Campaign Finance Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Campaign Finance - Coursework Example Campaign Finance comes through many different avenues, from single-person donations to contributions from big and small corporations and political special interest groups. These days it’s impossible to run for any position without money for travel, ads, and â€Å"get-out-the-vote† campaigns. The only way someone without the financial clout of Ross Perot can go toe-to-toe with the â€Å"big boys† is by joining one of the two main parties: the Democrats and the Republicans. Without the reach, both financially and politically, of these two parties, the odds are squarely against you. True, the occasional â€Å"independent† might win a seat on Congress, but how many independents do you know that won a seat who weren’t former members of one of the parties?So, the first step in financing a campaign is joining a party—unless, of course, you’re Ross Perot. But even he ended up getting squashed in the end through other, more political, methods.C ampaign finance is categorized in two ways: â€Å"hard money† and â€Å"soft money†. Hard money is â€Å"donations made directly to political candidates.† (Wikipedia: â€Å"Campaign Finance in the United States†, paragraph 2) These direct donations come from organizations, individuals, and (you guessed it) the political parties. â€Å"Soft† money is money that isn’t received or spent by the candidate’s campaign but spent by individuals/organizations for political advertisements (often made by the said individual/organization) for a favored candidate’s position or attacks on his opponents. More or less, â€Å"hard† money is donated to a campaign for the candidate to spend while â€Å"soft† money isn’t donated, just spent. There’s a fine line between the two that has more to do with semantics than the action, itself. While there’s a limit on how much â€Å"hard† money can be sent to a can didate, there is no limit on how much â€Å"soft† money his political allies can volunteer to spend on his behalf.