Presidential Questionnaire - 2008
MDN releases presidential candidates’ final responses to political reform questionnaire
CHICAGO – Since mid-February, the country has witnessed a heated debate about which presidential candidates are or are not committed to forgoing private financing of their general election campaigns this fall in favor of participating in the presidential public financing system.
This controversy has attracted widespread news coverage and prompted numerous editorials, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the St. Petersburg Times.
To a large extent, this debate has been fueled by conflicting interpretations of Senator Barack Obama’s written response to a question concerning his intention to participate in the presidential public financing system. This question was contained in a questionnaire from the Midwest Democracy Network, which all the presidential candidates were invited to answer in the fall of 2007.
Download the documents on the MDN Presidential Candidates’ Political Reform Questionnare:
Feb. 28, 2008 - Final Responses
Feb. 19, 2008 - Statement Calling On All Presidential Candidates to Clarify Public Financing and Other Reform Positions
Feb. 19, 2008 - Sample Letter to Presidential Candidates
Nov. 27, 2007 - Responses of John Edwards and Barack Obama
October 15, 2007 - Background Paper on Questionnaire
In addition to campaign finance, the MDN questionnaire covered government ethics, lobbying regulation, federal communications policy, election laws and voting rights, and congressional redistricting.
In keeping with a September 2007 pledge not to comment or pass judgments on the candidates’ views and positions, our organizations do not intend at this point to take sides in disputes over the meaning of their answers. In our view, these are matters better left to voters and the candidates to sort out for themselves.
Despite repeated efforts by the MDN and allied civic groups last fall to persuade all the presidential candidates to lay out for the American people their ideas for strengthening the political system, only former Senator John Edwards and Senator Obama chose to do so; their full and unedited responses to the questionnaire were publicly released on November 27, 2007.
Because of the extraordinary attention Senator Obama’s answers have recently attracted, on February 19, 2008 the MDN once again contacted the remaining major presidential contenders – Senator Hillary Clinton, Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator John McCain, and Congressman Ron Paul – and encouraged them to follow Edwards’ and Obama’s example by explaining their own views on these issues.
We urged the candidates to submit their completed questionnaires by Tuesday, February 26 in order to give voters in next week’s critically important primary elections a chance to weigh their positions on issues that continue to concern millions of their fellow Americans. None of these candidates opted to respond.
And so it is in that spirit but with a large measure of disappointment that we respectfully submit the attached document for voters’ consideration.
CONTACT:
Cynthia Canary
Illinois Campaign for Political Reform
312-335-1767
