Campaign Spending Quotes

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

Hillary Clinton spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many of which are absolutely untrue. They're untrue. And they're misrepresentations.

Spending limits have proven a monumental failure at limiting campaign spending in presidential elections, merely diverting the money underground.

It's time to review what damage the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has done to our political system.

The most misguided, naïve, uninformed, egregious decision of the United States Supreme Court … in the 21st century. To somehow view money as not having a corrupting effect on an election flies in the face of reality. I just think that just one of the five had run for county sheriff. I guarantee you … there will be scandals. There is too much money washing around political campaigns today, and it will take scandals and maybe the Supreme Court will go back and revisit this issue

This Court now concludes that independent [political] expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.

In the past, in order to continue as a candidate, a serious candidate, you had to be in the top three finishes in Iowa. You had to be in the top two out of New Hampshire. All our presidents elected in the past half-century finished either first or second in New Hampshire and in the top three in Iowa. That changed with the Citizens United, when we gave unlimited amounts of money.

In fact, corporate and union moneys go overwhelmingly to incumbents, so limiting that money, as Congress did in the campaign finance law, may be the single most self-denying thing that Congress has ever done.

The American people have a right to know the source of the money that is being spent. They should be told who is behind the millions of dollars in campaign ads, and they should receive this information before they vote.

Spending limits not only do not work, they have the perverse effect of making special interests more powerful and more influential.

We count on the FEC to be the public's watchdog.

People spend money on negative campaigning because it works.

The way you have to campaign in this country is you have to beg for money from the very people who need to be brought under control.

In 1984, one out of four campaign dollars was budgeted for accountants and lawyers to circumvent—or comply with—the law.

Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process.

British electoral law forbids different campaign organisations acting in concert unless they have a shared cap on spending.

The Sanders campaign, however, broke dramatically with over a century of U.S. political history. Extensive political science research, notably the work of Thomas Ferguson, has shown convincingly that elections are pretty much bought. For example, campaign spending alone is a remarkably good predictor of electoral success, and support of corporate power and private wealth is a virtual prerequisite even for participation in the political arena.

My issue with campaign finance is 100 percent disclosure. Wear a suit with patches from your big contributors. Depending on the size of the contribution, that's how big the patch should be.

Billboards paid for by the government, which feature the exploits or image of any candidate should not appear within 90 days before an election

Until we make campaigns affordable, then we're going to have too many members of Congress out rattling the cup with special interest groups.

We have become part-time Senators and full time fund-raisers. Even the schedule of the Senate itself is now arranged around the need to raise money for the next political campaign, rather than around the need to solve the nation's problems and do the people's business.

Nobody wants campaign finance reform more than me. It would save me a fortune.

Raising campaign money from Washington PACs is much easier than from individuals because its a business relationship.

If the friends of the candidate choose to go to expense for committees and canvassing [campaigning] there are no means of preventing them; but such expenses out of the candidate’s own pocket, or any expenses whatever beyond the deposit of £50 (or £100), should be illegal and punishable.

Money does not always win elections. Usually it does however.