StopTheGrays, the candidate is taking much less in "salary" during his campaign than what he was making before he left his full-time job to run for office. He calculated the minimum amount that it would take for him to leave his job and still put food on the table.
With only a couple of exceptions, the legislators I know are well off enough that they can go for a year or so without any personal income.
One of those exceptions is a state legislator whose brother happens to run a multi-million dollar business, and was able to bankroll the candidate's family for well over a year. Without such support, this legislator would not have been able to campaign.
I know very little about the candidate who's drawing a salary from his campaign, other than the statements he's made about government actually representing the governed, and the idea of the "citizen-representative."
The citizen-representative concept is as old as our country, or even older. It's the way the system was supposed to work.
Right now, the incumbents enjoy the advantage: they get paid full salary (~$47,000 here in WI for a state legislator, and ~$160,000 for a member of the US congress).
Meanwhile, anyone who wants to take on an incumbent must either be very well-off, or have connections to people who are willing to subsidize the challenger.
Either way, we're talking about money. And money in politics is like water: no matter what the laws, money finds its own way.
Slimey? I don't see it that way. If the challenger ran a campaign every two years, then I would. But the fact that he's willing to put his whole life, and the life of his family, into the political blender tells me that he's sincere. The toll that campaigning takes on the challenger and his family is more than I could tolerate.
That's why, no matter how much I'd like to run for office, I just can't do it. I've seen the personal toll, the destroyed families, multiple divorces. The hours are ridiculous, and the criticism never stops.
But then I look at my own state represenative, Margaret "Peggy" Krusick. I assume her husband brings home the bacon, and she doesn't have to worry much. She's been a rubber-stamp for the Milwaukee Democrats for years and years. Actually, well over a decade.
To be honest, she's not very bright. She's more concerned about whether people like her than whether or not a bill she voted for passed.
As I eye the changes in the district, I think she's low-hanging fruit. A challenger with knowledge of the issues and the drive to endure a campaign could take her out.
But, that would mean that the challenger would either have the financial resources with which to do so himself, or find someone to fund him.
I rail both for and against our current system of campaign finance laws, because they protect the incumbents, intimidate challengers and, in the end, do no more harm nor good than the laws that were in effect prior to 1977.
