Letter: Money laws must be changed to get better candidates

Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2004 | 9:09 a.m.

If you do not believe Bush and Kerry are the best this great country has to offer and want someone else to lead our nation, you are in for a big disappointment on Election Day. If you think that an outsider such as Ralph Nader has even a slight chance of beating those anointed by the Republican National Committee, Democratic National Committee and powerful special-interest groups that dole out the seemingly unlimited amounts of money at election time, you are living in a dream world.

Americans wanted campaign financial reform. They got McCain-Feingold, which promised to limit the amount of money in politics. Actually, all it did was to eliminate the huge personal contributions to political parties. A loophole in the tax code allows wealthy donors such as George Soros to fund their own political advertising with millions of dollars as long as they don't "coordinate" with the candidate.

What does this mean to you and me? It means that we end up with candidates who are heavily indebted to big-money special-interest groups and not to the voters.

Unless we truly take the money out of politics, we will never see a Ralph Nader as president.

CHARLEY DAVIDSON