Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, meeting on Tuesday with a group of people who support campaign finance reforms, predicted it would be the end of the Iowa caucuses “as we know it if money buys it this year.”
“Historically, money didn’t buy it, not in ’12 when Rick Santorum won; not in ’08 when I won. Both of us were greatly underfunded compared to our competitors,” Huckabee told the dozen or so members of Iowa Pays the Price during a roundtable discussion on campaign finance. “But we went out there and put in the shoe leather. We made connections with voters and the voters picked, not the donors. If we see that change this year, it’s not Iowa that loses, it’s America that loses.”
Iowa Pays the Price is a non-partisan group that supports increasing transparency in campaign finance, holding people who break the rules accountable, and increasing voter participation.
Ruth Lapointe, the group’s Campaign Director, said Huckabee is the first Presidential candidate to meet with of Iowa Pays the Price members. “We’ve invited other candidates but we haven’t been able to schedule them,” Lapointe said. She said some candidates have sent the group information on their positions on campaign finance and that Iowa Pays the Price will soon release a report card comparing the candidates’ stances.
Huckabee said he supports allowing candidates access to unlimited financial donations. However, he said candidates must be required to report all of their campaign contributions.
He said he doesn’t like the current system in which Political Action Committees can raise unlimited amounts of money without disclosing who the donations are from. He also said he doesn’t like that candidates have no say in how the PAC money is spent.
“Nobody is more frustrated by all of this than I am,” Huckabee said.
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