Watergate Lesson Forgotten?

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/04/politics/watergate-reform/index.html

     The problem of potentially currupt finacial backing behind political candidates has been a big issue since the Watergate Scandal. Many poeple think a huge lesson of Watergate was that big money and secrecy currupts. Some experts are warning the public that the reforms made after Watergate to regulate campaign fundraising have been almost completely thrown away. There are no longer big regulations of campaign fundraising, but does that really matter? The flow of money to candidates is going to happen regardless of the law or regulations put in place to try and stop it. Candidates will get the money they need through any way possible, and if we think that simple reforms will stop them, we are nieve. Corporations and other powerful sources of money will always supply money to political candidates because they recieve favors in return for the money, whether its legal or not. The main issue is the secrecy of the sources behind all of the money the candidates get, because there could be some curruption involved.

       

    It is impossible to stop the influence of money on political campaigning, but it is possible to somewhat regulate it. A political scientist and professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts says, "The remedy is publicity". The most powerful way to help regualte the secret funding of political campaigns is the media. If the media exposed more information about which corporations are feeding money to which canidates, we could control the flow of money a little more and somewhat eliminate curruption. Transparency would give voters the information needed to hold the candidates accountable. However, in reality, it is unlikely that much will change about the fincacial backing of political candidates. This years elecetion will have an enormous amount of secret financial backing to candidates.