The 2016 Presidential Auction.

       Did you know that the presidential campaign has been in full swing for more than three years now? Since the SCOTUS decision in the citizens united case, so called 'dark money' has grown to overwhelming amounts of unaccountable funding of campaign literature spanning everything from complete truth to total abject lies and everything (and I do mean everything) in between. How this affects the outcome of the campaign is anybody's guess.
       But we may be in for a whole new peak at what money can buy. Past New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering jumping into the fray as an Independent prepared to spend up to a billion dollars on his own money on the campaign. Take that Trump. Actually, Trump couldn't come up with quite that much in only ten months. That's because his wealth is tied up in real estate. You can't liquidate that quickly without losing your shirt. And I don't think that's on his short list to fill his bucket list.
       Still, it would create a three way "Presidential Auction" and no, that's not a misprint or slip of the tongue. With all that Citizens united money and two billionaires in the final days of the campaign,  it's going to look very much like an auction. Think of it this way. "I'll bid $200 million on TV ads." "Well I'll bid $220 million." "I'll see your 220 and raise it thirty." Now wait a minute that sounds more like a poker game, doesn't it? But of course, it's still got to have that voting day. They'll still call it election day, but it'll actually be auction day.
       Now you may wonder why anyone would think that big money in a campaign would hurt anyone. After all, that dark money is just helping to get information to the voters, right? Well, that might be right except for a couple of problems. First the information getting 'out' to the voters is mostly not the truth, and secondly nobody spends that much on 'dark money' without expecting something in return. Now there're two reasons not to allow 'dark money'.