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    "title": "I am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA",
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    "text": "Hi, I’m Barack Obama, President of the United States. Ask me anything. I’ll be taking your questions for half an hour starting at about 4:30 ET.\n\nProof it's me: https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/240903767350968320\n\nWe're running early and will get started soon.\n\nUPDATE: Hey everybody - this is barack. Just finished a great rally in Charlottesville, and am looking forward to your questions. At the top, I do want to say that our thoughts and prayers are with folks who are dealing with Hurricane Isaac in the Gulf, and to let them know that we are going to be coordinating with state and local officials to make sure that we give families everything they need to recover.\n\nVerification photo: http://i.imgur.com/oz0a7.jpg\n\nLAST UPDATE: I need to get going so I'm back in DC in time for dinner. But I want to thank everybody at reddit for participating - this is an example of how technology and the internet can empower the sorts of conversations that strengthen our democracy over the long run. AND REMEMBER TO VOTE IN NOVEMBER - if you need to know how to register, go to http://gottaregister.com. By the way, if you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience - NOT BAD!\n\nhttp://www.barackobama.com/reddit\n[edit: link fixed by staff]",
    "text_html": "<!-- SC_OFF --><div class=\"md\"><p>Hi, I’m Barack Obama, President of the United States. Ask me anything. I’ll be taking your questions for half an hour starting at about 4:30 ET.</p>\n\n<p>Proof it&#39;s me: <a href=\"https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/240903767350968320\">https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/240903767350968320</a></p>\n\n<p>We&#39;re running early and will get started soon.</p>\n\n<p>UPDATE: Hey everybody - this is barack. Just finished a great rally in Charlottesville, and am looking forward to your questions. At the top, I do want to say that our thoughts and prayers are with folks who are dealing with Hurricane Isaac in the Gulf, and to let them know that we are going to be coordinating with state and local officials to make sure that we give families everything they need to recover.</p>\n\n<p>Verification photo: <a href=\"http://i.imgur.com/oz0a7.jpg\">http://i.imgur.com/oz0a7.jpg</a></p>\n\n<p>LAST UPDATE: I need to get going so I&#39;m back in DC in time for dinner. But I want to thank everybody at reddit for participating - this is an example of how technology and the internet can empower the sorts of conversations that strengthen our democracy over the long run. AND REMEMBER TO VOTE IN NOVEMBER - if you need to know how to register, go to <a href=\"http://gottaregister.com\">http://gottaregister.com</a>. By the way, if you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience - NOT BAD!</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.barackobama.com/reddit\">http://www.barackobama.com/reddit</a>\n[edit: link fixed by staff]</p>\n</div><!-- SC_ON -->",
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      "text": "What are you going to do to end the corrupting influence of money in politics during your second term?",
      "created_at": "2012-08-29T20:08:03Z",
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      "text": "Money has always been a factor in politics, but we are seeing something new in the no-holds barred flow of seven and eight figure checks, most undisclosed, into super-PACs; they fundamentally threaten to overwhelm the political process over the long run and drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. We need to start with passing the Disclose Act that is already written and been sponsored in Congress - to at least force disclosure of who is giving to who. We should also pass legislation prohibiting the bundling of campaign contributions from lobbyists. Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.",
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      "text": "Mr President,\n\nThis is quite possibly the most important issue in American history. The way our voting system works today means that only those with the most money get their voice heard, and those who can't pander to the large spenders will not. The only way to truly fix the election system is for PUBLICLY FUNDED ELECTIONS. Elections should not be about who is best at gathering money, but who has the opinions and goals that he people want, these two are not, and should not be one in the same. ANY donation should be considered a bribe. All candidates should get EQUAL air time, all candidates should get EQUAL money to spend as they will on advertisements and their campaign, all candidates should have an EQUAL chance to be heard across the nation, regardless of how rich they are, or their friends. The only way to have a true representative democracy is through a system like this. Until this happens money will always influence elections in a way that is NOT beneficial to the people. How can the people EVER trust their government knowing they are constantly taking bribes from the wealthy. Fix this ONE issue and 90% of the other issues about corruption will slowly fade away. I implore you, PLEASE do something about this! Simply creating some minor law about capping donations and such is simply not enough.\n\nI don't know if you will even see this as this conversation is already over, but one can only hope...",
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      "text": "All candidates should get EQUAL air time, all candidates should get EQUAL money to spend as they will on advertisements and their campaign\n\nAll candidates? Do you realize just how many presidential candidates there are? There is a nice little list here. In terms of advertising, if we assume that the total time advertisements are shown stays the same, that leaves next to no time for any individual candidate. To reform this, how would you solve the problem? Only give funding to certain parties candidates? That would be even worse that our current system. And that is saying something, because our current system is awful. This idea works in theory the same way our current system does.",
      "created_at": "2012-08-30T02:02:52Z",
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      "post_id": "z1c9z",
      "parent_comment_id": "c60rg4j",
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      "text": "TIL Roseanne Barr and a dude named Merlin are both running for president.",
      "created_at": "2012-08-30T02:13:41Z",
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      "text": "Bah! Vermin Supreme is the clear choice, that guy is a genius.",
      "created_at": "2012-08-30T06:41:53Z",
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      "text": "I'd vote for a dude named Merlin if he went all out with the wizard hat and star spangled blue pajamas.",
      "created_at": "2012-08-30T09:09:20Z",
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      "text": "Not only are there plenty of other nations who hold fully publicly funded elections, there are states and municipalities here in the US that do so. The point you bring up is an extremely good one, and absolutely must he addressed in a very clear way for people to have faith in this sort of system, but fortunately that work was done by those who went before us.\n\nNow, I'm not a political science if civics expert so I don't claim to know what all of the solutions which have been tried are, not which were more successful. I can say that the one system I know of for publicly funded elections involves a sort of primary system but not (as primaries would also have to be publicly funded else the bribery would just happen there). It essentially is that (to use a small example of a gubernatorial race) a candidate would have to prove that they have a significant amount of support in whatever jurisdiction they are running (in my example a state) to justify getting public monies. So for example there is an election to be held in North Dakota for governor and there are 15 people who wish to run. These people, by whatever deadline happens to be chosen, would be required to gather 5% of the voting populations signatures (% can be adjusted however the citizens choose) from each district in the jurisdiction, in this case 5% from each county in ND. Now that is the voting population, so it is 5% of the total number of voters in the previous governors election (even if there are 5 million citizens but only 500,000 voted, they would only need 25,000 signatures). This demonstrates that there is enough citizen support for that person to be a serious candidate without setting the bar so high that only the major parties can clear it.\n\nNow that works in state and local elections, because the total number of signatures and amount if ground is limited so no huge sum if money must be spent to gather the signatures. But it wouldn't work for presidential elections because it would still cost many 10's of millions to get that many signatures from every state in the nation. So on that I don't know specifically what a national system may look like, I do know they exist in most countries but I haven't read enough to know the details.",
      "created_at": "2012-08-30T07:05:50Z",
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      "post_id": "z1c9z",
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      "text": "You just described the Presidential Campaign Fund. The only problem is that we can't make it mandatory, so when Barack Obama ran in 2008 and opted to not take public funds and the spending restrictions that came with it and was able to raise a lot more as a result it kind of killed that.",
      "created_at": "2012-08-30T07:26:55Z",
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      "text": "Here, borrow our legislation and rules.\n\nIn short, in the UK political advertising is illegal. Instead, in return for having part of the public airwaves given to them under license, as part of that license they must agree to air 5-minute long party political broadcasts now and again.\n\nThere is a small flaw in this, in that who gets allocated air time is based primarily on previous election results, but even the smaller and more bizarre parties can get air time if at least some people vote for them.\n\nUK politics has its money issues, but a general election costs considerably less here per capita than it does in the US, and we have relatively little negative campaigning. That's also helped by the fact we don't adhere to a strict calendar of elections either - overall it's a much calmer process.\n\nRight now there are plans for all parties to be funded by the taxpayer based on previous election results, so a new party only needs to be \"seed funded\" in essence - if it's popular, it will get public money. I don't like the idea as it props up political parties rather than independently minded politicians who want to represent their constituencies better, but it's a model being discussed.\n\nSo, you know, there are ways to do this everywhere.",
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      "depth": 1,
      "text": "Right, we better just keep it to two...",
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      "text": "Overturning Citizens United would go a long way toward returning at least some balance and transparency to campaign finance. That's a start. For the long haul, it's perfectly reasonable to cap private spending in primary races and then allot a set amount for the winners of primaries.\nThis might also take us away from the existing two party system that is sucking the life out of our infrastructure.",
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      "text": "Well back in my native France we have a system that relates to that initial idea: If you want to run for president you need to be member of an official political party, then you must gather 500 signatures from nation wide elected figures only then you are in the race. some time before the first round of vote where everybody is in we have this rule about equal air time on radio/tv and all parties have a maximum spending allowed covering all campaign spendings. Do you think his system is closing in on Dudester idea? Sorry I don't go into more specifics but I guess you get the big picture.",
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      "text": "If you cap the amount of money allowed to spent on a campaign then we could create the same effect that Thithyphuth wants. It has to be a sum enough to campaign across the USA, which isn't a small sum.\n\nBut this also forces candidates the plan there campaign more thoroughly and we can see the candidates budget planning skills in action before becoming president.",
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      "text": "Institute support checks for political parties to make sure they have enough support with the people that they should actually be taken seriously in the first place, before you give them money.\n\nThere are systems that exist to do this very thing without letting the entire process turn into a free-for-all three-ring-circus. It's not magic or anything.\n\nOf course, nothing will work until after we fix the first-past-the-post election system.",
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      "text": "You could do a general poll at certain points to knock off the obvious losers till you only have a handful, it would be costly but if you did it after major debates ads could really pay for a good chunk from everyone researching",
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      "text": "Making the system equal is what it should be about. I'd personally think spending caps is the best way to make it fair.",
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      "post_id": "z1c9z",
      "parent_comment_id": "c60rg4j",
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      "text": "instead of giving them air time, just give them a sum of money and let them use it for the election how they best see fit?",
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      "text": "https://sites.google.com/site/nelsonkeytonforpresident/\n\nThat was a good read, thanks for the link.",
      "created_at": "2012-08-30T06:47:18Z",
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      "post_id": "z1c9z",
      "parent_comment_id": "c60rg4j",
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      "text": "the grassroots party looks top notch",
      "created_at": "2012-08-30T07:13:36Z",
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      "text": "easy: how many votes your party got last time, how much funding your party will get next election.\n\nThat's how germany does it anyways.\n\nThere is still a minor part of donations but they need to be fully public and ultimately barely play a role, except for new parties like the Pirate Party last election. Since they didn't have funding yet, they were completely funded by donations.\n\nThen again, our President had to step down last year because, while beeing head of state he was staying at a friends (that was also from the industry and therefore profitted from the presidents political career) Villa for vacation without paying and getting a cheap loan from a bank that was still in the \"achieveable\" range for normal people but was below the average.",
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      "text": "You bring up a good point. How is the competition to be narrowed down in a publicly funded election? Currently the choice is made by parties, the media, and moneyed interests. An alternative method would be to have a series of votes, eliminating candidates before selecting a president. Another method is to demand higher qualifications of nominees, and test them to eliminate the unqualified.",
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      "text": "Perhaps there should be some statistical screening and the number of candidates could be limited to a managable number.",
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      "text": "This is confusing fairness and balance, there aren't always two sides to a story and the two sides aren't always equally valid, to treat things in such a way is a gross distortion. In my country we have public funding of elections (and private donations too, up to a certain amount, and they are all disclosed) and the amount of funding each candidate gets is based on how much of the popular vote they (or the previous candidate of the same party) got in that seat last time, but it's on a sliding scale starting from a threshold. If you reach 1.5% of the popular vote you will qualify for funding, but you'll actually get double your percentage. If you get 5% it won't quite be double, but it will be more than 5%. It's calculated so that the two main parties each end up with about 40% each but the independents and so on can still compete.",
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      "text": "In the UK, and many other places, if a party gets over a certain % of the vote then it's large enough to qualify for airtime etc.\n\nThe % can be quite low, say 5%, and still exclude all the minnow parties while giving a voice to those who represent most of the population.",
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