Roemer may be last presidential candidate to receive federal matching funds

In announcing his independent candidacy for the presidency last week, Buddy Roemer boasted, “We are the only candidate to meet the requirement for federal matching funds—the only candidate.” As The Times-Picayune reports, whatever else Roemer may achieve in his pursuit of the presidency, the former Louisiana congressman and governor may be remembered as the last presidential candidate to ever receive federal matching funds. The very fact that he is the only candidate seeking and collecting those funds this year is prima facie evidence that the public financing system for presidential elections is already functionally dead. “In the current political campaign environment, the presidential campaign finance system doesn’t work at all and cannot work,” says Craig Holman, who lobbies Capitol Hill on ethics and campaign finance issues for the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. “No serious candidate for president would want to participate in the current presidential financing system.” “It’s become a kind of stigma; it’s an indication you are going to lose,” says John Samples, who directs the Center for Representative Government, which studies campaign finance issues at the libertarian Cato Institute. So it appears Roemer’s campaign is proving its point about the power of money in politics, very much at its own expense. Check out the full story for more analysis here.