(Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton)
The amount of money that teams Obama and Romney will raise to pummel each other along the campaign trail this year is going to be epic — and kind of scary. Already they’ve spent enough money on negative advertising to support a small developing nation. Even scarier is that the two campaigns have agreed that it’s a good idea to allow voters to text message campaign donations. And Monday night, the Federal Election Commission voted in favor of it.
The goal is to counter the impact of the big, bad super PACs that watchdog and other groups fear will be able to essentially buy the presidential and other federal elections because of the unrestricted amounts of money they can collect. Now ordinary Americans will be able play their part in the democratic process. And just like concertgoers wave lighters as they sway in unison along with songs that move them emotionally, a fired up campaign rally crowd can whip out their cell phones to make a donation.
“With billionaires and super PACs drowning out the voices of hardworking Americans, text message campaign contributions can enhance the role of small donors and, combined with public matching funds, could provide a megaphone for the masses,” said Nick Nyhart, president of Public Campaign.
At first, some people will be excited when they see a text message from Obama or Romney responding to their contributions. But dialers beware: those messages will grow more frequent and kind of weird with requests and reminders from the candidates’ surrogates talking about “midnight” deadlines, “help me celebrate my anniversary,” and “I want to see you at the convention.”
That’s when the thrill starts feeling more like spam.