Cato Daily Dispatch for October 21, 2004
Subscribe to the Daily Dispatch via email
Subscribe to the Daily Dispatch via PDA (AvantGo)
(Links to outside sources were active as of the date of this dispatch; however, not all news sources maintain links to current stories indefinitely. Some links also may require registration.)
Campaign Spending Passes $1 BillionPoll: 40 Percent of Iraqis Say Religion Will Influence Voting
After Affirmative Action Backing, Fewer Black Students at Michigan
Campaign Spending Passes $1 Billion
"With less than two weeks to go, the political parties, candidates and independent groups that have turned this year's presidential race into the first billion-dollar campaign are still raising and spending money like never before," the Los Angeles Times reports.
"During the first 18 days of October, organizations with interest in the campaign spent more than $42.8 million on advertising alone, the Federal Election Commission disclosed Wednesday."
In "The Benefits of Campaign Spending," author John J. Coleman, associate chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, argues that democracy prospers as more money is spent in political campaigns. According to several studies he has conducted over the last decade, increases in campaign spending do not reduce public trust in government; instead, the stepped-up outlays increase the public's political knowledge.
He writes: "Studies indicate that campaign spending does not diminish trust, efficacy, and involvement, contrary to what critics charge. Moreover, spending increases public knowledge of the candidates, across essentially all groups in the population. Less spending on campaigns is not likely to increase public trust, involvement, or attention. Implicit or explicit spending limits reduce public knowledge during campaigns. Getting more money into campaigns should, on the whole, be beneficial to American democracy."
Poll: 40 Percent of Iraqis Say Religion Will Influence Voting
USA TODAY reports: "More Iraqis say their country is headed in the wrong direction and they blame the poor security situation, a new poll has found. The survey of Iraqis nationwide also found strong support for elections in January. Of those planning to vote, 40 percent said they would be inclined to back candidates endorsed by a cleric or religious organization." In "A Democratic Iraq May Not Be Friendly to U.S.," Cato's director of foreign policy studies, writes: "The Bush administration hopes that Iraqis will replace Saddam Hussein's secular socialism with a new breed of secular liberalism. This ideal government would be committed to free enterprise, respect the rights of women, be tolerant toward ethnic and religious minorities, be favorably disposed towards Israel, and open and hospitable for American diplomats and businessmen.
"But what if Shi'a Muslims, who comprise over 60 percent of the total population of Iraq, elect a leader with ties to Iran -- a democracy, but one in which religious mullahs dominate political life, suppress dissent, are building nuclear weapons, and fund terrorism? What if ethnic Kurds, emboldened by their relative autonomy from the last 12 years, choose leaders committed to full-fledged statehood, independent of Iraq? What if a host of candidates split the votes of Shiites and Kurds, while minority Sunni Muslims unite behind a former Baath Party official?
"In short, if a democratic election, reflecting the honest and freely expressed wishes of the Iraqi people, produces a leader deemed insufficiently committed to Washington's goals, the Bush administration will be forced to affirm or reject its alleged attachment to the principle of democracy."
After Affirmative Action Backing, Fewer Black Students at Michigan
"The University of Michigan's freshman class had 15 percent fewer black students than last year, partly because fewer applied after the Supreme Court struck down the school's affirmative action policy," USA TODAY reports. "University spokeswoman Julie Peterson said some potential applicants may have mistakenly believed the court's June 2003 ruling completely abolished affirmative action in admissions. Instead, the ruling required the school to modify the way it accounts for race in undergraduate admissions."
In "Discriminate but Obfuscate: The Court's Message to Universities," Cato senior fellow Robert A. Levy writes: "When the Constitution says that no state may 'deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,' it apparently means that Michigan can discriminate in favor of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans who would like to enroll in the state's taxpayer-funded university."
Levy is co-author of a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Cato Institute in the Michigan affirmative action case, which reads: "Preferences reflect outright racial stereotyping about how people will (or should) think or behave on account of their skin color or ethnicity. [T]hey cut against a bedrock constitutional principle that forbids government to judge individuals as members of racial or ethnic groups."
Wyatt DuBois, editor, wdubois@cato.org