Today on ABC’s "This Week" program, at the round table it was mentioned that McCain was for systematic change but that Obama had him beaten on policy change. Can someone tell me what the difference is?
Raphael,
Okay, that seems like a good answer, but I’m still a bit confused. If McCain’s original campaign finance reform had been passed, wouldn’t it have also been a policy change since it would be making a priority of avoiding undue influence of big $ on campaigns?
Well, policy change is a change in the goals and priorities of government. For example, the Bush regime has pursued a policy of not funding family planning in foreign countries, except for abstinence-only education. If an Obama regime decided, say, to starting funding international aid organizations that teach about birth control, that would be a policy change.
Systemic change is when the rules of the game change. It’s not just what the people in the government agree with, it’s how they go about implementing what they believe. For example, John McCain, among many others in Congress, pushed hard for a change in campaign finance law a few years ago. Had a systemic change passed, it might have made it illegal for candidates to use private money to finance elections. That would have been a systemic change: the entire system by which we elect politicians would have undergone a change. Instead, the McCain-Feingold law that eventually passed did not produce this change, although it did put certain strictures on the type of money that can be spent on elections, and how it can be spent.
joga bonito