidate controls the political action committee. The Federal Election Commission should only fine a campaign, a candidate, and a treasurer when the camapign has done something significantly wrong. I think the Federal Election Commission is imposing fines when fines should not be imposed. The fines can be significant and they are discussed on the Federal Election Commission's website which is www.fec.gov. BANK AS CAMPAIGN TREASURER A campaign should be allowed to choose a bank as treasurer. Contributions could be mailed to a bank. The bank could file information electronically with the Federal Election Commission that includes name, address, and amount of contribution every two weeks. The bank could also file electronically with the Federal Election Commission that says how much the campaign has spent and what the campaign has spent money on every two weeks. A bank could receive between 5 percent and 35 percent of contributions not contributed by the candidate to act as campaign treasurer. FEDERAL CAMPAIGN TREASURER COMMISSION Congress should create a Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission. The Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission should allow candidates for the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, President of the United States of America, and Governor to choose the Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission as treasurer. If a candidate chooses the Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission as treasurer, the Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission would receive a percentage of contributions. The Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission could receive between five percent and twenty-five percent of contributions not contributed by the candidate. Donations to a candidate's campaign could be mailed to the Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission. The Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission would take its fee and then let the candidate know how much money the canidate has to spend from the contributions in a checking account the Federal Election Commission could obtain monthly statements from. The Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission would tell the Federal Election Commission electronically the names, addresses, and amounts of money that have been contributed every two weeks. The Federal Campaign Treasurer Commission would tell the Federal Election Commission every two weeks how much money the campaign has spent and what the campaign has spent money on. ELECTION REFORM: ELECTIONS Federal, state, and local elections should take place on weekends. A person should be able to vote by absentee ballot when the person will be in the locality on the day of the election. A person could be required to vote by absentee ballot at City Hall before the election. A person should have to show a photo driver's license or a photo non driver's license to vote in primary elections and general elections to reduce voter fraud. All voting in Congressional and Presidential elections should end at 11:45 pm Eastern Standard Time [NOTE: 0445 the following day UTC- REB~A] everywhere in the country. Congressional and Presidential primary elections could end before May 15. Congressional and Presidential general elections could be in September instead of November. Ballots should include none of the above boxes for President of the United States of America, United States Senate, and United States House of Representatives. If a none of the above box obtains more than fifty percent of the votes cast for a particular position, another election should be held and the people who received fewer votes than none of the above for the particular position should not be allowed to participate in the special election. BALLOTS I do not think people should have to pay any filing fees and meet any petition requirements to get their names on Presidential primary ballots, United States Senate ballots, United States House of Representatives ballots, and Governor ballots. I believe the Federal Government should pay the states for the printing of these ballots. PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES The following suggestions dealing with Presidential primaries might encourage more people and better people to run for President of the United States of America. All states should have primaries. New Hampshire should have the first primary. The primaries of the five states with the smallest populations should take place three weeks after the primary in New Hampshire. The primaries of the next five smallest population states should take place three weeks later. The primaries of five states should take place every three weeks until the primaries in thirty-six states have taken place. A month after the primaries of thirty-six states have taken place, the primaries of the fourteen most populous states should take place on the same day. ELECTORAL COLLEGE A constitutional amendment should be passed that improves the Electoral College by having the winner of a state receiving two Electoral votes and the winner of a Congressional district receiving one Electoral vote. Electors should have to support the candidates they are pledged. If a tie takes place, the United States House of Representatives should choose the President of the United States of America. REFERENDUMS An amendment to the United States Constitution should be passed that says that when at least 60 percent of the voters who are at least 18 years of age vote for a referendum, the referendum shall become law. When at least 70 percent of the United States House of Representatives wants this law that was created by referendum vetoed, this law shall be vetoed. REMOVING AN ELECTED OFFICIAL FROM OFFICE An amendment to the United States Constitution should be passed that gives voters who live in a Congressional district the ability to remove from office their Representative from the United States House of Representatives. A Representative should be removed when at least 60 percent of the voters in a district vote for the removal. An election for another Representative should take place within two months. The Representative who was removed should not be allowed to participate in this special election. An amendment to the United States Constitution should be passed that gives voters in a state the power to remove their Senator from the United States Senate. A Senator should be removed when at least 60 percent of the voters living in a state vote for the removal of their United States Senator. An election for another United States Senator should be held two months later. The Senator who was removed from office should not be allowed to participate in this election. An amendment to the United States Constitution should be passed that says when a United States Senator dies or resigns from office as a United States Senator, the Governor of the state the Senator came from gets to pick a temporary United States Senator who will hold office until a special election is held. An election for a permanent United States Senator should be held within two months of the death or resignation of a United States Senator. The temporary Senator should be allowed to participate in this special election. An amendment to the United States Constitution should be passed that gives voters the power to remove the President of the United States of America from office. The President of the United States of America should be removed from office when at least 80 percent of the voters of the United States of America vote for the removal of the President of the United States of America. If the President of the United States of America and the Vice President of the United States of America are removed from office, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives should become President of the United States of America. TERM LIMITS I do not support term limits because I believe they would keep the best people from serving when we need them the most. Term limits would have kept former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from serving as long as he did which would have been a shame. Term limits might increase mediocrity. Sincerely, Kenneth Scot Stremsky Richard E. Berg-Andersson (in his capacity as Commentator/Researcher for TheGreenPapers.com ) responds: I will not comment on all but one small aspect of Mr. Stremsky's proposals regarding both Campaign Finance and Election Reform. Mr. Stremsky has laid out his own views quite well enough for those of you reading his 'vox Populi' to judge for yourselves as to whether or not his proposals have merit. I will, however, first comment on the issue of Presidential Primary reform which makes up a significant portion of Mr. Stremsky's Election Reform proposals: Regardless of the merits of Mr. Stremsky's proposals as to how to arrange the schedule of Primaries (I myself would make it more on a rotating regional basis, rather than a small-to-larger State basis as he does-- to me, arranging the schedule of Primaries by increasing population effectively disenfranchises the voters in the larger-populated States because, even under his proposal, we are likely to know the eventual nominee well before the end of the Primary process), there can be no real reform of the Presidential Primary process until there is real reform of the delegate selection process for which the Primary (along with, in fewer and fewer States, the old-fashioned Caucus/Convention procedure) is an adjunct. As long as you have the so-called "PLEO Delegate" (what, at one time, was called the "Superdelegate") in the Democratic Party National Convention, you basically are making a challenger to the presidential candidate favored by the Party hierarchy gain a greater number of delegates than the favored candidate in order to win the presidential nomination. While this is, as of this writing, not a factor in the Republican Party's presidential nominating procedure, you still have- in the GOP- certain rules (such as closed Primaries) which prevent a challenger from being on anything close to the proverbial "level playing field" with a Party-anointed "front-runner" (and that is just what a "front-runner" in a presidential primary "season" is: the "anointed one"-- all that is missing is the actual oil on head!... there seems to be a mistaken belief that the media anoints the "front-runner"; but this does not happen unless and until certain key media people have already been fed information by their sources within the upper echelons of the Party structure!!) Senator John McCain's strong challenge- in the early stages of the 2000 Republican Presidential Primaries- to eventual GOP nominee, and now President, George W. Bush is actually something of a miracle when one reviews the "rules of the game". Even the Bush campaign, although clearly then-Governor Bush was the Party's "anointed" long before a vote was cast in anger in 2000, was not above putting great pressure on Lousiana to cancel (as that State eventually did) its early Republican Caucuses because the Bush campaign feared a fractured result in that State (as written about in one of my earliest Commentaries on this very website!) The simple fact is that, as long as the Political Party- as an institution- is allowed to calculate its own National Convention delegate selection rules outside of the rule of independent Law, you will never truly reform the presidential nominating process. You can move Primary/Caucus dates around to your heart's content and you will still not remove the essential fact of that "illusion of participation" in which the Party rank and file is fooled into thinking they actually have a say in who the eventual presidential nominee is while those who actually run the Party at the top are pulling the proverbial "marionette strings" to make damn sure that the eventual nominee is THEIR guy! I knew- in the Summer of 1999, before 'The Green Papers' ever appeared for the first time on the Internet- that Texas Governor George W. Bush would be facing Vice President Al Gore come 7 November 2000; I saw no evidence (in fact, I saw plenty of evidence pointing the other way!) that my no-brainer "prediction" was at all an accident, despite- a few months later- news magazines proclaiming that Bill Bradley was allegedly "hot" and- a few months after that- John McCain taking us all on a rather interesting- albeit diversionary- February ride in the snow! Article I, Section 4, clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States clearly states (in part): "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such regulations..."; Article II, Section 1, clause 4 of that same document reads: "The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors [NOTE: for President and now also Vice-President] and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States"-- unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution does not- absent a future amendment to same- give Congress the power to set the times, places and manner of choosing delegates to National Party Conventions! I would dare say that Congress- along with, for that matter, State Legislatures- generally likes it this way: after all, who make up the vast majority of Congress and the State Legislatures? People who were loyal to the Party hierarchy in their respective States; people who did not so openly seek to remove that very "illusion of participation" that pervades the presidential nominating process in the two major Parties!! It IS true that the United States Supreme Court ruled- in the case of United States v. Classic [313 U.S. 299 (1941)]- that "The primary... is an integral part of the procedure for the popular choice of Congressman", thus seemingly bringing a Congressional (and, by extension, a Senatorial) Primary directly under the constitutional protections of Congressional regulation per Art. I, Sec. 4, cl. 1. In the later case of Smith v. Allwright [321 U.S. 649 (1944)], the Court reached the conclusion that, while "[t]he privilege of membership in a Party may be, as this Court said in Grovey v. Townsend [295 U.S. 45], no concern of the State", "when, as here, that privilege is also the essential qualification for voting in a primary to select nominees for a general election, the State makes the action of the Party the action of the State". Yet, neither of these decisions by Our Nation's highest Court seem to be at all able to reach the Presidential Primary or Caucus/Convention in any of the several States or, for that matter, the National Party Convention to which these State-based procedures are merely ancillary, absent a specific grant to Congress to so alter such procedures by future constitutional amendment- an amending proposal that I am more than certain that the Political Parties and their minions, the Congressmen and Senators and State Legislators they have seen fit to place on the ballot, will fight to the max! Still, someone at least somewhat more intelligent and certainly much more knowledgable than I as to all the intricacies and arcana of Election Law in particular in its relation to Constitutional Law in general might yet be able to figure out a way to legitimize- to, in fact, constitutionalize- Congressional regulation of Presidential Primaries and Caucuses- if not the National Party Conventions themselves- without the need for such a constitutional amendment; such a person might well take heart in the words of then-soon-to-become Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone as written in the Court opinion re: the Classic case, that We may assume that the Framers of the Constitution in adopting [Article I, Section 2 which states that "Members" of the House of Representatives are to be elected "by the People of the several States", thereby securing a Right to Choose Representatives in Congress] did not have specifically in mind the selection and elimination of candidates for Congress by the direct primary any more than they contemplated the application of the Commerce Clause to interstate telegraph, telephone and wireless communication which are concededly within it. But in determining whether a provision of the Constitution applies to a new subject matter, it is of little significance that it is one with which the Framers were not familiar. For in setting up an enduring framework of government they undertook to carry out for the indefinite future and in all the vicissitudes of the changing affairs of men, those fundamental purposes which the instrument itself discloses. Hence we read its words, not as we read legislative codes which are subject to continuous revision with the changing course of events, but as the revelation of the great purposes of which were intended to be achieved by the Constitution as a continuing instrument of government. If we rememeber that "it is a Constitution we are expounding", we cannot rightly prefer, of the possible meanings of its words, that which will defeat rather than effectuate the Constitutional purpose. I want to also here briefly address at least a few of Mr. Stremsky's comments in the "KILLING FREE SPEECH" segment of his 'vox Populi'. Since I am the co-creator of 'The Green Papers' and, as noted in the disclaimer ahead of Mr. Stremsky's comments, this site is, in and of itself, "an exercise in Free Speech", I feel compelled to respond: I most strongly disagree that "[t]he media should not be surprised if within 50 years Freedom of the Press is lost". I am not- nor was I ever- one of those "pie in the sky" overly-optimistic folk who saw the Internet as the death-knell of international borders or even national (or, for that matter, nationalistic) government; I am not- even now- one of those who at all subscribes to the viewpoint that the Internet will eventually emerge as the "new Nation-State"-- if anything, the Internet is more likely to create numerous tiny, little "Nation-State"s in cyberspace, assuming it even subsumes or even completely supplants that which we now know as the Nation-State in the first place! I know too much of the history of technology to have assumed the Internet was anything inherently different than any other earlier information/communications technology-- the branch post office, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television all were the "wild frontier" early in their respective histories but, soon enough, were all tamed by a combination of both government regulation and the costs of providing service: the Internet is certainly no exception. At the same time, the Internet has provided a great deal of opportunity for Free Speech. 20 years ago- even 10 years ago- a source of political/electoral information such as 'The Green Papers' could not possibly have existed; as a result, much of the information that one finds on our site would not have been so easily available to so wide a potential audience (one that is theoretically, judging from the e-mails I have received since the site's inception, world-wide!). It IS true that the mainstream media has, to some extent, "dropped the ball" here: basically assuming that virtually NOone could possibly be interested in knowing just how a particular Presidential Primary might help determine the eventual nominee for President of a Major Party, the mainstream media has- to varying extents- opted to address the "lowest common denominator" in its coverage of such things. Back during the 2000 Presidential Primary "season", before each Major Party had yet held its National Conventions, a college student e-mailed me and asked me where we of 'The Green Papers' got many of the ideas re: what we posted on the site regarding such things as delineating (in plain English, no less!) delegate selection rules, how each Party determined how many delegates each State would get and the like; my terse reply was simple: "See any major metropolitan daily re: how it covered, say, the 1948 and 1952 pre-Convention period on microfilm". The simple fact is that, what we are doing here on 'The Green Papers' is- for the most part- really nothing new (though the ability to manipulate at least some of the data utilizing early 21st Century computer technology is): it is merely stuff that what we would today call the print media once did not all that long ago but has, for the most part, stopped doing since. Thus, the Internet- and web sites such as 'The Green Papers'- can well fill a void left by "the media" and that gives me a great deal of hope for the future of Free Speech. But, however much the mainstream media might differ from what is still largely a free-wheeling World Wide Web, is a newspaper or TV or radio station then "lying" when it, say, mentions either Senator Bob Smith or Congressman John Sununu without mentioning Mr. Stremsky's likewise candidacy for the Republican nomination for United States Senator from the State of New Hampshire? Certainly it can be argued that they are being quite selective about the truth-- but is so being selective really "lying"?? The motto of The New York Times- for over a century now- has been "All the News That's Fit to Print"; while I might cynically state that the motto of today's media might very well be "All the News That Fits", the original Times motto illustrates that all media has- and has always had- to make decisions about what IS, in fact, "fit to print"-- that is, decisions have to be made within the confines of what is known in the Journalism trade as "News Judgment". Even here on 'The Green Papers', we have to regularly deal with such "News Judgment". I often get e-mails that complain that I didn't address a particular topic of interest to a given e-mailer in a Commentary of mine while I was perfectly willing to address another- perhaps related, perhaps not- topic: I suppose that if I, indeed, DID have 124 hours in a day and 70 days in a week and 520 weeks in a year, I might be able to touch on many more topics in my Commentaries; however, even then, I suspect, someone would still e-mail me to complain that 'The Green Papers' isn't at all covering the race for Left-handed Dogcatcher in Nirvana Township, Ohio or some such... ANYone who puts something out there for public consumption- whether magazine, newspaper, radio or television program or, yes, even a mere website- has to make decisions about what to include and what not to include and, even in a world of relatively unfettered Free Speech, SOMEthing would always be excluded that someone else, theoretically, would have wished was included instead of something that was included! As for the direct effect of "News Judgment" on Mr. Stremsky's candidacy for the Senate: obviously, the news media in New Hampshire has generally made an overall news judgment on the likelihood of Mr. Stremsky's success against both Senator Smith and Congressman Sununu-- clearly, newspapers and electronic media in the Granite State have largely determined that Mr. Stremsky will not at all likely be the Republican nominee for Senator Smith's seat after the votes are counted come Tuesday 10 September. I happened to watch the C-SPAN rebroadcast of the first in what WMUR-TV (Channel 9 in Manchester, N.H.) calls their "Granite State Debates" last week between what WMUR-TV itself called "the major Republican candidates" for the Senate (implying, of course, that there was at least tacit acknowledgement of the fact that there was at least one "minor" Republican candidate- Mr. Stremsky himself); yes, I watched with more or less rapt attention as Messrs. Smith and Sununu squared off mano y mano and I have to admit smirking a bit as I looked on, for I couldn't help thinking of just what this debate might have been like had Mr. Stremsky, indeed, been included as well. Based on the e-mail exchanges Mr. Stremsky and I have had leading to the posting of both his earlier 21 July 'vox Populi' as well as his 'vox Populi' above, I dare say that I- right now- probably know more about Mr. Stremsky's views than the average New Hampshire voter and I don't even live in that State! Is this fair? NO! And, in a perfect world, any candidate for any public office would have the right to promote his or her own candidacy on that highly elusive "level playing field". But the world is not perfect and, as a result of such imperfection, American Politics is still largely the bailiwick of the Major Political Parties to whom the media- even alternative media such as 'The Green Papers'- however inadvertently, still largely does deference. In Politics, as in much else in America, Information is Power; Control of Information is, therefore, the Vehicle of such Power and the Secretaries of State on which even 'The Green Papers' is dependent for essential research into "what's the buzz? what's happening??" are almost always elected or appointed as candidates of a Political Party. But, however unfair, is it also lying??!! Think about it... how is Congressman Sununu able to so challenge an incumbent Senator from a small-populated State like New Hampshire? New Hampshire is more like a large county than a State of the Union (those of you reading this who are residents of a large-populated State like California or New Jersey might not be able to appreciate this but, I assure you all, it is salient fact)-- even its State capital, Concord, reminds me much more of my own county's seat of Morristown, New Jersey than, say, Boston or Harrisburg or Sacramento! One, therefore, has to assume that Congressman Sununu has significant support within the 'bell curve' of the New Hampshire Republican Party- a portion of said 'bell curve' that would otherwise be entirely Senator Smith's were it not for the Congressman's challenge- else Mr. Sununu would not be leaving his rather comfortable seat in the U.S. House to take on Senator Smith, nor would he necessarily garner the attention that he has been getting in his quest to replace Senator Smith as the GOP's Senatorial standard-bearer come November. This also tells me that, however unfortunately, Mr. Stremsky does not have such support within his State's Republican Party; his own views on Election Reform, however commendable, would certainly alone be enough to turn the average hierarchy of the average State Party against a candidacy such as his for such a high office- although the average State Party, assuming they would even deign to comment, would probably cite a Mr. Stremsky's relatively young age and inexperience instead. Hence, Mr. Stremsky's dilemma-- he's on the ballot on 10 September but forced to hope for the occasional "crumb" in the form of a rare profile/article in the mainstream media of his State, not to mention the publication of his views on a website that is just as likely- if not more likely- to be read in Toledo or Tokyo as it is in Tilton or Tuftonboro, in Greenwich Village or Greenwich, Connecticut or Greenwich, England as it is in Grantham! Yet, at the same time, someone in Grantham, Tilton or Tuftonboro MIGHT have read his views because they are now reading this very response to those views!! In the end, Free Speech is relative, not absolute... at the same time, the fact that the Free Speech of 'The Green Papers' has herein allowed Mr. Stremsky to exercise his Free Speech, on however limited a basis, puts at least some pay to his argument on the inevitable death of same. |